Laura Bush Talks About Fatal Crash, Loss of Faith, in New Book

In her new book, "Spoken From the Heart," Laura Bush describes in detail being the driver in a 1963 car crash that took the life of a high school friend -- an accident she says haunted her for most of her life and caused her to lose faith in God for "many, many years."

"In those awful seconds, the car door must have flung open by the impact and my body rose in the air until gravity took over and I was pulled hard and fast, back to earth," Bush writes in excerpts published Wednesday by the New York Times. "The whole time, I was praying that the person in the other car was alive. In my mind, I was calling, 'Please, God.' "

Bush had run a stop sign on a Texas road and crashed into a car driven by a classmate, Mike Douglas, who died in the accident. She took responsibility but suggests in the memoir that other factors also contributed, such as the "pitch-black road," a dangerous intersection and the instability of Douglas' small automobile. "I lost my faith that November, lost it for many, many years," she said. "It was the first time that I had prayed to God for something, begged him for something, not the simple childhood wishing on a star, but humbly begging for another human life. And it was as if no one heard."

Over time, Bush, a Methodist, regained her faith.

In "Spoken From the Heart," she also defends her husband, former President George W. Bush, and criticizes his political opponents for "calling him names," the Times says. Mrs. Bush says the president's fly-over of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina -- rather than visiting the scene -- was the right thing to do because "he did not want one single life to be lost because someone was catering to the logistical requirements of the president."

She also recounts a harrowing time in Germany when she feared that she and President Bush had been poisoned during their stay at a G8 Summit. The president was even bedridden for part of the trip due to the mysterious illness, but doctors eventually concluded it was a virus.

The book, published by Scribner, is due out next week.