HOUSTON – A teen from an out-of-state youth group remains in the hospital after someone T-boned the van he was riding in.
“It’s really a miracle, if you’ve seen the pictures of the car, we just feel like it’s a miracle that everybody walked out,” said Pastor Christian Dunn with City Light Vineyard Church in Newark, Delaware.
The youth arrived in Texas last Saturday with five other youth groups on a mission trip to help people whose homes were destroyed during Hurricane Harvey.
Dunn said he was driving the group of 14 to see a movie after a day of work when they were hit.
“Unfortunately, someone ran a red light and hit us at a high speed, T-boned us and flipped our van over,” said Dunn. “It was terrifying. For most of us, it was the scariest thing that we’ve ever experienced.”
He said it was the first time most of the teens had ever been in a car crash.
“We were all hanging upside down climbing out of windows, some of them were injured and reaching and pulling out their friends and so to see the composure of those teenagers speaks a lot to their character and who they are,” Dunn said.
He said everyone had cuts, scrapes, bruises, and whiplash. Dunn said two of his students had significant injuries.
“One of our boys, he had some lacerations on his arms, hands, and shoulder,” Dunn said. “Gideon had to have surgery on his knee and that just finished and is looking really good and his spirits are high and he’s doing really good.”
Dunn said Gideon Peterson’s kneecap was cut and exposed so much he had to have surgery.
The pastor said they are relying on one another and their faith to get through this.
“We definitely felt that God was protecting us, climbing out of the van and looking at each other and being in awe of God’s protection,” said Dunn. “We’ve been doing manual labor, we’ve been delivering appliances, re-roofing, doing drywall, ministering to families, praying for people who are hurting."
A GoFundMe account has been set up to help with expenses.