The story is a powerful one. Standing at the front of a gymnasium packed with teenagers, Pastor Jimmy Vaughn takes a deep breath before he tells it.
In his calm and reassuring voice he paints a vivid picture of a young mother – beautiful, spirited, warmhearted and struggling to make a new life for herself and her children after losing her husband to a work accident exactly three years before.
The audience gets quiet and becomes almost reverent, as Vaughn carefully unfolds a scene not unlike many people’ s personal experience: a gathering of friends at the country club, beers all round, kids playing outside, laughter, more high spirits and more hard liquor, until it’ s time to go. The vivacious Lorene gathers up her 11-year-old son and another male friend and they pile into the Cadillac. Her son perches on the fold-down console between his mother and the man as she starts the car and drives out of the parking lot.
The long, green Cadillac with the white leather interior cruises deftly onto Farm-to-Market Road 1570 like the dream boat it was advertised to be in the 1970s. The Caddy accelerates smoothly to 55 mph but the driver, impaired and distracted, begins weaving in and out of her lane. Grappling with a moment of inebriated confusion, she veers directly into the path of an oncoming truck.
The driver of the pickup –“ a husband and father of three little girls on
his way home from work” says Vaughn – suffers massive head injuries and is transported to Parkland Hospital in Dallas, the only hospital with a trauma unit at the time, where he later dies.
A photograph of the wreck on the front page of the April 14, 1977 issue of the Herald-Banner reveals a team of rescuers frantically trying to free the victims trapped inside the Cadillac. Twenty minutes pass before they are able to extract them. By then, the young, beautiful mother is gone. Her son – drifting in and out of consciousness as he listens to his mother’ s struggle to live – suffers two broken legs and multiple lacerations but survives. The unknown male passenger somehow flees the scene before help arrives.
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“ The pain never completely disappears, that said, it does redeem the tragedy a little each time I tell it and for me fulfills the promise God has made in Romans 8:28,‘ And we know that those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.’
- Pastor Jimmy Vaughn
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At this point Vaughn pauses and tells the audience quietly,“ You know, the reason I know all of this so well is because I’ m Lorene’ s son. The boy in the car was me.”
Whether the story is told to a small gathering or a crowd of hundreds, there is always a collective reaction of surprise and shock when Vaughn reveals his connection to the tragedy.
“ You know, an 11-year-old kid knows,” Vaughn continues,“[ My mom ] was in and out of her lane and so I leaned back in between the seats and I prayed and I asked the Lord to get us home. And when I sat back up the only thing you could see is the white grill of that turquoise Ford pickup. We didn’ t make it; we didn’ t make it home.”
After the accident, Vaughn spent six weeks in the hospital and six more in a body cast to heal his injuries. Healing the emotional and mental trauma would take much longer.
Now orphans, Vaughn and his sister, Michelle – six years younger – are taken in by his father, Jimmy Sr.’ s oldest sister, Patsy Reeves, and her husband, John. The Reeves agreed to add two more children to their already substantial brood of six kids.
“ That decision was probably one of the greatest decisions of my life,” says Vaughn,“ I call them my life Mom and Dad.”
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