Glad I am safe!

Went to pick Ronnie up from his flight back from the US. I left with plenty of time, stopped in Chorrera to gas up and continued on my way to Tocumen (airport). I thought everything was fine but all of a sudden I felt the car behaving strangely, and within seconds I felt as if one of the tires went flat. I knew I had to pull over to the edge as soon as possible and so I did. I waited on the side of the road in total darkness, for about 1.5 hours. I called our car insurance company and they said someone would be coming. In the meantime I called a friend of ours, also a neighbor in Altos, who decided to get in his car immediately and come to my rescue.

While I waited I kept looking at my watch noting that the airplane would arrive soon and Ronnie would have no idea of what had happened. Then I decided to take out a prayer and pray. Eventually my friend arrived as well as the insurance car both ready to help me change my tire. When I got out of my car and went to take a look at my tire, I was in total shock. Keep in mind that it was very dark but it was clear the tire was blown.

At that point my friend gave me his keys and off I went with his daughter to Tocumen to pick Ronnie up. As I approached Tocumen I received a call from Ronnie asking me where I was and I told him I had a small situation but was getting ready to pull up. When he saw me getting out of a car that was not mine he did not know what to think. As I explained what happened he was in total shock. It did not take long before we started on our way home and ran into my neighbor that was driving my car back home. When we finally pulled in front of our house, he called us over to show us my tire. With the entrance lights on and car lights on we all took a good look at the tire.

You can see in the photo what the tire looked like. We were in shock. My friend insisted I must have driven the car for a long distance for the tire to end up like this AND he could not believe nothing had happened to me, i.e., no rocking of the car, no hitting other cars or other cars hitting me, and not ending up in the median ditch! I thank Padre Pio for my safety. Many weird events and conversations happened before I left for the airport but I have to give credit to Padre Pio for saving my life and keeping me safe where I could get off of the highway and get to the side of the road.