My Husband, The Good Samaritan

Have you ever had a stranger try to get into your car? While you were standing right next to it? Well, that’s what happened to me yesterday. My husband, the girls and I were driving home from visiting my family at the north end of Vancouver Island when we had to stop to get some gas. We pulled over to a gas station on the side of the highway, on the edge of a little town in the middle of nowhere. (Sayward for anyone who knows the island). While I was pumping the gas a young man in his early 20′s staggered over to our van, put his packs on the ground by the passenger door and lifted the back passenger door handle. Thankfully it was locked so he couldn’t get in. He tried a couple of times while I stood there looking at him, incredulous. I wasn’t scared. It felt more like eating a sandwich in a restaurant and having someone come along and take a bite of it and walk away.

“Please don’t do that again,” I finally said to him. He laughed and wandered a few steps away and then came back and did it again. “We aren’t driving you anywhere,” I said. “You’ll have to find a ride somewhere else.” At this he finally stopped and leaving his bags on the ground started walking towards the highway.

A woman about the same age came along shortly afterwards and embarrassedly picked up his packs and followed him. I told my husband, who had been watching this incident from a few feet away, that I was going inside to use the bathroom and to please watch the girls. When I emerged from the bathroom he was talking to the gas station manager about this young man and what had just happened.

“He’s not safe. He’s in danger of getting himself or his girlfriend hit by a car out there. If he was just in town I wouldn’t worry, but he’s liable to get them both killed.”

At that, we all turned to look at the pair, now hitchhiking, and watched as this young man staggered into the road and flopped himself down in the middle of it. My husband sprang out the door, leaping over gas stalls and sprinting out to the highway. I half expected to see his clothes soar off his body, his Old Nay hoodie flying in the wind, revealing a bright red and blue body suit with the letter “S” in the front. He made it to where they were just after the girlfriend, screaming, had dragged her boyfriend off the road by his jacket collar.

Inside the manager called the police, and I moved the van, let the girls out to play on a grassy knoll, and waited. I watched as my husband, who works in Mental Health and Addictions like I used to, fall into his Element. Assess the situation, quickly develop rapport and use his amazing talents to talk this guy into getting off the road. I watched this guy go from dancing and flailing about on the highway to solemnly sitting on a log, smoking a cigarette, and talking to my husband while his girlfriend tried to get them a ride. I knew my husband wouldn’t leave them until they either got a ride or the police showed up. After half an hour, two failed lifts, and two calls to the police, the police finally showed up and took over.

My husband later told me he was high. Likely multiple substances on top of binge drinking the night before. He was headed home. He had a four year old daughter. He said he was suicidal.

We talked about how indifferent the gas station manager and other customers acted. As if it happened everyday or they just didn’t care. Yes, the guy was on drugs, but isn’t everyone worth some compassion? If my husband or I hadn’t run off to help this guy would anyone else have? This was someone’s son, someone’s friend, someone’s dad. More importantly, this was “someone.” I, for one, was very proud of my husband yesterday. My husband, the good samaritan.

Related posts:

1. Good Things

Tags: addictions, mental health