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W hen the phone rang late that Sunday afternoon on November 16, 1997, Matt Newton was in his college dorm room, preparing a talk he planned to give at a Christian fellowship meeting later that week.

"Hey Matt," said the voice at the other end of the line. "My car's broken down on the freeway. Can you come pick me up?"

Matt wanted to say no. The stranded friend, Kevin Doyle, was about 45 minutes away, and Matt wanted to finish his speech, eat some dinner, and get to a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting at 8 that night. And it was already 5 o'clock.

Then Matt, a student at Southern California College, thought of the speech he'd been working on. A speech about obedience. And he'd just read this verse: "To obey is better than sacrifice" (1 Samuel 15:22).

Well, Matt thought, here's a perfect chance to show my obedience. This is a friend in need.

"I'm on my way," Matt told Kevin.

Before he left the room, Matt wrote two things in his notes: "Obedience" and "Kevin Doyle." Matt figured he'd get back to those notes later that night.

On his way to the car, Matt spotted a friend, Tim Morgan, and asked if he'd like to come along. Tim said yes and hopped in Matt's car.

As he started the engine, Matt remembered the verse: "To obey is better than sacrifice."

Matt had no idea he was about to do both.

About 20 miles up the freeway from the college, a 22-foot-long trailer, which had come unhitched from a truck, was blocking the two left lanes.

Matt was cruising along in the far left lane at about 60 mph when his headlights caught the trailer. He swerved to the right, but it was too late. The trailer crashed through the windshield on Matt's side, smashing into his face and left arm.

When the car came to a stop, Tim, who suffered only a scratch on his knee, looked over at Matt—and thought he was dead. Tim would later recall that Matt's face was "gory, like a piece of hamburger meat."

Indeed, the trailer had crushed every bone in Matt's face.

"At that rate of speed," Matt says, "I should have been decapitated. My jaw was crushed in three places, I had no nose, I had lost six teeth, and bone was sticking out of my face in various places."

And that wasn't all. Matt's left arm—his throwing arm, the one that had helped earn him a baseball scholarship to SCC—was ripped to shreds.

But Matt wasn't thinking about his dashed future in baseball right then. He was drifting in and out of consciousness. By the time the rescue squad got him out of the mangled car half an hour later, he'd stopped breathing.

The paramedics immediately put him on a respirator and rushed him to the hospital. Matt's younger brother, Kyle, was one of the first ones to arrive at the hospital. When he saw Matt, he didn't even recognize him.

About 40 students from SCC soon arrived, praying as doctors worked through the night to save Matt's life. They thought about amputating his maimed arm, but they decided to give it a chance to heal. Matt's vital signs stabilized, but he slipped into a coma that lasted a week.

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