Jun
14
Written by:
Shaunti Feldhahn
6/14/2008 12:58 PM
I watched today as my husband almost got run over while being a Good Samaritan. Scary.
Context: I’ve really been enjoying being done with my ‘traveling season’ for the summer (most summers – including this one -- I only have 3 or 4 trips in 3 months, instead of the usual once a week), and just hanging out with the family and doing absolutely nothing on the weekend! So we went to the mall today with the kids, and were driving back home in a pouring rainstorm. There is a large and very busy intersection just a mile from our house where the speed limits are 45 mph, and as we got close, we saw a lady in a black Jetta try to turn left at the light… and her car just stopped, sticking out in the middle of the intersection. Which of course started to back up the traffic. The people coming the other way on the green light were whizzing past at 45-50 mph and not realizing she was there and broken down they were swerving from two lanes into one to get around her. When the light changed, the people coming our way had to do funnel down into one lane to get around her as well. People weren’t honking – they knew her car was broken – but they were basically inching or whizzing around her and driving on. Jeff realized – her car wasn’t starting again, and no one was stopping to help her. Pretty soon, she was going to get slammed into. It was pouring down rain in sheets, but still…!
So Jeff inched our van through the intersection past her and we pulled back into a gas station where he could hop out and I could get in the driver’s seat. We could see him straight through the windshield as Jeff ran back into the rain toward the car, trying to avoid traffic coming the other way, leaving our kids crying hysterically in the back seat, “daddy!” “Is daddy going to get run over?” “is daddy going to die?” (that, asked from my 5 year old in a curiously detached, academic manner!) “daddy, come back!”
Right as he was getting near the car, the light changed and one of the cars turning the corner from the other direction didn’t see him in time, and came within 1 inch of slamming into him at about 25 miles per hour. The car actually ran over the back of his shoe and took it off his foot! That’s when I started praying out loud! Thank God he got there okay, went to the lady’s window and asked her to put it into neutral so he could push her through the intersection and into the parking lot of the gas station on the other side of the street. He later told me she was crying hysterically, absolutely panic-stricken about breaking down and trapped in such a dangerous spot and unable to do a thing. If she had tried to get out of the car, she almost certainly would have been hit, the way Jeff almost was.
About 45 seconds later, as Jeff was waiting for the light to signal a left turn so he could push the car through the intersection safely, another guy ran over from another parking lot nearby, and then another. These guys strained to push her through the intersection, around a corner and into the gas station. But they got her there. It was fascinating, honestly, to see that as soon as ONE person stopped to help, others came along. But before that, it had been at least 4 or 5 minutes where no one was doing a thing. Probably easily 100 or 200 cars drove right by her without stopping.
I was so proud of my husband. And it was a good teachable moment for the kids. When he got back in the car, completely soaked to the skin, we started clapping for him, and the kids were able to have a great example of what it means to help others even when its inconvenient for you.
But that said…. I’m really glad that lesson didn’t come at the cost of getting hit!
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