This is an IHeart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show,

from the arts to sports and from

business to history and everything in between, including your stories, send them to our

American Stories.com. They're some of our favorites. In October of 2018, a tragedy struck a

synagogue in Squirrel Hill, a neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Paul Kengor's daughters were nearly in the line of fire.

Here he is to recount that story.

Pray for us, I will call you later.

That was the text message that we received from our 16-year-old daughter at 10.16 a.m. on Saturday morning, October 27th, 2018, as my wife and I drove toward Pittsburgh Strip District in downtown Pittsburgh.

My wife called my daughter immediately. Are you okay? Were you in an accident? In a hushed voice, my daughter

explained that she, our second daughter, and three friends, along with an adult friend of

ours named Susie, were hiding in their van across the street from the Tree of Life Synagogue

in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill section. They were there for a Saturday morning retreat at a house across the street.

They had arrived at 9.55 a.m.

They had initially stopped the van directly across from the synagogue on Shady Avenue,

which would have been straight in the line of fire between the police and the shooter.

It's going to be at 5898 Wilkins Avenue, Tree of Life Synagogue.

3480, you copy.

They were planning to hop out and walk to the house.

Mercifully, the driver, Susie, decided almost on a whim, a gut feel, she later conceded,

to find a parking spot so she could walk the girls inside. Just as she moved to a spot a little

...