90 Minutes in Heaven_ A True Story of Death & Life - Don Piper [12]
From the backed-up traffic, Dick and Anita Onerecker walked at least half a mile to the scene of the accident. Dick and Anita had started a church in Klein, which is north of Houston. Both had spoken at the conference I’d just attended. I’m not positive we actually met at Trinity Pines, although we may have. For years I had heard of Dick Onerecker, but that conference was the first time I had ever seen him.
On Wednesday morning, the Onereckers left Trinity Pines a few minutes before I did. By Houston standards, that January morning was extremely cold. As they sped along, Anita said, “I’m really chilled. Could we stop for coffee? I think that would warm me up.”
Dick spotted a bait shop right on Lake Livingston, so they pulled over. Apparently, while they were buying coffee, I drove past them.
Many times afterward, Dick would bury his face in his hands and say, “You know that could easily have been us. It should have been us, but because we stopped and you drove past us, you got hit.”
Before the Onereckers reached the bridge, the accident had occurred and traffic had started to back up. People got out of their cars and milled around, asking questions and sharing their limited information.
After Dick and Anita got out of their car, they asked fellow drivers, “What’s going on up there?”
The word had passed down that there had been a serious auto accident. “A truck crashed into a car” was about all anyone knew.
Dick and Anita stood around a few minutes, but nothing happened, and more cars lined up behind them. Sometime between 12:30 and 12:45, they decided to walk to the accident site. When they saw a police officer, Dick said, “I’m a minister. Is there anybody here I can help? Is there anyone I can pray for?”
The police officer shook his head. “The people in those two cars,” he said and pointed, “are shaken up a little bit but they’re fine. Talk to them if you’d like.”
“What about the other vehicle? The one with the tarp over it?”
“The man in the red car is deceased.”
While Dick talked to the officer, Anita went over to the other vehicles. She gave her barely touched coffee to the old man.
Dick would later tell it this way: “God spoke to me and said, ‘You need to pray for the man in the red car.’” Dick was an outstanding Baptist preacher. Praying for a dead man certainly ran counter to his theology. I can’t do that, he thought. How can I go over there and pray? The man is dead.
The rain had become a light drizzle, but Dick was oblivious to his surroundings. Dick stared at the officer, knowing that what he would say wouldn’t make sense. Yet God spoke to him so clearly that he had no doubt about what he was to do. God had told him to pray for a dead man. As bizarre as that seemed to him, Dick also had no doubt that the Holy Spirit was prompting him to act.
“I’d like to pray for the man in the red car,” Dick finally said to the officer.
“Like I said, he’s dead.”
“I know this sounds strange, but I want to pray for him anyway.”
The officer stared at him a long time before he finally said, “Well, you know, if that’s what you want to do, go ahead, but I’ve got to tell you it’s an awful sight. He’s dead, and it’s really a mess under the tarp. Blood and glass are everywhere, and the body’s all mangled.”
Dick, then in his forties, said, “I was a medic in Vietnam, so the idea of blood doesn’t bother me.”
“I have to warn you—” The man stopped, shrugged, and said, “Do what you want, but I’ll tell you that you haven’t seen anybody this bad.”
“Thanks,” Dick said and walked to the tarp-covered