Aaron Tucker Missed a Crucial Interview to Save an Accident Victim #AtoZChallenge

Aaron Tucker desperately needed a job. This was a man who had just gotten out of prison following a 22 month stint (for a weapons charge), was living temporarily in a halfway house and had a 2 year old son to look after, so yes, finding a job meant a lot to him. It meant so much, in fact, that he had even bought a brand new shirt to wear just to ace the interview at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Stamford, Connecticut. He had prepped himself and was on the bus to his destination. And yet, he missed his interview.

As the bus was heading down the road, it came across a really bad car crash. The car was overturned and smoke emitted out its sides. Aaron Tucker asked the bus driver if he would stop the bus to help the wounded inside. The driver said no as he had a route to maintain. For the same reason, the driver informed him that he could not stop for even a few minutes to check if the people in the car were okay.

The car crash that Aaron and the bus came upon still had an injured man inside the car

Aaron - who probably had the most to lose in that bus - got off and with the help of a few pedestrians pulled the injured man out of the smoking car. He then took off his clean, new shirt that he had bought specially for this interview and used it as a tourniquet around the injured man's head to stop the bleeding.

"Your family wants to see you. Keep your eyes open." he repeated over and over to the injured man, waiting there on the road without a shirt on his back until an ambulance finally arrived. The man survived.






Aaron did not get the job, obviously, as he never attended the interview. This was doubly tough because all he had left in his pocket that day as he left for the interview was $2 (Rs 130.) But the community that watched him risk his own life and give up his own chance at moving forward in life just to save a stranger's life did not forget his story. They set up a GoFundMe campaign to thank Aaron Tucker for his compassion, hoping to reach a target of $35,000 ( Rs 22.6 lakhs).

In 8 months, they have nearly doubled that target ($65,900 / Rs 42 lakhs) with strangers across the world, deciding they wanted to let Aaron know he mattered.

Author's note:

This is part of my #AtoZChallenge where I will be focusing on Real Life Heroes of Kindness.

The list for this year's (2018) Heroes of Kindness can be found here.

Of course, I have been tracking these lovely human beings for years now and have found children as young as six years old and old women in their eighties from across the world who will restore your faith in humanity. You can find the entire list of Real-life Heroes of Kindness and Compassion here.