Letter To The Panhandle Community:
10 years ago
To all the emergency personnel, firefighters, policemen and DPS officers in Panhandle who worked the accident our daughter was in Friday, May 22, we thank you. Thank you for your quick response. Thank you for your gentle handling in getting Mary out of the truck. Thank you for all you did to keep her alive. Thank you for giving up your evening with your family to help ours. Thank you for coming to the hospital to check on her. I am so sorry, I do not remember all your names, but my husband and I owe you a debt we can never repay. We will be forever grateful to you for your willingness to help. We thank you, too, Panhandle High School students, who, though on your bus, took the time to pray for our daughter, Mary. Her injuries were life threatening. In fact, the accident was called in as a “one fatality” accident. You have no idea how it makes us feel to know that you took the time to pray for someone you did not know. Your compassion and concern shouts volumes of the quality of students in the Panhandle School District.
The emergency personnel told us your school had just completed the Shattered Dreams program. Then you witnessed an accident involving alcohol that seriously injured a woman who was not drinking. Unlike Shattered Dreams, she was not able to wash fake blood off of her face and change her clothes and go back to her everyday life. She laid near death in that pick-up. It was not an act.
For you, the Panhandle students, I hope the memory of that night will be forever etched in your minds and that you will never be guilty of taking a drink and getting behind the wheel of a vehicle.
Thanks to all of you, our daughter is on the road to recovery from very serious physical injuries. In Panhandle that night, because the people of Panhandle did their jobs and those students interceded with prayer for our child, she is alive and with us today.
How can we ever repay such a wonderful gift? There are no words.
Thank you,
Sharon & Al Williams