Ever heard a disembodied voice?
The kinda turn-around-and-no-one’s-there experience that sets all your flesh follicles agog? A buncha cops trying to save a woman from her car which’d gone into an icy river sure did. After a fisherman spotted the car and summoned the authorities, the four officers arrived. And, as each confirm, they all are certain they heard a woman calmly shouting “help” to them as they approached – causing them to double their efforts in order to save her. But once the car was turned upright, they were in for a surprise.
The 25 year old female driver had passed away some time ago.
And the 18 month old infant in the backseat was unconscious.
So, who asked for help?
“For two nights I’ve laid awake trying to figure out exactly what it could be,” said one of the officer, Tyler Beddoes – before adding, “All I know is it was there, we all heard it. It was extra motivation.”
Y’know, for me, I tend to believe in both visible science and the Higher-Science-that-creates-science. That second thing’s become important to me because of all the times science has to stop and say “Oops, we were wrong lulz jk”. Also, I suppose you only escape so many random near deadsy happenstances cuzza miracles manifesting spontaneously before you have to stop and do a lil renovation on your current belief system.
I like this – breaking down a few walls in my dome versus turning science and the celestial against one another. When one comes from the other, it means you never really have to side anywhere. Like I once heard a scientist in a Higgs documentary posit, “We don’t have to wallow in the mystery”. Science is an excellent tool to get us what we need. And if this tale is indeed explainable via facts and theories and physiological effects we already know about, that’s great: it could’ve been power of suggestion. The officers were in a context where hope is important, but they’ve also probably seen something like this before. If a bird softly called when all else was silent, that could’ve sounded like a voice. If the baby was issuing some last cries before falling unconscious, that could’ve sounded like a woman’s voice. Especially if the poor thing had been crying all night long, she’d’ve been fairly hoarse. Context is everything. One day I was running in the woods and heard, for the first time, something that sounded like a cell phone – although no one was around. With endorphins pumping and sunshine streaming through the trees, I thought, “It must be a bird!” Now, had I been having a bad run and had it been around sun set, with invisible spider webs at every turn – you can bet your ass I’d have definitely thought someone was hunting me (obviously to peel and turn into a sofa cover).
So, indeed, context – not the least of which is psychological state – has a good deal to do with it. But the one detail that I suppose is most pressing about this story comes afterward. All of the officers had to go to the hospital immediately to be treated for hypothermia after only being in there long enough to turn the car over and free the baby. That’s how cold the water was. And the unconscious infant from the wreck? She survived after 13 hours in that same frigid river. Overnight.
Now that’s some guardian angel shit.
Regardless of whether or not they’re the talkative type.