The Good Samaritan

It was 4:30 in the afternoon when Mary Price decided to drive to her sister Jean's house. It had been awhile since the kids had seen their aunt, but that was going to change today. It was time for their aunt to be more involved in their lives. Mary stopped at the store to get some sandwiches for supper. After getting the sandwiches, she takes a different way from her normal route because it was closer. While driving fifty-fivemiles per hour, a stopped driver at a gas station decides to pull out in front of her. Mary never has a chance to stop. Somewhere between five-ten miles per hour, they collide. As soon as she knows they are going to colide, she closes her eyes. Not wanting to see her own death, she braces for impact. Glimpses of her life pass before her eyes. The collision sends her spinning across the road facing the opposite direction. Amazingly enough, she manages not to hit another car while spinning out.

Mary's body was so sore. When she tried to open the door, she couldn't. She tried to call 911, but she couldn't even get her phone turned on, let alone work. To make matters worse, her foot was stuck under the gas pedal while under the hood was smoking. All the while, the kids were crying in the back. She thinks "Oh great, it's going to blow up. I'm going to die today."

Miraculously, a man comes over to her and asks her if she is all right.

Mary said "No, my car door and foot are stuck. I can't get out."

The man proceeds to call 911 for her. He then shuts her car off. He goes around to the other side to free her foot. To get her foot out, he had to take her shoe off. He then tells her "This could hurt." He wasn't kidding. He had to twist her foot in such an awkward position to get it out. After getting it out, he thinks "What's taking the emergency crew so long?" Watching the car smoke he decides that he can't afford to wait for them. He pulls her out through the passenger side (the unstuck side) to the side of the road. Noticing some kind of leak coming from the car, he pulls her a little further down the road, and then goes back to the car for the children in the backseat. Once the children are out, the medics show up. Within seconds, the car blows up. The man disappears.

The medics come over and look at her strangely. They were thinking "She gets herself out of the car, but lays down on the side of the road." What they say is "Ma'am what happened?"

"While I was driving, someone pulled out in front of me, and we collided. It sent me to the other side of the road facing the wrong direction. That good man over there freed my foot, and pulled me from the wreckage."

"Ma'am, there's no man over there."

"Where did he go?"

The oldest child, age twelve says "We saw him. He had brown hair, blue eyes, and a beard. He saved our mother."

"Did you see how it happened?"

"It happened just like my mother said. He pulled out in front of us, and we crashed. When we crashed, he was laughing. He said I'm a daredevil."

"He really said that?"

"Yes."

"Come with us. We need to get you checked out. We are going to the hospital."

For Mary, the ride to the hospital was excruciating. She could feel every bump along the way. The medic hears her say "Ow", and sees her wince. He asks "Is there anything I can do to make this less painful?"

"Stop me from rolling around everytime we go over a bump."

The medic says "Okay", and then says "Steve will you take it easy over the bumps?"

The driver slows down.

Upon arriving, she is admitted to the ER. She overhears the medical staff say "Look at her chest. It's all caved in."

After hearing them say that, Mary thinks "Great. I probably have a collapsed lung and broken ribs."

They then come over and ask her "Is there anybody you want us to call?"

Mary responds "My husband Aaron."

She gives them his phone number. They are able to reach him, but because he is at work when they reach him, it takes him thirty minutes to get there. As soon as he gets there, she tries to sit up to greet him, but it hurts too much. He tells her that he was outside talking to the cops, and that the other driver was arrested for drunk driving.

"That's good. He could've killed someone."

He then says "Everybody that witnessed the accidedent corroborated your story. They even backed up the good samaritan. They said 'It was like he vanished into thin air.' "

"So you're telling me that I have a guardian angel?"

"Well, it would appear that way."

The doctors come over to tell them they have to take the boys to get checked out. When the boys come back, we will run some tests on you to determine the extent of your injuries.

Once Mary is in radiology, they do a chest x-ray. The chest x-ray reveals that Mary has seven broken ribs and a fractured sternum, all on the right side. They say to her "Do you know how lucky you are? While you're in a lot of pain, and you're going to be out of work for months, it is something that you will recover from. Plus the good news is that your children are completely injury free. They only got seatbelt burns. You are very fortunate."

While not feeling very fortunate, she knew they were right. She did have a lot to be thankful for. A loving husband who is always there by her side, the kids were unharmed, and plenty of people that adored her. Her husband Aaron points out "If it had to happen, you couldn't have picked a better time. Now you have the whole summer off."

"Haha, very funny."

8:00 comes, and visiting hours are over. She tells Aaron to go home and take care of the boys.

Aaron says "Are you sure?"

"Yes", she says. "There's nothing you can do for me here tonight. There's no way they are going to send me home." She was right. She spent the next five days in the hospital. While in the hospital, she couldn't help but think of the good samaritan. What happened to him? I've never heard of someone else seeing your guardian angel, but it was obvious that she didn't pull herself from that car. Feeling like she had a guardian angel made her feel at peace. Never did she sleep so well as she did that night.

Five days later, she is discharged from the hospital. Doing things at home, wasn't easy. Things like reaching for items on the top shelf, going to the bathroom, and sleeping on her side of the bed were very painful. She and her husband had to switch sides of the bed while her ribs were healing. It still hurt to get out of bed on his side, but at least the pain wasn't a twelve on a scale of one-ten like they were on her side.

Part of her homework upon discharge was breathing through a spirometer, and going to see them every two weeks until they decide she is ready to go back to work. After 3 1/2 months, they give her a clean bill of health.

Back at work, she tells her friends the good samaritan story. They all listen intently as she tells it. One of them chimes in "You do have a guardian angel. You weren't ready. It wasn't your time." They all agree.

Mary decides to make the most of the second chance that she has been given. She realizes that it's just sheer luck that she can walk. Once a year for the next thirty years, she tells this story to a group of high school students so that they understand the hazards of drinking and driving. She says "You don't want the other driver's death on your hands."

Author Notes: This story is a half truth. The accident and the injuries are real. The good samaritan is fictional. Also, he gets the children out after the mother because they were safe, while the mother's situation was more dire.

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