Please Pray for the Einwechter Family!

Please pray for the Einwechter family.

On Monday, Monique Einwechter crashed her Ford Expedition into the pond on her parents' property in eastern Bledsoe County. Family members saved Einwechter, 2-year-old Jonathan David and 1-year-old Titus. But they couldn't reach 3-year-old Elise or 6-week-old Enoch in time.

Jonathan's (Monique's husband) Account of the Accident:

(All the details of this account are accurate to the best of my knowledge and memory as witnessed from my perspective but is likely not accurate in every detail.)

"On Monday, February 24th 2014, after rising at 2:45 AM to finish the last leg of our moving trip from Pennsylvania to Tennessee (traveling from OH to TN on Monday), we arrived in Dayton, TN around noon. We spent the afternoon and evening painting our new apartment on the Hoffmans’ property. My darling wife stopped painting early to spend some special time with the children before supper, particularly since it had been lacking for the last few days with our move. Around 8 PM, Monique and I sat on the couch with all our children to eat supper as a family, instead of at the table with the others who had been helping us move.

After a bit of discussion, we decided to take two vehicles to where we would spend the night since we didn't have enough seats in our vehicle. We loaded all four of the children into the Expedition, which Monique was driving; and the two girls (Chrissy S. and Christiana R.) traveling with us and a local young man (Luke Holloway) came in another vehicle with me. We had only gotten half way out the long driveway when I noticed Monique’s headlights were no longer behind me. I started reversing down the lane while rolling down the window. As I did so, I heard Monique blowing the horn constantly; and to my horror I only saw one headlight was sticking out of the small pond next to the driveway! I leaped out of my vehicle’s window, since I couldn’t find the latch in the dark, and went running toward our Expedition, which had flipped off the lane into the water with my precious family inside.

I jumped on top of the vehicle that was now on its side partially submerged in 2 feet of water. My wife was still buckled into her seat, which was on the upper side of the vehicle above the water. After shouting for her to unlock the door, which we couldn’t get unlocked, I yelled for a rock to break the window. By this time, everyone in her parents’ house (only 100-200 yards from the pond) and the people in my vehicle were on the scene doing what they could. In a few seconds, I was back on top the vehicle breaking the driver’s window, since Monique had unbuckled and was standing up on the passenger's window on opposite downward side of the vehicle trying to unbuckle the children. She got Titus unbuckled and handed him to me through the broken window, who I grabbed by his coat and passed to Christian R. Samuel Hoffman (Monique’s 16 year old brother) managed to open the rear window and pull Jon David out. At this point, with only 2 out of 5 occupants rescued, the vehicle rolled in “slow-motion” onto its roof to a deeper part of the pond only leaving the wheels and undercarriage exposed.

My mind was filled with horror as I thought of my wife and three children (at this point I was unaware of Samuel’s success in rescuing Jon David) trapped under approximately 35 degree water.

Everyone worked so hard! The girls took our two rescued boys to the house to warm up, many people were on the shore doing whatever they could, Luke Holloway tried extremely hard in vain to keep the vehicle from rolling, and Joe Hoffman (Monique’s father), Samuel, and I were totally in the water doing everything we knew how to get our trapped ones out. There were prayers, screams, and shouts from everyone. The water was so cold, though. We could only be under it for a few seconds before our limbs began to lose responsiveness and we had to get out.
Monique’s Navy dad finally broke a second window, allowing the opportunity to try and pull our loved ones out. We all took forays underneath the water, trying to reach anyone we could inside. But the water was so cold and dark that we couldn’t stay in long enough to accomplish much. After one such attempt, while I was on top the upside down vehicle “warming up”, I heard Monique’s dad towing her to shore yelling he’d gotten her. Apparently, he’d been able to open the rear passenger door and pull her out. She was unconscious, not breathing, and gray. Samuel did CPR on her for a minute or two until she revived and started moaning for her babies.

From Monique’s side of the story, when the car flipped, all the children (except for Enoch who never made a sound) started screaming; she started blowing the horn for help, and tried calming the children by singing to them. When she couldn’t calm them, she just held the horn down in an all-out endeavor to call for help, which alerted the Hoffmans it wasn’t just the car alarm going off. When the first of us arrived to the car, she unbuckled herself and started unbuckling Titus, who she handed to me. As Samuel pulled Jon David out the back, Elise nervously kept asking him to “Get me out, get me out!” He said, “I’ll be right back for you.” When Elise heard this, she calmed right down because she lovingly trusted him to return. Seconds later, the car rolled and submerged with Elise, Enoch, and Monique in it. Elise’s last words to her beloved mommy were “I’m going to drown.” And Monique assured her she would get her out and everything would be alright. (And now they are: in Heaven!)

Even once the vehicle was completely filled with water and dark she kept trying to find the children’s seat belts. Once this was obviously impossible, she tried escaping herself, only to keep bumping into things. At this point she began breathing in water, felt her limbs paralyze, and realizing she was dying, and prayed for peace before going unconscious.

Back to Jon's perspective. While Monique was being rescued, I sat on top the vehicle and prayed for courage to try one last time to rescue them. I thought of how cold I was out of the water and how terribly cold only a few seconds in the freezing water made me. Then I thought of my poor little children still trapped under the water minute after minute (probably at least 5-7 minutes by then). My body rebelled at the idea of diving under the “35 degree” water to go back inside a car through a broken window. But I knew I had to try once more. So I told Samuel to hold my legs as I plunged into the vehicle head first until I was through the window least past my waist. I felt around until I grabbed something made of fabric, kicked my legs until Samuel pulled me out, only to find I had saved a large blanket. In disappointment, I hopped back up onto the car to “warm up”. Then I had to make a very hard decision – do I try going back for the children in what would be almost certainly a futile attempt or do I try to save Monique who’s at least half alive, laying half in the water and half on the muddy bank? My first-aid training came back to me, and I made the hard decision focus on the one I could probably help and let my precious children in Christ's hands. It was all I could do. We tried… we really, really did!

Around this time, all of us who were in the water splashed over to where Monique was lying. With Samuel and Monique’s dad in the shallow water getting somewhat cut up on the barbed wire that had been knocked into the water and her mom and I on the bank, we all pulled her out. Samuel and I laid on top her to warm her, and Noah ran to the house for blankets, which we piled on her. By this time the first responders began arriving. Monique’s mom, Brenda, started shouting for Samuel and I to go warm up in the house, since we were shaking uncontrollably, which we did after a bit of persuasion, leaving Monique with others. We flopped down by the fire, got most of our wet clothes off, and I was buried under blankets while Samuel took a hot shower to warm up.
With everything being chaos by the pond as they tried to get a tow truck down the lane to pull the vehicle out to rescue the children, it did not seem that Monique was receiving sufficent care by enough people as she lay on the freezing ground. So, her Mom told her to run to the house for the two little boys' sake that we had left. Miraculously, she jumped up and out ran her mother to the house through the dark over rough terrain! Once inside, she and I were surrounded by at least three EMTs and Paramedics who put hot packs, hot towels, etc. on us while running warm fluid in by IV.

We lay there a long time while they warmed us up. Monique was obviously the primary patient, considering her gray skin and what she had under gone – essentially drowning. Everyone else who’d also been in the water was shaking uncontrollably. I’m guessing it was probably an hour before the lane was cleared enough of emergency vehicles for them to transport us to the hospital. But while we lay there, in front of the warm fire, it was hard to think of our two little children still out in the water. The Lord was amazing in the grace he showed us, though. Various people started singing hymns. The lead paramedic actually led a couple of these songs in his deep voice, and one of the EMTs said he was a pastor and prayed over Monique. The Lord was with us in a special way there in that kitchen during that dark hour. I still love our faithful Master!

Once the vehicle was pulled out far enough to extract the children, they were medevac’d to two different hospitals. The doctors worked on each child for hours attempting to bring them back, which is way more than I would have expected of them. I’m so blessed they tried so hard to save our babies!
Monique and I were taken to Rhea County Hospital in Dayton. I was released within a few hours because I had warmed up fine. My wife was given a lot of good, courteous care in the ER and then moved to a room that night. The next day she was transported to the ICU at Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga because they have better equipment in case her condition turned worse. She spent a little over a day in there until her condition improved enough for her to be taken to a regular room. On Friday, early afternoon she was released to go home.
There’s much more I could say of the heroic efforts of everyone involved, many of them unnamed in this document. The emergency workers were on site until at least 2 or 3 AM, many local people stopped by to help with what they could, and all the Hoffman’s, from the youngest to the oldest, did an excellent job assisting in the rescue and warming us up (actually earning the high complements of the lead paramedic for doing a great job).
We are so thankful everyone’s help, much of it still unknown to my wife and me.

The Lord is our Rock and Strong Tower in this time of earthly loss. Jesus is taking care of our little ones right now, as they dance and sing with joy to Him! I like to think we got out of the vehicle everyone we could and Jesus got the rest out to go Home with Him.

May He be praised!"

A couple links to family in the news:

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2014/feb/26/taken-at-a-tender-agecrash-claims-0010infant-3/

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2014/feb/28/five-lives-hung-in-the-balance-in-those-desperate/?local

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2014/mar/02/final-farewell-neighbors-console-family-in-tragic/

If anyone would like to send a sympathy card to Jon and Monique, please address them to: P.O. Box 1222, Dayton, TN 37321
If you would like to practically help Jonathan and Monique with funeral, travel, and other miscellaneous expenses, please visit http://eliseandenoch.org/

"We are planning to have the funeral next Thursday evening, March 6th, in Ephrata PA at a church that can hold up to 500 people. More details to follow. We hope everyone can come!"

"The burial is scheduled for Friday, March 7th, in Mercersburg, PA."


Visit their FB page for more info and updates: https://www.facebook.com/enoch.and.elise?fref=ts

Enoch Einwechter Memorial Service Slide Show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKm4U8qaVZo

Elise Einwechter Memorial Service Slide Show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxSCNfqvnuQ

For anymore updates/ information if you don't have FB or such please email me at knoctuary6@aim.com and make the subject "Einwechter Family".

Thanks everyone for praying!

And a quote that is encouraging for this news:
"Some have asked whether we shall know one another in heaven? Surely, our knowledge will not be diminished, but increased. The judgement of Luther and Anselm, and many other divines is, that we shall know one another; yea, the saints of all ages, whose faces we never saw; and, when we shall see the saints in glory without their infirmities of pride end passion, it will be a glorious sight." ~Thomas Watson