Sunday, August 2, 2009

Real Life Heroes

The other day my sister's car wouldn't start. It seemed the battery was dead, so I got the jumper cables out of the trunk, pulled up along side her car and charged up the battery. I was proud of myself because this was the 1st time I jump started a car!

Later that day she goes to start it again, but guess what? It does not start. We decide to jump it again. This time we know it's probably more than just a dead battery, so we decide to drive it over to my dad's car place to get repaired.

Here's where it gets interesting. I'm driving along side her just in case the car dies again. As luck would have it, it dies out again and this time it happened at a pretty busy intersection. So I find a way to pull over and park. I see a couple teens walking down the street and ask them if they can help out. Reluctantly they did and helped us push the car to the side of the road. I thanked them. Still we are on a busy street blocking traffic. All of a sudden out of no where 2 other guys show up and start helping us push it more. They help us get it off the busy road into a parking lot. These guys were awesome and I don't even know where they came from. Many thank you's to those guys that helped us! May good fortune come your way.

That's not the end of the story. We call AAA for a tow. They say they will send a tow truck in 2 hours. That's a long time so we are hanging around, and we decide to jump it again. We get it running pretty good and drive it around the lot. I felt silly having a tow truck come tow it when we are currently driving it around. So we decide to risk it and try to drive it to our destination. Big mistake. It goes for about 2 miles then dies again at another busy intersection. This time no one around to help and we can't move it off the street. This kind of thing is the worst. It is very stressful. People are honking and getting pissed off. So we call 911 to get a police officer out to block traffic. He shows up in about 5 minutes. We explain the situation and he says he can get us a tow in about 5 minutes. So we do that. The tow truck driver was very nice and towed the truck to the car service place. It ended up costing about $125. Luckily we can submit the claim to AAA and they should cover at least some of the bill.

Overall it was a though day. From this situation I learned the importance of making sure your car is in good condition before taking it out so it doesn't stall in the middle of traffic. If it does, call for help as soon as possible. If you see someone in need of help, be a hero and help them out. The world needs more heroes!