A Truck Driver, An Intern and a Coincidence...NOT

 I don't claim to know how He does it, I only know He does orchestrate the most miraculous interventions in our lives...not infrequently to save our lives.  Enjoy.

This is a classic taken from the October 1988 issue of the Reader's Digest.

Dusk had descended quickly, and Sherry Apple knew she was in danger. Apple, a thirty-four-year-old general surgery intern, had been on call at Georgia Baptist Medical Center in Atlanta (now Atlanta Medical Center) for more than two days, with only a few hours' sleep. And now fatigue was caught in her eyes as she drove to a meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, nearly 7 hours away.

She tried snapping on her CB radio, which truckers and enthusiasts used to chat and warn one another about road conditions, but the airwaves were silent. Soon the hum of the tires on the blacktop became an eerie lullaby, and Apple was blinking back drowsiness. Her car started to weave.

A lanky 41 year old trucker named Woody Key was in the cab of his 18-wheeler when his headlights picked up a silver sports car ahead, drifting out of its lane. He honked his horn and yelled into a CB microphone, "Four-wheeler, are you all right?" His lights outlined a blond in the driver's seat, her head bent forward. "Wake up, lady!" he screamed. "Wake up!"

Apple snapped to attention, for heart pounding. She picked up the CB mic. "I'm exhausted, and I'm lucky I'm still alive driving this tired. Thanks!"

"Call me Woodpecker, my CB handle," the trucker said. "I'm goin' to Kentucky. And you?"

"Kentucky."

"Well, good! I'll travel behind and help keep you awake. What's your handle?"

"Dr. Froot Loops," she told him. When he laughed, she explained that that was what the kids on the pediatric ward called her.

 

As the long miles unfolded, they swapped stories and jokes, and the time passed quickly.  Woodpecker and Dr. Froot Loops parted near the Kentucky state line.  She thanked him for keeping her awake and safe on the long, dark road.  “I enjoyed the talk,” he said.  The truck rumbled past, and the alert, considerate stranger was gone.

Some time later, on November 22, 1986, a trauma alert blared from the Georgia Baptist Medical Center loudspeaker.  Apple entered the trauma unit and found several surgeons bending over the bloody form of an accident victim brought in from a two-truck collision.  Both arms and legs were broken.  His rib cage was crushed.  His face had been smashed.  Worst of all, the man’s skull was so badly cracked that Apple could see his brain pulsing.  She put both hands on his forehead, hoping to calm the thrashing victim.  She gently pleaded with him to bear the pain just a little longer.  “It’s not your time to die!” she whispered.  “You’re still young.”

In a choked whisper, he asked for her name.

“Dr. Sherry Apple”, she replied.

“No…your CB handle.”

“How did you guess I have a CB?”

“My handle is Dr. Froot Loops.”

“Oh God..It’s me…Woodpecker!”

Apple gasped---It was her truck driver.  She leaned over the battered figure and said, “It’s not your time, Woodpecker!”

The surgical team was assembled, and Key was rushed into the operating room.  Apple and a neurosurgeon performed a craniotomy—a procedure to open the skull—to stop the bleeding and relieve pressure on the brain. The team labored nearly 24 hours.

The first days out of the operating room were excruciating for Woodpecker.  He was delirious, and he writhed with fever.  Often Apple would get home and find her phone ringing.  Nurses, unable to calm Woodpecker, asked her to return.  She always did.

Gradually, after weeks of surgeries, his pain ebbed.  About two months after his accident, he was ready to leave the hospital.

As Woodpecker was pushed down the hallway in a wheelchair, he was intercepted by Apple, smiling.

“Well, look at you,” she said.

She reached her and out, and he took it in his. “I don’t think I could have made it without you,” he told her.

Apples eyes welled up.  “And I wouldn’t have made it without you.”