It is a gray Friday morning in November when things go completely wrong on the Poortweg in the village of Uitwijk, in the municipality of Altena. Due to the sudden smoothness, Liesbeth van der Steen (31) loses power over the wheel. She ends up with her car, with her two young sons in the back, upside down in a ditch. The three is only saved after forty minutes by the friends Peter and Niels, who get help from three road workers. The two friends received a hero medal from the municipality of Altena on Wednesday afternoon.
Upside down in the ditch, the car quickly fills up. “I then released the belts and children and typed a window, but that made the water entered even faster.” Liesbeth has typed the small side window so she can’t go outside. She does not get the other windows. All the while she has her sons on her arms to keep their heads above water.
“At that moment I said to God: You have given our children to live and not to die. Please save us.” At that moment Liesbeth feels such a peace and his proximity. “I have had no panic and fear while the children were very scared and crying.” It is not that Liesbeth did nothing then because she was convinced that worked out well. “I kept trying to get out, try to turn on my phone and turn on lamps.”
“When we heard voices we immediately jumped into the ditch”
Niels (33) and Peter (34) happened to be nearby when they were approached by an older lady in a car who was lost. “She said between the nose and lips that there was a car in the ditch,” Niels looks back. The two friends went to the place in question. “We saw that the lamps were on and it was already light, so that car was there for a while.
It was slippery on the Poortweg because there was no scattered. “We hesitated for a moment, until we heard voices. Then we immediately jumped into the ditch.” The water stood their waist to the men. Coincidentally, there were road workers nearby. With an excavator they lifted the car out of the water.
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Liesbeth, her eleven -month -old son David and Levi of two are then taken out of the car heavily. Baby David is only 21 degrees warm and is resuscitated for 65 minutes and brought to the Sophia Children’s Hospital in Rotterdam. Mother Liesbeth goes to the Amphia hospital in Breda. Her oldest son Levi is even flown with the trauma helicopter to the Radboud UMC in Nijmegen.
“The earth dropped under my feet.”
Liesbeth was fired from the hospital the same afternoon. The two -year -old Levi the next morning and baby David was allowed to celebrate his first birthday at home a week later. Liesbeth and Jordy are extremely grateful to all heroes, emergency services and care providers. “Because they have put all the sails to save us. But we really see the hand of God and that there is a blessing on our lives. We have not left anything about it.”
“It is an extra confirmation for me how present he is.”
It has not strengthened her faith in God. “Because it was already very strong, but it is an extra confirmation for me how alive and present he is. And that is why I share my story to show that God as a sweet father can turn everything for the better.”
She understands that many people will think that Niels, Peter and the road workers have saved her and not God. “But so many special things have happened in succession, which means that we as a family are now intact,” says Liesbeth. “Those are no longer coincidences for us. If even one thing had turned out differently, the outcome would have been different.”
Peter and Niels are very sober under it. “We sat on Friends Weekend and friends of ours at Liesbeth and Jordy in the church. So we were kept well informed. The outcome is good, that’s why we are sober under it.” They later went to coffee with us tells Liesbeth. “We then heard their side of the story and that has been important, because that’s how we got the picture complete what happened.”
