When right phone brings wrong voice, it's bad news

When you get a call from your child's phone, and it's not your child, there's never good news on the other end. I remember the 4 a.m. call from a cop when Curly Girl was 16.

“I bet you think your daughter is at home in bed, don't you?” the cop asked. Yes. Yes, I did.

Instead she had sneaked out of the house in time-honored teenage fashion and been caught by the cops in a park that was closed, talking to a guy she'd met through friends.

I threw on a bathrobe and rushed over there, just to hear the guy tell the police, “You can't do anything to me. I did my time.”

Yeah, those are the moments that make your heart stop beating. And this was another one.

My phone rings from my son's number.

“Is this Mrs. Fisher?” A female voice asked.

Trust me, that is never a good question. And indeed, it was not.

It was a nurse from the hospital in St. George, Utah, telling me they had Cheetah Boy there.

He had been brought in by paramedics after his car plunged over a 200-foot embankment south of Zion National Park.

Needless to say, I rushed to the hospital as soon as I could get there. He had a neck brace and was returning from a slew of tests.

He still doesn't remember anything about the accident (he was alone, returning from a trip to Zion).

But he was lucky, because a group of young women saw him go off the road, called 911 and then scrambled down to get him out of the car.

Wherever you are, ladies, thank you.

Shortly after I arrived, a Utah Highway Patrol officer arrived to investigate the crash. Since the son didn't remember anything, the cop actually told us more than we told him.

He said the car landed about 70 yards down the embankment, and it was fortunate that all four air bags deployed.

There's not a mark on my son's pretty face.

I had rented a car and drove up to the tow yard in Hurricane, Utah, to collect the salvageable belongings from Cheetah Boy's Toyota Corolla.

I didn't even recognize the car at first. It looked like maybe it had been dropped from Mars.

We recovered most of his possessions and said goodbye. We will never see that car again. It will go wherever old cars there go to die.

Back at the hospital, they determined that Cheetah Boy has more lives than our cat, Cairo, because he had no internal injuries and only two small cracks in his vertebrae that will heal on their own.

They kept him overnight to run him through every test known to humankind. His first MRI at age 25. I'm so proud.

And, today, after an endless parade of assorted doctors, they said he could go home. His back hurts and his hands have friction burns from the air bags, but other than that, he's OK.

Tonight, we are enjoying the respite of the Quality Inn, hiding from the 100-degree heat.

And tomorrow we will head home, borne along by a golden chariot from Hertz.

I swear, that guy has a guardian angel somewhere. And I'm so grateful.