The Stranger Who Helped Us

“What!”, the doctor exclaimed, “What are you saying; so, it happened again!”, and there was panic among all the hospital staff surrounding us. They looked at each other and murmured something with a sense of disbelief in their eyes, as me, my injured husband, and my two bleeding children tried to piece together the puzzle and absorb what had just happened to us!

Our family was on a road trip in the Western Mountain ranges, halting at various tourist places, enjoying the rainy weather of August and the pleasant greenery surrounding us. The foggy dusk had set in, and we were waiting for these curvy roads on this steep valley to soon take us to the plains of the next village, where we were planning to halt for the night. Suddenly, at a strange, twisted turn, my husband loudly exclaimed that the visibility has become nearly zero; and Boom…. Our car crashed into the rocky cliffside, hitting some large boulders, and came to a screeching halt almost two meters down the edge of the cliff. The car’s motion was thankfully obstructed by some boulders and tall bushes. We all were hurt but we were safe. My husband had lost consciousness for a while because of the sudden trauma and my little daughter was crying loud out of fear. It was already dark by now and it was drizzling. The car was reasonably damaged, and the headlights seemed to have stopped working. We waited for nearly an hour, expecting some car to pass by, but there was no one around.

Suddenly, we heard a knock on our car’s window. It was a strange-looking man. I requested my husband not to open the glass pane as he looked like a robber, but he said we could get some help and lowered the glass to speak to him. The man was calm. He looked at our injuries and said, “Let me take you to the emergency hospital nearby. Come get out of the car and let’s pull it off the edge to the main road. Immediately, my husband and my 15-year-old son rushed out of the car. My husband asked me to take the driver’s seat and reverse the car as

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much as I could. Even my little girl got down to do her bit and pushed the car backward. After a lot of effort, the car was back on the road. The man volunteered to sit in our car’s front seat and guided us to the small emergency hospital amidst the dense jungle down the hill, a few kilometers away from where we were. We thanked him many times and my husband also offered him some money which he promptly refused and walked away on the narrow path towards the mountains. The hospital staff came rushing to us with stretchers and took us inside.

They started treating us, and as we narrated our horrific ordeal, they began panicking and repeated, “It’s the same man” to one another.

A year ago, at the same time, a peasant from a nearby village, who used to travel to his work daily through the mountains on his cycle had skidded and met with a severe accident on the same spot. He held on to a small branch of a tree for hours, hoping some rescue would arrive, and finally succumbed to his injuries, as he fell off the cliff. His body was discovered the next day at the foot of the mountain range and later bought to this hospital. Since the monsoon had begun this year, ours is the fourth accident case in those perilous mountains at the same spot and all the rescued families have claimed to have been saved by this ‘stranger’ who helped them out of nowhere and guided them to this hospital. They all described the encounter with him as a very similar one to what we had, including his appearance and his white and grey checked shirt.

Shocked as we were, we tried to piece together the conversation we had with him, his strange mannerism and gestures, his cold and empty eyes, along with his helpfulness and concern for our wellbeing. It took us some time to come to terms with reality; or can I say, with ‘what lies beyond reality’.

As we were being treated, we were very thankful to the hospital staff and the Almighty for saving us, and more so ever, to the ‘stranger’ who helped us.