Candace Sanders remembers little about the accident that ended with her car partially in the Shoshone River on Sunday Aug. 16, other than the quiet. 

One moment she was driving to park her car above the river for a Grace Point Church baptism service — she was one of eight to be baptized — then the car was pitching forward down the incline and then it was all over, the car had somehow turned around and only a back tire was in the river. Fellow member of the congregation Greg Wise told her afterward he couldn’t even understand the physics of how the car had done that, instead of diving down the steep slope straight into the river.

“Just to me, it's a miracle, and I want people to know that God still does that,” Sanders said. 

Grace Point Associate Pastor Jon Allen couldn’t agree more. 

“The way that car went over, facing forward, got spun around facing backwards, didn't end up upside down in the river at that angle, because of the way it hit didn't deploy airbags, because really if she didn't have her seatbelt on, airbags deploying without seatbelts ends in serious injury and a lot of times in death,” he said, adding, “I mean, there's just yeah, one thing after another. In my line of work, obviously I believe in miracles, but that was full on a miracle without any question.”

Allen was up above in the parking area directing traffic when Sanders’ vehicle went over the edge, but his wife was below and had her daughter hurry up and bring Allen down below. By then, the response was already overwhelming. 

Two members of the congregation were there “as soon as the car hit the bottom,” Allen said, to assist Sanders and get her out of the car after she had wound up in the passenger seat after the crash. 

And that is what Sanders remembers most: All of the support from fellow Grace Point congregants, emergency personnel, those at the emergency room and even Daniel DeVries, Mike Wright, Matt Lovelady and Michael Schmidberger from Big Horn Redi Mix, who hauled her totaled car from the river for free. 

“With this chaotic world the way it is, and people dividing each other and all that, there's a lot of lies and confusion out there, and they're pitting people against each other,” she said, “and it's like there's still good people in this world. There's still people that care, you know, and it almost makes me cry to think about how good they were to me.”

Then a line of people helped her up the slope, where one lady in the church, Jeanie Stukey, stayed with her.

“She wasn't a nurse, I don't think, just a really wonderful human being,” Sanders said. 

While she refused to go to the hospital while at the scene, she felt worse the next day and went to the ER, where she said Sheena and Theresa were there to check on her. 

Sanders still doesn't know all of what happened, why she was helped out of the passenger and not the driver’s seat — the usual seatbelt wearing Sanders had taken it off to park — and why she had a shoe on but no sock. 

But, as she is grateful for the help, both from those there and from God above, she is also grateful she doesn’t remember everything. 

Instead, it takes her back to a bad accident she had while living in Washington state more than 20 years ago, when while cutting branches from a tree on a ladder in a storm, she fell off. That incident left her bedridden for months as she regrew bones that had shattered. 

So, this time, she’s OK not knowing everything.

“I pray I don't dream about this,” she said. “I don't really want to know. You know, I can speculate on how, OK, but I'm not going there.”

Sanders has lived in Powell for the last 14 years, coming from Nebraska after realizing she could retire early. She said a friend who was already here convinced her this was a good place to be. 

She has only been going to Grace Point for four or five months, she said, after moving over from another church. She said she’s enjoyed the services, the pastors “preaching from the Bible.”

Before the incident, she had decided it was time to get baptized again, as it had been many years since her initial baptism. She also said she had always want to be baptized in a river. 

“I did share with Pastor Jon [Allen] about my zigzags in life,” she said, adding, “So I wanted to get baptized.” 

As she later said wryly, “I only got one tire baptized.”

Instead, she suffered bruises and late last week was still in pain and wondering what to do with her car being totaled, but she was left with this feeling of gratitude — that she lived when the wreck could have killed her. In fact, she said the guys towing her car out of the river remarked that they were surprised she lived. 

“God does work in mysterious ways,” she said. “He has some go and some stay, and it doesn't matter your goodness or anything like that … and then I think the pastor said, ‘maybe there's something you're supposed to do,’ and maybe it's just to testify.”

That is, to testify as to the goodness of the many people who helped her through the ordeal. 

And, as Allen said, it’s a testament to the congregation.

“There wasn't any part of that that she didn't have somebody from the church walking beside her,” he said. “I will say that is truly part of the DNA of our church.”

And while Sanders didn't end up getting baptized that Sunday, she said as soon as her leg is healed enough to be baptized at Grace Point, she’s doing it, finally.