I never learned this woman’s name, and I never saw her before, or after, but what I did see her do was incredible! I do not think she could ever do it again. I doubt she even realized she was doing it as it happened. There were no pictures taken, it never made the paper, or the six o’clock news. For about thirty an unknown woman was a full fledged hero, and a life saver!
There was an accident at a corner close to where we were playing one afternoon. A boy was hit by a full size pickup truck. It was not a new compact, but a truck from the sixties when vehicle weight was not an issue. I did not see how the accident happened, but a boy was pinned under the truck, and in considerable pain.
From across the street, a woman showed up crying; she was the boy’s mother. She ran over to the truck and kneeled down on the blacktop and looked at her boy, pinned beneath the vehicle. She wanted to pull him out, but he was pinned, and it was not possible.
Without a seconds hesitation the woman stood up, and faced the front bumper of the truck. She bent down and reached under the bumper. She stood up, and the front of the truck lifted with her! She stood there looking almost calm holding the front end of this pick up truck in the air. She looked towards two men standing close to her and told them, “Pull my son out from under the truck.”
The men were frozen in place at the sight, but then sprung into action and pulled the boy from underneath the truck. When the boy was clear the woman lowered the truck. Minutes later an ambulance showed up. They inspected the boy, put him on a board, then on a cot, and into the ambulance. The woman climbed in, the door was closed and the ambulance left.
If anyone had told me this story, I would be hard pressed to believe it. An average five foot something woman lifting the front end of a pickup truck off the ground just isn’t done. Yet things like this are done all the time. People everywhere do things that require something they think they could not do, yet they do it anyway.
I do not think this woman would ever be able to lift a truck for anyone other than her own son. I also know for those few seconds she was a true hero! Beside the fact that it was her son, she acted without thinking for a second that she could not lift the truck one half inch, let alone almost six inches off the ground! It never entered her mind that she could be crippled in the attempt. She simply acted without thinking of herself.
While we may never have an opportunity to be a hero at that level, we all have chances to be heroes or heroines. Every time we are out in public, people are watching us, judging us, and rating us on their personal scale. It is these times where we can be heroic even if it is only a small amount of heroism we display. Give it a try tomorrow. Tell yourself before going to sleep tonight that you are going to actively look for an opportunity to do something good for someone. You will be surprised how many chances you have, and how easy it is. After a few times, you will know that it feels better being a small time hero, than pretending you do not see someone needing your help.
I never saw the boy or the woman again, it happened in my neighborhood, but they were not part of it. I would like to think that because of the woman, the boy was okay. I would also like to think the woman was okay, and did not hurt herself saving her son.
