Wednesday, November 25, 2009

19 years ago.......in Nevada

In this season of Thanksgiving, I want to share with you my witness through the eyes of Doreen, my friend and my sister in law. She has amazing memory. I could not have wrote it any better. Thank you Doreen!

"19 years ago, Robert and Miranda decided they were going to get married in Las Vegas.....

A whole bunch of us, Peter Wong's family, James Tong's family, Ricky and I, Dad and mom, Miki,.... wouldn't miss it for the world. We decided we would go in a van, plus a car with Miki, Ricky, and mom and dad in it. We found a old, old, old, old van, and we were so naive/dumb, we didn't check anything at all.........before we all jumped in. We were just toooo excited and happy.

The van started acting weird like one hour into driving, over heated......so we stopped at a gas station, I remembered I was worried because I sat on the first row directly behind our driver-Robert the groom, Peter Wong was sitting on the passenger side, Miranda the bride was on my right and James to the side on front row. I saw the speedometer and other meters were going crazy. And the thought of not going back into the van actually went thru my mind..... anyway, we left the station, and when we tried to get on the highway, the van started honking itself........... I don't know how long we drove after that, then it happened, (of course I didn't see it, Ricky, in the car behind, told me the rest)

He started seeing sparks flying around the tires, then the tire shredded and flied off, the van started swaying....... and flipped, narrowly missing a car before it stopped and rested on its side(the door side) at the side of the freeway. He said other cars started going crazy and stopping. When he jumped out of the car to run to the van, a car almost hit him.

Inside the van, the world turned. (they were like 12 or 13 or us in there) Of course my life flashed before my eyes.......when everything stopped, I was totally disoriented. The radio was right in front of my face, and I have bumped my head onto it. I looked up and saw Robert dangling on top of my head, luckily he was strapped in......... don't remember where Peter was. Everyone else was all piled on top of each other.

But we were all safe, thanks to our Father in heaven. We all climbed out of the van thru the driver side door on the top in a great hurry, because people said it might blow up. There were plenty of people outside lending a helping hand. After that, all the children, with mom and dad and Miki, left the scene and went straight to LV. The rest of us waited with the van for the toll truck. I lost my shoes....... and got Cecilia's. It was cold, but we were glad to be alive. We got on a Greyhound bus to get to LV eventually. I remembered I jumped and woke up everytime the bus hit the brake............

The next day, Robert and Miranda got married, and they celebrated their 19th anniversary yesterday in Walnut, CA, where they live happily ever after. "


Note: Peter, Cecilia and James were members of our church, Ricky is my brother, Miki is my sister.

4 comments:

Lok said...

Where was Roderick when all this happened? I thought I am the only brother who missed your wedding.

Roderick Yong said...

Another 150 lbs in the van might have a different outcome - imagine that! Yup, where was I?

Roderick Yong said...

Was the bad tires the culprit or was it simply because the van was way overloaded? Was there a resolution as to why the van flipped?

Robert Yong said...

It was the bad tires...