A New Jersey toll booth attendant escaped potential injury or worse after she called out of work the same day a garbage truck crashed into the toll plaza because of a premonition that she had.
Jessica Daley, who works along the Garden State Parkway, told NBC New York she was jolted awake on Friday morning with a “bad gut feeling… like something terrible was going to happen.”
A second warning came at 4 a.m. when she felt she was “going to get in a car accident.”
“It was so strong, that I actually called out and I never call out of work,” Daley told the broadcaster.
Four hours later, a garbage truck slammed into a collector’s booth at the Barnegat Toll Plaza — the booth Daley is usually in.
There was an explosion of debris which hit a nearby Chevy pickup and the toll booth. A toll collector and the driver of the vehicle suffered serious injuries.
“My immediate response honestly, I dropped to my knees and just started crying. I was praying for everybody involved and thanking God that I had that feeling to call out,” she said when she’d been told of the accident soon after.
State police are still investigating the crash and a spokesperson from the New Jersey Turnpike Authority said the injured toll collector has left hospital.
Daley and her family were left with mixed emotions.
“I think her gut instinct was an angel or a premonition from a guardian angel telling her not to go in to protect her,” her mother, Jennifer said.
“It’s hard to feel so happy that my daughter wasn’t there, and at the same time, feel heartbreak for the ones that were involved.”
Daley returned to work the next day and added that the warnings reinforced her faith.
“As of recently, I started getting a lot closer to God in the last like three months. I believe one hundred percent that was God looking out for me,” she said.