Near Death? I nearly had a heartattack

I was running some errands today.  I needed to go to the post office, make some copies, drop some stuff off, pick some stuff up etc.  I brought Josiah, Silas, Luke and Sam with me to help me.  One of the errands was picking up the elementary school soccer ball that had been kicked over the fence and then blown 2 blocks down to our house.

We finished all the errands but the copies.  I pulled in near the tree in the picture, put the car in park and ran in to make the copies.

looking east

looking west

I had my copies made paid and then saw a friend.  We chatted for a moment until Sam opened the door and whispered to me, "Mom, the car sort of came out of park."  HeartATTACK!

I ran outside to find the van stopped about a foot in front of the propane tank you can see sticking out at the edge of the white building on the left hand side of the picture.

The inside story:  One of the boys decided to try to make a goal between the front seats with the elementary soccer ball we had picked up.  The ball hit the gear shifter knocked it into reverse and the van started going backward.  Sam realized the car was in reverse jumped out of his seat, read the gear legend on the dashboard (he didn't know which pedal was the brake or how to put it in park), and threw it in park just before it hit anything.

My legs are still weak.