On May 16, Mya Grimes was just minutes from her Saint Louis home after driving from her college campus in Jackson, Mississippi. While on the phone with her dad, she noticed the sky turned dark.
“It just looked like there was a storm coming,” Mya said during an appearance on CBN’s Prayerlink. “So, I stayed on the phone with him and then about a minute passed since we started the phone call, and then the trees started to fall down on both sides of the street. And so, I was screaming to the phone, ‘Dad, the trees are falling, the trees are falling, the trees are falling.'”
Before she knew it, Mya found herself in the middle of an EF-3 tornado.
“The trees were falling on both sides of the street,” Mya explained. “If I swerved onto the other side of the street, I would’ve swerved into incoming traffic. And then if I would’ve stayed on the side that I was on, I would’ve gotten hit by the big oak trees falling on the street called Union. And so I ended up driving over a tree and that’s kind of when everything just took a turn.”
Mya explained what the frightening experience was like when her car started spinning out of control while holding onto her steering wheel for dear life.
“My car started spinning in circles and spinning and spinning. And at the same time as it started spinning, I remember the rain had just started pouring down right before that point. And there was a lot of hail. So, the hail was hitting my car, the rain was pouring down. And before I could even process that, the car just started spinning in circles and I was just holding onto the wheel screaming, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”
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What happened next was even more scary as the powerful storm then blew out the windows of Mya’s car.
“I was just thinking as the windows were all busting out on me on every side of my car, that that was it, and that I just wanted to make it as fast and hopefully painless as possible if those were to be my last moments,” shared Mya. “I was ejected from my car through the driver’s side door and I slid down the street about 40 yards in the rain and with the debris and everything falling in the middle of the street.”
Mya then held onto a light post, which was the only thing still standing.
When the wind died down, she was able to flag down a nearby ambulance for help, suffering only a few cuts and bruises for which she gives God all the credit.
And while the rising college senior says her near-death experience was traumatic, it has strengthened her relationship with Christ, giving her a story she now shares on social media to point others to the one who saved her life.
“I’m 20 years old and I know that a lot of people my age may be on the fence or kind of struggling with their faith. And so, the reason for me posting was just to say, get right with God, because life is so uncertain,” Mya said.
“The plans that we have for ourselves are not always the plans that God has for us. And this whole situation really just put that into perspective how serious life is and just how important it is to make sure that others also know the importance of getting right and forming a real relationship with God.”
