Share your good Samaritan stories, where someone helped you in time of need

[JanR]

I related this story in the spirituality category, in the thankfulness thread. It bears repeating, here.

Five good men pulled in behind my car after it had stalled on the freeway after midnight, back in the late 1970s. I was driving home from work, and had lost all of my transmission fluid, and was literally stuck there, on the shoulder. There were no cell phones back then, and no call box nearby. These five men all came up to my window together, and I wasn’t sure if I was safe or not. When the driver asked me what I wanted to do, I gave them a dime for a pay phone that was located at a 24-hour service station two exits away, and my fiance’s telephone number. He gave me back the dime and took the number, and they all got back into their car and drove away. Awhile later, I saw my fiance’s pick-up truck traveling down the southbound lane, opposite me. He pulled up behind me, and we were able to take care of the situation, and we both made it home safely.

What is your good Samaritan story?

 

[bluerose]

In 1996, my husband and I were traveling with our 2 year old son to New York from New Mexico. We were pulling a U-Haul and my husband and his dad had built a wooden box on the back of our pickup to carry all his carpentry tools. They had put the tailgate down in order to fit everything in the bed of the truck and the wooden box was cut to fit over the wheel wells. We were driving on I-40 late in the evening in October, with plans to stay in Nashville that night. My husband looked in the rearview mirror and saw that the box had shifted and was sliding off the back of the truck. He slowed down and pulled off the interstate at Palestine, TN which was nothing more than a truck stop at the exit. We saw that the load had shifted and a large toolbox had slid off the tailgate and was caught on the trailer hitch. Had it fallen, it would have probably flipped the U-Haul and seriously injured if not killed us. My husband prepared to unload the truck in order to re-secure the truck box when a burly bearded man suddenly appeared and asked if we needed help. My husband explained the situation and the man suggested that, instead of unloading the truck, perhaps he and his wife and daughter could push the box back onto the truck bed. With my husband lying on his back to push the toolbox with his feet, they got the box back onto the truck in a matter of minutes. We thanked him profusely but they left before we had a chance to get their names.

 

[Irishmom2]

Back in the days before cell phones…

I was driving to pick up my (future) husband from school in Brooklyn. I was on the Belt Parkway and got a flat. Pulled over onto the grass and thought I would just have to suck it up and try changing the tire myself. I opened the trunk and as I was going to get the spare out, two young men approached from the front of the car. “Do you have a jack?” was all they said. They changed the tire with their own jack wordlessly, in just a few minutes. I offered them some money to go get themselves something to eat, they would not accept it. I thanked them, and they got in their car and drove off.

I got back in my car, drove to Brooklyn and upon arriving at the apartment, burst into tears of relief.

We have stopped to check on people by the side of the road since then. Most times, they had someone on their way to help. I did once push a woman’s car off the road with mine, and drive her up the road to a phone. A policeman that was passing by thought it was an accident on the side of the road when he stopped, lol. When he heard it was not, he left.

 

[JanR]

No more good Samaritan stories? What a shame!