My wife is a sucker for critters, so naturally we have stopped to save virtually every animal known to man at some point or another. Lets see, there was the hawk, the baby owl, the baby squirrel, the cow, zillions of turtles and snakes, a few injured dogs and cats, and the list goes on.
I was driving home from work a few years ago (on my way to the book study, no less ) and a very brief but intense thunderstorm had just rolled through. In this particular area of the interstate I was on, a storm drain in the media of the interstate was overwhelmed by the flash flood and about 6 inches of water covered about a 200 foot stretch of the interstate. The car a few hundred feet in front of me hit it and immediately disappeared in a huge explosion of water. I, and the cars behind me, Immediately began braking and were able to slow down enough that the water didn't cause us to hydroplan, but that first car had spun out and shot into the 20 ft deep storm culvert running beside the interstate at highway speeds. I saw the car disappear into the deep ditch and then saw the tail end of the car bounce back up into the air before it disappeared for good into the ditch. Several of us stopped and ran to the ditch. The car was on its side, drivers side down, in about a 6 ft deep raging river of storm runoff. The water was so deep, and moving so fast, that it was banging the care between the two sloped concrete sides of the storm culvert, and gradually pushing it down stream. The water was so deep that sometimes the car would completely disappear under the waves of water. Two construction workers got to the car right before I did, and they jumped onto the passenger side (now the top) of the car. The car was rocking so I stayed on the concrete slope and held the arm of one of them to steady them on the rocking car. The woman driver was incoherent and almost unconscious, so we couldn't get her to roll the passenger window down or even get out of her seat, so one of the men took off his shirt and wrapped it around his arm, and with his covered elbow broke the passenger door window. He leaned in and somehow managed to get her out of her seatbelt and to a standing position, with her head and shoulders out of the broken window.
All this time the car is being knocked around, so the other guy and myself are trying to steady the car and the main guy working with the incoherent woman. We all manage to eventually get her dragged out of the window, across the side of the car and back to the bank of the big ditch. She is cut up and bruised in a few places, and is hysterical and incoherent (have I used that word enough yet ), but otherwise seems OK. The second worker leans into the car and tries to see if there are any other occupants, and there aren't. So he grabs her purse and gets off the car and back to the bank. It couldn't have been more than a minute later, and the water rolls the car over and upside down so that it is completely under water. Over the next 30 or so minutes, while the rescue squad arrives and takes care of the woman, and the police take reports, the water carries the car, completely submerged, another 20 or 30 yards down the ditch.
I went on to the book study, and walked in about half-way through, with mud up to my knees and a little blood on my shirt, half soaked all over from standing in the light rain after the storm for 30 minutes with the injured lady then the police doing their reports. Remember, this is the book study, supposedly a less formal and more personal meeting. The conductor, Brother Anal-by-the-book, gives me this dirty look, and half the others look at me with wierd looks on their faces. No one so much as asked me what happened, or even gave me a normal look, until after the book study was over and I had a chance to explain what had happened. What Jerks!! Wasn't it obvious that I had just been through something traumatic, but I was doing my JW duty and coming on to the meeting. I even commented a couple times, although I was still a little shaky from the event. Looking back, It is hard not to beat myself up for not seeing sooner how uncaring and judgemental these people were.
Anyway, that's my story. All these others so far have been a wonderful read. And the JW's think they are the only ones who have LOVE! What self-righteous hypocrites!!!!!
Brandon
