Susan Whiteheart's Thanksgiving miracle

The old tobacco barn looks like hundreds of others that dot the landscape across Northwest North Carolina. Years of rain, sun and wind have rusted and dinged its tin roof; the thick, wood beams and planks that make up its walls have rotted.

Inside, sticks that once held flue-cured tobacco bundles still hang in the rafters. Old tires and cinder blocks of the same type as those used to build its foundation litter the damp dirt floor.

If not for a pair of angry gouges torn from the red clay and fallow grass outside, there would be no evidence of recent human activity.

There's not much of a hint that the course of Susan Whiteheart's life was altered on this spot. And no sign at all that, if not for a chance passing of an avid runner Thanksgiving morning, she very well could have died there.

Always had hope

Whiteheart, 58, has no recollection of the wreck Nov. 22 that left her prone on the raw earth next to her car partially inside the old barn. The details about the two-plus days she lay there suffering from a broken pelvis, cracked ribs and fractures in her spine remain somewhat fuzzy.

This much she knows: She had left her Stokes County home and was headed to visit her son. She didn't tell anybody where she was headed and didn't take a cellphone. It was supposed to be a short trip.

But soon after passing the turnoff to West Stokes High School, her car ran off the side of Goff Road, down a 6- to 8-foot embankment and into the barn.

"I'm not sure if I was feeling sick or what, but I ran off the road and about got killed," she said.

Because of the sharp incline and the barn's location below the pavement, as well as how far her car went into the barn, it was virtually impossible to see Whiteheart from the road — especially from inside a car or truck blowing past at 40 or 45 mph.

Shortly after the wreck, Whiteheart opened her car door and tried to reach help.

"I thought I was just going to walk up to the road," she said last week from her temporary home at Oak Forest Health and Rehabilitation where she's recuperating from a monthlong hospital stay. "But when I stepped out, I slid to the ground because of all the broken bones."

In pain and all alone in a forlorn farm field, Whiteheart willed herself to remain calm. She never got too thirsty or hungry and tried to focus on the idea that help would arrive any minute.

When she didn't turn up after a few hours, her family notified authorities and began to search.

"The time passed pretty quickly," she said. "Things happen for a reason, even though I don't know what it is, and God took care of me in a time of crisis. I had hope the whole time."

'Total disbelief'

Nathan Kreeger loves to run. So much so that he tries to get in at least a mile every day.

On Thanksgiving morning, he got up and planned to run 10 miles before the family dinner. "I was in a hurry. My wife didn't want me to be gone long."

About 8½ miles in, Kreeger ran down Goff Road, maybe a mile from his house.

"I've run by that barn hundreds of times and I'd never seen a car inside it," he said. "That's what got me suspicious."

He figured somebody had a snootful the night before, crashed and fled the scene. Still, something made him climb down the embankment and take a closer look.

"I went around to where I could see the back end of the car," Kreeger said. "That's when I saw two legs sticking out."

Like anybody would, he called out, "Are you OK?"

Whiteheart answered weakly. 'No, I'm hurt.'

"I hadn't hardly slept," she said. "I had (put) my head down and said, 'God, it's all in your hands.'

"Less than 15 minutes later, I heard his voice. If he hadn't said something, I might have missed him."

Kreeger climbed back to the road and managed to flag down one of the few cars on Goff — this one driven by a high school student on his way to or from football practice. While they waited for an ambulance, Whiteheart started talking.

"Out of nowhere, she said she'd been there for two days," said Kreeger, who works as the help desk manager at IMG College in Winston-Salem. "I was in total disbelief."

A divine path

Whiteheart underwent surgery to stabilize her broken pelvis and remained in the hospital until Dec. 20. After that, she was transferred to Oak Forest, where she'll stay until she can bear weight and get around on her own.

She's had plenty of time to think about the wreck and what it must have been like for her family — her mother, husband, children and grandchildren — as they frantically searched for her. She has realized anew how much she's cared for.

"More good than bad has come of this," she said. "I'm grateful every day."

Whiteheart has thought about the reasons the wreck happened but hasn't figured out exactly why. She's not sure she ever will. "I'm just going to leave it alone and accept that it did."

Ina Smith, Whiteheart's mother, thinks it's something of a miracle that Kreeger happened by when he did. If he'd been running on the opposite side of the road, he might not have seen the car.

"I thank God for that young man," Smith said. "God steered him to her."

Kreeger believes that, too.

"No doubt in my mind this was part of God's plan for me to run that route that day," he said. "I just hate I didn't run it Wednesday. But it was a Thanksgiving miracle."