It's Just Stuff

I was reminded this week of what it means to be a Good Samaritan.

A local man was cooking breakfast in his home when he heard a loud crash outside. The East Texas Deep Freeze we are currently living in had caused the road outside of his home to ice over, and a truck had left the roadway and flipped, coming to rest against a tree. He ran outside to check on the occupants of the truck and offer assistance.

In his hurried departure from his kitchen, he left a hot skillet on the stove. A few minutes after heading outside to help two complete strangers, he turned around to see his home engulfed in flames. Apparently the grease from the skillet ignited a fire in his kitchen, and within moments his entire home was consumed.

In an interview with local news reporters, he said that he had run inside to retreive his dog, and to move the skillet from the stove to stop the fire. The smoke was too thick and he had to get out. Aside from his dog, he lost everything. He had no insurance.

The driver and passenger of the truck were ok, but visibly shaken - possibly from the wreck, but more likely because of the complete act of selflessness that another human had just displayed.

In a follow up interview with the local man, who had returned to his home the next day to try to salvage something from the shell of his home, the reporter asked if he would do it again. He didn't hesitate, never stumbled - he said yes. Given the same circumstances with the same outcome, he would do it again.

This 60-year-old man, now homeless and without any worldly possessions except the clothes on his body and the dog by his side, taught me an incredible lesson.

It's just stuff. And it's not worth more than the safety of another human being.

Every time I get a new claim, I take a recorded statement from each of the involved parties. There are several questions about their personal info, the scene of the accident, and what happened. But there are two questions that I ask every time to which I rarely get the answer I'm hoping for: Were there any witnesses? Did anyone stop to help? Nine times out of ten, the answer is "no." NO?! Were people so busy that day that they forgot what it meant to be human?! To CARE about the safety and condition of people around them?

A man heard a crash outside of his house, stopped what he was doing, and ran outside to help. He could have stayed inside. He could have ignored the sound of the crash, or dismissed it as someone else's problem. But he didn't.

And his story touched my heart. So I am sharing it, in the hopes of maybe changing the way others react to the people and circumstances around them.