The Right Thing

Just another Tuesday morning. Two taps of the snooze button and the routine begins. Pour the first cup of coffee, iron some clothes, wake up Taylor, fix breakfast and maybe have a few minutes to watch the news. I at least like to have my weather professionally guessed before I hit the road. It’s a routine we can all do half asleep, and this day begins like so many others have before and (god willing) will again.
The weatherman declares that once again there is no rain in our immediate future. I think about washing my truck or watering my grass, some of the tricks that have worked in the past to force precipitation as the local news shifts back to the national scene. As I grab the remote to pull the plug on the steady stream of unemployment numbers and political infighting, I’m drawn to the images on screen of a burning car. Wait, it’s not the car that’s burning, it’s a motorcycle that is pinned under the front bumper. People are trying to lift the car amid the flames, and after several attempts they succeed! An unconscious man is dragged from underneath the car and he appears to be alive. “Wow”, I hear my daughter say as she appears from the bathroom. “Where is this?”
We watch the footage several times and Iearn that this has happened in Murray Utah. The man dragged from underneath the car, a 21 year old college student at Utah State, is expected to make a full recovery. The people that saved his life are strangers that just happened to be there at the right time. We collectively decide that he is a lucky man as we turn off the television and head out the door. This will be on my mind all day because I have about 200 miles of driving before the day is done. I’ll be extra careful!
As I went about my travels that day I continued to think about the accident. The attempts to lift the car. The first try with only 4-5 people was not enough, the car was too heavy. People kept appearing from the wings like extras in a movie. College students and construction workers, men and women, blacks and whites. A cross section that an independent survey would approve was giving it their all. All volunteers with one goal in mind; saving the life of a perfect stranger. What would I have done? Would I have jumped in and helped? Would the car explode and kill us all?
Luckily this is not a question that today I will have to answer. I was a thousand miles away when the accident occurred, and I watched it from the safety of my own home. I didn’t feel the heat from the flames or smell the smoke from the burning rubber; I didn’t have to decide. But what I did get was an urge to help someone, to do something good. To pay it forward. I don’t have to pull a flaming car off of someone to make a difference in another’s day. I will not make the evening news by simply treating other with respect and kindness, and I honestly don’t think I should. I don’t think stardom was what the rescuers were seeking when the saved the young man’s life, they were simply doing the right thing