What We Can Learn from Lindsey Vonn's Crushing Crash

By Lisa Hutchcraft Whitmer

Seeking to rise above a previous injury, Lindsey Vonn's downhill skiing crash at the Olympics left her nearly losing a leg, and needing a blood transfusion.

While hearing her talk about how she almost lost her leg, she referred to something called "compartment syndrome." Lindsey proceeded to say how, "Compartment syndrome is when you have so much trauma to one area of your body that there's too much blood and it gets stuck... it basically crushes everything in the compartment. So, all the muscle and nerves and tendons, it all kind of dies."

By Ron Hutchcraft

This Fourth of July, there would be no fireworks. Just a lot of tears.

It was raining when the campers went to sleep that night. But no one knew that the Guadalupe River would turn into a raging flood while they slept.

The girls at Mystic Camp were awakened by that flood smashing into their cabins. Some were able to escape. Twenty-four could not.

By Ron Hutchcraft

It used to be "Breaking News." Now it's more like Heartbreaking News.

Turn it on and you're likely to see and hear a lot of angry people. If you turn off the TV and check out social media, there it is again. Everybody's angry about something. Lots of hostility. Lots of yelling. And, sorry to say, there's bitterness and hate in the air.

Everybody's talking - or shouting. Nobody's listening.

By Brad Hutchcraft

Nashville wasn't a place I thought about much...until I had someone living there who I love very much. So, when the news of power outages in that area hit this week, I found myself extraordinarily invested in the situation. I typically keep up with the news, but this went deeper - following the local electric company on social media, glued to updates, checking other people's posts about Nashville.

The same question was on my mind that all the locals there had and many continue to have as they wait: when will the power be restored?

By Ron Hutchcraft

It wasn't very loud. Just three little words, softly spoken.

But they were loud enough to drown out a gunshot that had reverberated across the nation.

The widow of assassinated influencer, Charlie Kirk, talked about the young man who ended the life of her husband and the father of her children. Through tears, she spoke words that stunned a nation:

By Brad Hutchcraft

My lawn was green and inviting. A few days later, it was brown and dying, in the worst shape I've ever seen. What happened? A life-robbing sneak attack from a tiny but nevertheless insidious visitor. Armyworms.

I had never heard of armyworms. I still know little about them. But here's what I do know: They come, they attach themselves to a healthy lawn, and they suck the life right out of it.

By Ron Hutchcraft

They say we can see some 3,000 stars. I'm looking out my window right now. I don't see even one star!

That might have something to do with the fact that it's almost noon. Give it a few hours and they'll all be there.

Because stars shine the brightest when the sky is darkest.

By Ron Hutchcraft

My phone's been blowing up for a week or more. Mostly not good news.

Lots of storms. Lots of sadness.

Severe thunderstorm alerts, tornado and flood watches and warnings. Stacked up in my texts like planes waiting to land at O' Hare. Like much of the country, it's been a "Groundhog Day" cycle of one stormy day after another. I miss the sun.

One moment they were in their apartment building. The next they were under it. Ninety people trapped when a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Myanmar suddenly leveled their building.

Fifty Myanmar children went to pre-school that day. At least a dozen died there in the sudden collapse of their school. The rest were listed as missing.

One doctor in Mandalay said: "Wherever I looked, I saw collapsed buildings. Only dust."

By Ron Hutchcraft

Sometimes "Breaking News" is really "Heartbreaking News." This is one of those times.

They're running out of disaster words to describe it. The damage done by those monster California fires that have consumed everything in their path.

"Devastated." "Obliterated." "Apocalyptic."