On April 3, 1989 as the Gores and their six-year-old son Albert were leaving a baseball game, Albert ran across the street to see his friend and was hit by a car. He was thrown 30 feet (9 m), and then traveled along the pavement for another 20 feet (6 m).[15] Gore later recalled: "I ran to his side and held him and called his name, but he was motionless, limp and still, without breath or pulse [...] His eyes were open with the nothingness stare of death, and we prayed, the two of us, there in the gutter, with only my voice."[15] Albert was tended to by two nurses who happened to be present during the accident. The Gores spent the next month in the hospital with Albert. Gore also commented: "Our lives were consumed with the struggle to restore his body and spirit."[15] This event was "a trauma so shattering that [Gore] views it as a moment of personal rebirth", a "key moment in his life" which "changed everything."[15]
In August 1991, Gore announced that his son's accident was a factor in his decision not to run for president during the 1992 presidential election.[72] Gore stated: "I would like to be President [...] But I am also a father, and I feel deeply about my responsibility to my children [...] I didn't feel right about tearing myself away from my family to the extent that is necessary in a Presidential campaign."[72] During this time, Gore wrote Earth in the Balance, a text which became the first book written by a sitting U.S. Senator to make the New York Times bestseller list since John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage.[34]