A brave commuter risked everything on a busy highway to save an unresponsive driver and a terrified child trapped inside a runaway SUV.
This happened on I-5 down in Fife where a white SUV started drifting across three lanes. A good Samaritan from Roy was driving nearby in his Kia Forte when he saw the vehicle bouncing off the concrete wall. He pulled up closer and noticed the female driver was slumped over from a sudden medical emergency with her eyes rolled back.
Right behind her in a child seat was a young boy looking totally terrified. So he knew he could not just drive away and leave them in danger. He decided to position his back tire against her front fender and gently pushed her car into the barrier until it came to a complete stop.
When asked about it later he said “It was something I didn’t even really think about. I just did it”. He then jumped out to put her car in park and safely got the scared child out before emergency workers arrived.
He was actually running late to pick up his wife’s birthday cake that afternoon, so he snapped a few pictures of his damaged car as proof for her. Looking at the deep scratches on his vehicle he joked “I like to tell people it’ll buff out”.
He credited the Lord for putting him in the right place at the right time. “God put me there to do that” he said. He added “You get so many opportunities to do things for other people. But we’re so busy, you know, all we got to go to work, got to do this, you know, and you pass by and you’re like, oh, man, I should have helped that person. This was not going to be that case, you know what I mean? It was going to happen. I needed to stop this vehicle no matter what”.
His family has now set up an online fundraiser so people can help cover the repair costs for his car.
Sometimes our busyness makes us blind to the opportunities God puts right in front of us to show His love to others. We see a person in need and tell ourselves we’re too busy to get involved, so we just keep moving like it’s none of our business. But is that really the kind of faith God wants us to live out?
Paul didn’t think about his car or his wife’s birthday. He acted the moment he saw the woman and her little boy in trouble. It reminds me of the story of the Good Samaritan.
A man was left beaten on the side of the road, and many people you’d expect to help walked past him. A priest passed by on the other side. So did a Levite, a man who served in the temple. It was a Samaritan, someone with every reason to keep walking, who finally stopped and helped him.
That’s what Paul did on I-5 that day. He didn’t know that woman. He didn’t know her son. But he knew somebody had to do something, and he decided it was going to be him.
Maybe that’s the real question for all of us. Not whether we’d do something big for someone, but whether we’re faithful to the small things God puts in front of us every single day.
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2
WATCH: Good Samaritan Uses His Own Car to Stop a Runaway SUV
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