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A tragic story made news earlier this month. No doubt you saw it. A 20-month-old boy in Spring Valley was killed when a driver in a truck backed up and ran over him. Apparently, the small boy had run suddenly behind the truck, and the driver could not see him.
An investigation is under way as I write, but no charges have been filed against the driver, and rightly so, it seems. He was not negligent or reckless; he simply could not see that a child had run behind his truck.
My heart breaks for the child and his family, and also for the driver, who, I am sure, is suffering deeply. Countless others feel the same way.
The tragedy made me think of a brief incident I saw recently. It wasn’t the same kind of situation, but the potential for an accident was there. Quick action by a passerby prevented a dicey moment from turning dangerous. It made me think of the unexpected ways in which we can help one another.
As I drove along a busy main road in late afternoon, I saw a large ball, about basketball-size, bounce into the street. I remembered what my father said when he taught me to drive: a ball rolling into the street usually is followed by a child running after the ball. I slowed to a stop.
Sure enough, a boy ran out of his yard and into the street. He didn’t run into the traffic; he looked about 7 or 8 years old, and he knew enough to stop after he’d stepped off the curb. But he was close to the lane of cars going by, and he stood watching as the ball bounced toward the other side of the two-way street.
Almost instantly, a driver coming from the other direction stopped his car, pulled to the curb and jumped out. A tall, agile young man, he retrieved the ball and tossed it smoothly to the boy, who caught it and headed back to his yard. Then the man stepped into his small, silver-gray car and pulled away.
The incident was over in seconds. I marveled at the man’s attention and presence of mind. He obviously was concentrating on his driving. He saw the ball and then the child, and he knew what could happen. He managed to pull over quickly and safely in a place where there’s little room for parking. He retrieved and returned the ball, and then he was gone.
I stopped and asked the boy whether he knew the man who had helped him. I figured it was unlikely but not impossible that a family friend happened to be driving by at just the right moment. As I expected, the boy said no. The man was a stranger.
There is one more fact about the incident, and although it’s not directly relevant, I want to mention it. The man is black. The boy is white. I don’t know the man either, but I know something about him. He’s alert, he’s aware of the needs of other people, and he knows that the ties that connect us to one another transcend differences of race, ethnicity, age, neighborhood, town and anything else. We really are our brothers’ keepers, not in an intrusive way, not as busybodies, but as people who are ready to help when we see a need.
We already know the answer to the question that was put to Jesus: “Who is my neighbor?”
I don’t say that the tragedy of the boy who was run over could have been prevented. I don’t judge anyone who was involved. They need prayers, not judgment. But the incident I saw when the ball bounced into the busy street made me reflect that there are times when people who are observant and ready to act can save lives. I’m reminding myself to stay focused on what’s happening around me, and to try to be a neighbor like the man in the silver car.
