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Bishop Zubik Recounts Hit-And-Run Accident

CRAFTON (KDKA) – On the evening of Thursday, June 21st, Bishop David Zubik was driving from Oakland after celebrating mass to his home at St. Paul Seminary in Crafton.

"No doubt about it. I think God was using my Mom as a guardian angel – she was watching me from up above," he said.

At the corner of Third Avenue and Grant Street, the bishop's Ford Edge was hit. The impact was horrific, shearing off the bumper, grill, computer box and sending it flying.

"Later we saw that it went half way down the block on Grant Street," Zubik recalled. "Smoke was coming up from the engine but I didn't know what hit me."

The vehicle that hit him just kept going.

In shock and shaken, but seemingly unhurt, it was the words of an arriving police officer that really got the bishop's attention. A few seconds later, he would have been t-boned.

"That's right – exactly," he said. "He said, 'I think it [would have] been a whole different story. You might not have been here.'"

Later, as the bishop knelt in prayer in the seminary chapel, he meditated – not exactly on a "bucket list" but more on the belief that this was a less than gently reminder of work still to be done.

"Yep! That's exactly what I heard him telling me. So, I thanked him for that and said, 'Well, I'm gonna roll up my sleeves and do the best that I can.'"

The bishop also had counsel for whoever hit and ran.

"I really hope that you'd have second thoughts about realizing what kind of damage you could do to somebody's life," Zubik said. "I was fortunate. Others are not."

Bishop Zubik shared his story in Sunday's "Pittsburgh Catholic."

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