Slip Up

It is currently the peak of the winter season. Endlessly cold days followed by even colder nights, barely any sunlight and freezing temperatures. Not exactly everyone’s favourite. What winters cold, brutal weather also brings is ice, slush and snow. An abundance of this weather makes driving conditions very dangerous, hence why the number of road accidents rises in winter.

For me, these conditions came in the form of a pleasantly warm day, which was unusual for mid winter. The sudden heat was causing the snow to melt, and the roads were a little more slippery than normal, but nothing severe. I finished a small shift at work and decided to drop off some late Christmas presents since I was in town. I decided to pick up my friend to join me, and I quickly drove to their house. Once they were with me, we set off on the short trip to our friends house. Unfortunately, things started going wrong very quickly. We’d only been to their house a couple of times, and they lived in a confusing area. We passed their house twice before pulling over on the side of a large gravel road to quickly look at directions. After we were satisfied we knew how to get there, we were ready to leave.The road was wide enough that i’d be able to turn around without backing up. I went to turn around so we could head back in the proper direction and attempt to find their house. Keep in mind, it was a fairly warm day for winter, and the snow was melting from the heat. As I was turning around, my right tire barely went in the snow, but it was so soft that within seconds my truck was completely stuck in the ditch. We tried not the panic too much, we weren’t stuck too badly yet, but a quick attempt to reverse or wiggle our way out wasn’t working. Further attempts caused us to get even more stuck until the only thing happening was the endless spinning of the tires on the slick snow. At this point we came to the unspoken conclusion that we couldn’t get out alone. We were so close to our friends house that eventually they decided to hike over to see if they could help us. Alas, there was nothing they could do. Neither me nor my friends had their licenses or anyone who could come help us, and I was fairly far from home. We had basically given up when a truck came driving over to us. He stopped and came over to discuss a way to help us. Only a few moments later another truck pulled up. Both drivers discussed what we could do. Neither had a tow rope, which meant there was nothing they could do, and we were still stuck. One of the drivers told us that if we waited, they were able to go and get a tow rope from town. We agreed with the plan and thanked him, until we were interrupted by a third truck before he could leave. We quickly went to talk with them and discovered they thankfully had a tow rope. They attached the hitch and rope to the back of my truck, and they got their truck hooked up to mine. We got into position to get my truck out, and within a couple of minutes they had their truck hooked up to mine, and it was only a bit of tugging before my truck popped right out of the ditch and back onto the road. I thanked all of them endlessly, as I would have never gotten out without them. They assured us it was no problem, and we all went on our way. I was able to finish dropping off the presents, and got my friends, my truck and myself home without any harm.

I often think about the generous strangers, and how they did not need to take time out of their day to help, they could’ve simply continued on, but decided to help nonetheless, with no reward or gain. They decided helping someone was important to them, and didn’t ask for anything in return. They will always be in my mind, and I aspire to be as generous as them in the future.