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In The Direst
of Emergencies
You Absolutely
Need the Right Tools
This is the story of
John Stone, a widower who moved to Florida in
his late 60’s to spend his “golden years” in a
warm climate. Before leaving the Cleveland
area, his friends and neighbors held a “Survive
in Florida” party to wish him farewell.
The “Survival” party
invitation said for guests to bring John a gift
that either pokes fun or a serious gift that
will fit his needs for life in Florida.
John left the party
loaded down with gifts, including a big straw
hat, a fan, suntan lotion, a toy alligator, an
umbrella for the daily summer showers, a
snakebite kit and many other things, including
something called an auto emergency tool kit,
which he threw into his glove compartment
without examining it closely.
After settling in, John
began putting down some roots. He joined a
church, he joined the local American Legion
Club, he volunteered to deliver bags of food to
local needy families and he gradually began to
develop a circle of friends and become active.
One day John read in the
local paper than a couple that he had met at
church had been killed in an automobile
accident. It was a one-vehicle accident that
the newspaper article reported was “all too
familiar an occurrence in Florida.” It seems
that for whatever reason, the husband had driven
off the road and into one of the many canals
that criss-cross the landscape throughout the
state.
In this instance, the
canal was unfortunately a fairly deep one and
the auto quickly sank beneath the water
completely. When rescue workers got to the car,
the doors were locked, all of the windows were
shut tight, and the elderly couple was dead in
the front seat. The article quoted the rescue
workers as conjecturing that the couple could
not get out of the car because of the water
pressure, so they were trapped in the vehicle.
The incident haunted
John’s memory for some time. He attended the
funeral, then went on with his life.
But as fate would have
it, about 18 months later, John was driving down
a road near his house, a road alongside an
adjacent canal. Out of nowhere, a car sped
through a stop sign to his left, hit his car
broadside, and sent it right into the canal. It
sank quickly.
His mind flashed back to
his friends’ accident awhile back and he feared
the worst. But he knew he must not panic. It
flashed in his mind that he had to wait until
the car filled up with water inside to equal the
pressure on both sides of the door so that he
can open them. So he calmly sat there, keeping
his head above the water level as long as
possible.
When he felt the
pressure must be evened out he started pushing
on the door to open it. The door would not
budge. He tried and tried, to no avail. Then
he remembered the emergency tool kit he got at
the going away party up north that he threw into
the glove compartment. He retrieved it, opened
it, and there was a hammer, which gave him
hope. He started banging on his car window as
hard as he could and it gave way. When there
was enough weakness in it, he put his legs up
and pushed the rest of the window away.
Quickly, he crawled through the opening and
darted to the surface.
Though he felt close to
drowning, John survived. That evening, he
called his friend back in Cleveland who had
given him the gift to thank him. “You saved my
life,” John told his friend. “No, his friend
replied, the emergency tool kit saved your
life.”
John asked his friend where he got it, because
he wanted to buy several to give out to some of
his new friends in Florida in case they ever
need it. He was told to go to
www.yoursecurityandsafety.com/emergencytool.htm |
