Stories of Kindness from Around the World

One afternoon I'd been driving down the freeway when I spotted what looked like a stalled car. I noticed that other cars had slowed in order to briefly gawk at the stalled car, rudely holding up traffic in the process. I took it upon myself to pull up behind the car and find out what was going on. Suddenly, this pregnant woman steps out, and she appears to be in pain. I approached the woman asking if I can help, she said, "Please call my husband I am trying to get to the hospital. My water has broke!" Stunned as I was, I said "We have no time for that. Quick! Get in my car and I will take you." I threw a towel from my trunk on the passenger side seat and away we went.

I was very nervous to say the least as my driving had to be both quick and steady so that my passenger would not move around a lot. I tried offering positive feedback as we made our way through, like "Everything's going to be ok" and "We're almost there." Offering more and more reassurances. As we pulled up to the hospital entrance, I ran out as quickly as I could after parking to alert the staff, shouting incessantly to have them bring out a wheelchair to bring her in. It seemed a bit surreal answering the staff's questions about her given that we'd just met a few minutes prior and I knew nothing about her outside of her name.

15 minutes later I witnessed a speeding BMW pull into the hospital lot with a gentleman running out of the car at full speed. As he approached the automatic doors opening, I crossed my arms with a smile and said "Oh, you must be Marcus." "Yes!" he proclaimed, wheezing from sprinting. "Where is she? Are you the one that brought her?" he asked. "Yes", I said, "her car stalled on the freeway, she is in room 42." Not wasting any time he thanked me handed me a $100 bill and went sprinting for the delivery room.

At that moment I'd remembered having the SMILE card in my glove box. I walked out and grabbed it and walked back in over to room 42 where the woman had been stabilized. The nurse informed me that she'd asked me to come in to thank me. I told her that interestingly enough I had something similar happen to me when my second child was born and we had a good laugh over the story. On the way out I'd asked a staff member to give the woman and her husband the envelope with the SMILE card. It's contents included the $100 bill with a note that read "Baby's college fund." Whew! What a day.