A Mama's Nightmare

Today my oldest daughter Katie (18) decided to take Morgan (10), Olivia(2) and her friend Steph(16) to the Fort Wayne Zoo (1 1/2 hours away). About the time they should have been arriving at the zoo I get a phone call and it is the very frantic voice of Katie screaming "MOM! We have a flat tire and we are in the middle of the Interstate!" I tell her to pull the van off the road. She says "I can't the van won't move. The tire is behind me!" I finally figure out that the tire has shredded and she is on the rim and the van won't move anymore. She is in a panic because traffic is moving at them at 70 plus miles an hour and no one realizes until the last seconds that they are not moving. She is laying on her horn trying to get people's attention, she has the flashers on and the van is shaking from the vehicles flying past them. She says "I have to get us out of the van cause I know someone is going to hit us." Well I am not too excited about this idea but I am not there to assess the situation and I am 1.5 hours away freaking out myself trying to call someone else on the other phone to get them help. She hung up on me and called me back about four minutes later. She says "Okay we are out and in the median, but no one is stopping I don't know what to do....OH NO! Someone just hit the van!!!" Less than one minute after they got out of the van and someone hit it. Thankfully Katie did the right thing and got them out and also the hit wasn't too bad. Well to make a long story not quite as long, the police ended up driving the girls to the zoo so they could hang out there until I could drive down there to assess the situation and figure out what we were going to do. The van was towed, but we able to put the spare tire on the van (thanks to the guy at the wrecker place) and I drove it back at 45 MPH (probably losing parts on the way) and got it to the collision shop with Katie following me. It could have been much worse. Katie was so worried they were going to be rear ended by a semi. She is normally so calm in bad situations and frankly I don't know if I have ever heard her so scared or this panicked before. I think that is what had me so upset. To be so far away and not be able to help or know what to do for them. Praise the Lord, He was in control and took care of them (though I am sure their guardian angels have some gray hairs.)