Several years ago, my husband was sitting in bumper to bumper traffic. The night before Thanksgiving, everyone trying to get home or out of town. He was coming up to a freeway exit he passed every day for 5 years and didn’t take. He oddly thought that he should take the exit and go by his old job location. He worked with my family in the one of the traditional long business complexes that was divided into multiple spaces. Parking in back with tall cinderblock wall behind the parking and building. One of the
other businesses used to sell small items you would see in convenient stores. If products didn’t move, they would toss boxes of them into the dumpster. My husband delighted in finding these treasures when he worked in the complex, five years before.

He didn’t even know if the business was still there, but just had the urge to go check. He took the exit, drove into the driveway pulling around to the back where the dumpsters were kept. It was pitch black except for his headlights. Everyone had gone home and all offices empty. As he shifted his truck to put the lights on the dumpster area, they reflected off of a dark car sitting in the parking area. He figured it was just an empty car left by an employee but it wasn’t parked correctly in a stall.

He suddenly heard a woman screaming and the back door of the car flew open. He could see a young lady trying to get out of the car. She was pulled back in.

My husband remembered he had a tire iron in the truck and grabbed it. He stepped out of the truck and slowly approached the car. The young woman again, half out of the car was screaming that she had been kidnapped and he was trying to rape her. My husband is a large man and holding the tire iron in clear view instructed the man to release the girl. Don could see that she had been beaten and was frantic to get away. The man yelled out that is was a lover’s quarrel and that she was overreacting. My husband moved closer to the car and explained that he wasn’t leaving until he released her. Obviously she did not want to be with him and that it didn’t matter if they were lovers.

The young lady finally pulled away from him and ran to my husband and hid behind him. Don told the man that he had already called the police and that they would be there soon. That he should leave while he could. He hadn’t called the police so very much a bluff. My husband slowly backed up with the girl and got her to his truck. The whole time the man is screaming for her to get back into the car, and trying to tell my husband he would take
her home.

Don could see how viciously this man had hurt the girl and just wanted to get her to safety. The man in the car finally took off. Once Don had her in his truck, she explained that this was an ex boyfriend who had begged her to meet him and talk. When she finally did, he grabbed her, drove 60 or so miles with her, hitting and smacking her while they drove down the freeway. He pulled into this deserted parking lot and dragged her into the back seat.

She didn’t want to call the police out of fear of the man’s threats and asked my husband to take her to a public place where she could call her family. He took her to a nearby grocery store and instructed her to head to the manager’s office and if she saw the man to start screaming her head off.

As he left, my husband felt very uncomfortable and went to the police station and reported the incident. They sent a car over and picked up the young lady. While she was at the station, her ex-boyfriend called her threatening to finish the job and kill her if she reported the attack. What he didn’t realize was, she had her phone on speaker and all the officers heard his threats.

He was arrested shortly that same evening. The officers told my husband that if he hadn’t shown up and stepped in, they truly felt she would have been raped and killed. The attack was so brutal.

I believe that prayers are answered, I believe that my husband and his sense of responsibility was sent to answer her prayer for help. I believe that if we all took the risk of stepping in, without fear for ourselves, that we could answer prayers. If we would be sensitive to promptings, that we could be used in the greater good of mankind.