A few weeks ago, I wrote about the story of an EMT-turned-pizza-delivery-man who delivered life-saving CPR to a customer. I asked readers to send in their stories of being in the right place at the right time, under mysterious circumstances. Sue Jackson from Mancos, Colorado told us about her experience:
“It was so many years ago, that every detail isn’t as clear anymore, but in late 1992 or early 1993 we had our home out in the country (a mile east of Lewis, Colorado) for sale. I was at work one day and our realtor called and asked if they could show our house that afternoon. I kind of panicked, but asked for permission to leave work early so that I could go home and spruce the place up a bit.
I got home and had just started to straighten up when I heard a motorcycle pull up in our driveway. The guy on it was shouting to me that our 8-year-old neighbor kid needed medical attention because he had put his arm through the glass in their screen door, and the phone wasn’t working so the teenage babysitter had flagged him down on the highway which ran by our houses. I ran to our phone, but it wasn’t working either because we were tied to the same phone system on a party line. This was long before cell phone days.
I threw my shoes back on and drove over to their house, where I found him bleeding with a cut arm. With the phone still disabled, and unable to call 911, I had to drive him to the nearest hospital, along with the babysitter. The ride seemed like it took forever, through heavy construction traffic, it was probably 15-20 minutes for all of this, but I got him there just as he was going into shock.
Someone, most likely the guy on the motorcycle, had eventually been able to call the authorities and the boy’s mother, who was a nurse at the hospital, was waiting for us. He ended up being okay, but it could have been much worse.
The mysterious thing? The realtor never showed up, nor ever called me back to cancel, or say that they weren’t coming. There had been no reason for me to come home that afternoon, but I know the real reason that I was put in that place that day.”
A mile east of Lewis, Colorado, even almost 20 years later, is still a very rural area. Houses are few and far between. And yet, the closest neighbor to an injured boy just happened to be there when he desperately needed help.
What say you readers? Just a flaky realtor and a flukey coincidence? Or was something more at work? I know what I’m leaning towards.