Angels In The Storm -- A Story From O'Connor's Standard Service

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(To listen to this story, click on the photo above.)

Each time my foot pressed on the accelerator, the wrecker’s wheels just spun, adding their own desperate howl to a ferocious winter wind that was causing near-whiteout conditions. The rear tires on the little wrecker just couldn’t get a bite on the sheet of sheer ice that covered the top of the steepest gravel road in Mitchell County.

The blowing snow had hidden the ice sheet from view as I tried to ascend the hill, naively thinking I could outrun Mother Nature and her storm that just didn’t seem to want to quit. The lull that had sent me into the country to rescue a stranded motorist was over. It was snowing hard again, the sun was rapidly descending behind the horizon and to make things worse, the wind that had been fueling the snowstorm had picked up again. And now the wrecker was stranded like a turtle on top of a fence post. I was stuck, no two ways about it.

How did I manage to get myself into this frozen pickle of a situation?

I was 17 years old and it was day-three of a snowstorm I’ll never forget. Winter storms like this meant all hands on deck at O’Connor’s Standard Service. My dad took great pride in owning and operating a “real” service station where you could buy gasoline and have your car worked on by qualified mechanics. The operation also included a towing service.

We had two wreckers. The larger of the two, the “big wrecker” was one size short of a semi and could haul semi tractors. The other, aptly named, the “little wrecker,” was used for cars and pickups. Both wreckers and our pickup each carried a commercial generator used for jump-starting cars, and all three were outfitted with business-band and citizen-band (CB) radios so we could communicate with the station, each other, and local law enforcement in emergency situations.

It was late afternoon on the third 16-hour-day in a row. Minds and bodies were weary. Storms like this were hard on equipment and harder on people. My dad and a helper were north of town on U.S. Highway 218 pulling a semi out of the ditch. Another two-man crew in the pickup was in town moving from call to call feverishly attempting to jump-start car engines that were frozen stiff by temperatures in the teens, while drifting snow threatened to cover the cars, temporarily interring them in graves of snow and ice.

I too had been crisscrossing the city of Osage jump-starting cars with the starting unit on the little wrecker when a call came in from a woman who was stuck out by Sunny Brae Golf & Country Club. She owned a cabin down by the river and thought it would be a good idea to drive out and make sure the storm hadn’t caused any damage. The cabin was fine, but she got stuck in a snow drift as she tried to get on the road from her driveway. Hence her desperate call for a wrecker.   

Sunny Brae is located two miles south of Osage in a valley bordered by soaring limestone bluffs and the Cedar River. You have two routes to choose from. Back in 1981, both involved gravel roads, which could be really dicey during storms.* The “back way” from the north, or Mitchell County Road T-38, which runs south of Osage and connected with a gravel road running west down to the river and Sunny Brae.

The “back way” took longer as you had to drive through town and then meander south on a gravel road through the countryside. On a normal day it was a pretty drive and the plus was that the final hill that took you down into the valley was more gradual than the hill on the east.  

Taking T-38 was much faster and only required a half-mile of driving on gravel, but that route meant negotiating a very steep down-hill slope. Even on a clear summer day people slowed down for that hill. It was what my dad liked to call “a real booger.”

I had come in via the “back way.” After about 30 minutes of digging, positioning and re-positioning, I was able to extricate the woman and her Chevy Luv from the deep snow. I watched the little car drive up the smaller of the two hills as I re-spooled the winch cable and stowed the heavy “J hook” used for attaching the winch cable to a car’s axle.

The snow and wind had both picked up. The road was rapidly filling up with snow, making it very difficult to judge where the road-edge stopped and the ditch started. The last thing I wanted to do was put the wrecker in the ditch and incur my dad’s wrath. I was already pointed toward the east, so I thought I’d just put it in low gear and “let ‘er buck” as Dad always said.

That decision had placed me squarely in my current frozen-pickle of a situation.

I peered into the over-sized rear-view mirrors. It was 50 yards to the bottom of the hill. On my left was the hill face. On my right, a 30-foot drop. And to top it off, the road curved slightly to the left as it descended.

My only choice was to try to back down the hill. I knew full well that no one in their right mind would even think about backing down that hill on a dry, sunny summer day. This was the complete opposite. I had no expectation of making it to the bottom without going over the cliff. I just hoped the wrecker wouldn’t be too damaged in the crash that was to come. I also hoped I’d survive.  

I took a deep breath and let it out as I shifted into neutral. I was concerned that putting it in gear would cause the wheels to spin and cause added control problems. As I popped the clutch and slowly released the break, I remember saying out loud, “Please God, be with me.”

The wind went from strong to gale-force. Within seconds I knew I was in trouble. I couldn’t see the end of the wrecker’s hood. It was a white out.

The wrecker picked up speed as gravity took over. Then my fears came true. The truck began to weave left and right, at one point bouncing into snow drifts on the left, sending me sliding directly toward the cliff edge. Then the passenger side-wheels hit something, causing the wrecker to go into a full 180-degree spin. I braced for impact.

Suddenly the wild ride stopped. The wind paused. All was still. As I looked out of the windshield I realized I was safely back at the bottom of the hill, right where I started, but now facing north and the smaller of the two hills. It was nothing short of a miracle! I took it as a sign from heaven and carefully took the “back way” into town just as the sun dropped behind the horizon.

On a cold and snowy night 20 years later I read the book, “Where Angels Walk,” by Joan Anderson. The author tells multiple stories about supposed real-life encounters with angels. In each case, the person who was helped or guided by angels had literally asked God to send help.

I immediately thought of that very cold and scary day. In my mind nothing but divine intervention can explain my wild trip down that hill.

Were there angels in the storm protecting me that day? I have no doubt.

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Ed O'Connor and the "little wrecker," circa 1980.

*Both roads are now paved and both hill grades were reduced in the process. 
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