Peace in the Midst of Panic

Kristin West left work and began the drive home. The traffic slowed and then eased up. She began to accelerate, but was distracted by an odd rumble. Suddenly, her black Trailblazer began to rock violently, slamming her from side to side; she felt like she was hurtling through the air. The bridge she had crossed a thousand times dropped out from under her. “I can’t die today,” she thought. And, then, the terrifying reality overwhelmed her: “I really am going to die today.” Kristin West, of course, was driving across the Mississippi River on Interstate 35W in Minneapolis.

As she fell, West’s purse opened and its contents flew everywhere. She tried to find her cell phone. In her mind’s eye, she saw her husband and children— she had to call them, one last time, to tell them how much they were loved. She was thrown into the steering wheel, then hurled back into her seat. A giant wave crashed over her SUV. Everything seemed to drop some more, but the bridge deck, somehow, was not submerged. The driver’s side of the car had been smashed into the median; she moved over to the passenger side and tried desperately to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. “The window!” she thought. Next she saw a woman in medical scrubs outside of her car. “I can’t open the door. Can you help?”

The woman in scrubs opened the door.

Jeff Ringate was wearing his hard hat, in the middle of the bridge. He climbed up onto a small construction truck when the pavement beneath gave way. He knew the awful truth immediately: the bridge was collapsing. “This is the end,” he thought. A vision of his pregnant wife and their eight-month-old daughter flashed by as he fell. The bridge deck landed hard on the river, sending huge waves in all directions. Ringate heard screams and was buried in dust. He was thrown to the edge of the bridge, his feet dangling in the water. Stunned, he realized, “I’m alive!”

He crawled away from the edge, as cars continued to drop into the water from several directions. He saw people scrambling to get out of cars; he watched cars sink. He spotted a co-worker in the water and called to him. Ringate hung precariously as he hauled him onto the island of concrete, still crumbling. He saw another co-worker laying on the pavement nearby, motionless, injured, bleeding. He worked to pull others up out of the water—a woman screaming that her baby had gone down with her car, a red-haired guy literally yanked up onto the broken bridge deck by his hair. He heard a woman ask calmly: “Everybody okay? Anybody hurt?”

He turned and saw a woman in medical scrubs.

Her name is Amy Lindholm. She works in a hospital. She was driving across the bridge, talking to her boyfriend on her cell when she thought she heard thunder. And then a deaf-ening crack. And then the tumble, and everything went dark. When she came to, she was surrounded by the haze of concrete dust and distant cries, far off screams. “Am I dead?” she wondered. “I must be dead,” she thought.

Her boyfriend was still on the cell. The sound of his voice jolted her back to life. “Are you okay?” he called, as if from a far place. “The bridge exploded,” was all she could think to say.

She got out of her car and ran to the wrecked car behind her. Nobody there. She approached the next car in line. The woman inside said she couldn’t open the door, so Amy opened it from the outside.

“I can panic,” Lindholm thought to herself, “or I can try and relax everybody and help them.” Lindholm pulled herself together and began to clean wounds, reassure the wounded, calm the anxious, and offer hope to everyone who survived on that one section of the concrete nightmare that was I-35W. In time, one by one, they were plucked to safety by rescuers. None will forget Ringate’s daring rescues; none will forget the woman in medical scrubs walking from car to car, person to person, offering help and hope. Who can measure the power of that calming voice and touch, those helping hands?

Dramatic tragedies on the scale of the I-35 collapse are rare, thankfully. But, all of us can find ourselves in the midst of a crisis, from time to time. We can panic—or we can try and relax everybody and help them. We can feed fear or offer hope. We can be swept up in the sense of helplessness or help ground others with our faith in God. We all make choices.

One of the most important gifts you can give is that of calm hope.

One of the most important ministries you will ever have is becoming a conduit for the calming presence of Christ. Never underestimate the power of a steady hand, an anchored soul, a reassuring touch.

Wherever you travel this week, hold steady. Be encouraged. Jesus is Lord.

Thanks to the Minneapolis Star Tribune for capturing these stories from I-35W.