Narrator (11:41)

Ooh. Don't go anywhere. Bill's car has just gone off the edge of a cliff. He's alone, it's raining, he's injured. Find out what. Who comes next? Snap Judgment. Snap Judgment is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. You're listening to the Don't Look Back special. We're featuring stories crafted in the dark of night from our sister show Spooked. And when last we left, Bill had just crashed his car off the side of a cliff in a remote area. He was severely injured. He began reaching for saplings on the side of the mountain to try and somehow make his way to safety. Snap Judgment.

Valerie (13:11)

And I tried to pull myself up, and I got up a little bit and I was able to get One of my feet on a rock to try to push myself up a little further. And I looked up the cliff, and I realized it's almost straight up. Then I reached up to try to grab another sapling. I just.

Narrator (13:34)

I was.

Valerie (13:35)

I just didn't have the strength. I didn't feel like I could do it. Up about another 40ft or so, I felt somebody looking at me up to the right. And there's a guy sitting on the front porch of this house wearing a fedora, hat, slacks, and a shirt, sitting on the edge of the porch. And he had one leg propped up, and he was smoking a cigarette. But from where I was down in that creek bed, the house was. It would have been a tough. A tough walk up to that house when our eyes met. Then he took a cigarette and flipped it on the ground and walked over and got in his car and started backing out that driveway. And when he came to the end of that driveway, I lost sight of him. I couldn't see that part right there where his car came to the main road. And then all of a sudden, he kind of appears up above me. So he's up on the main road, and I could see him from maybe the shoulders up. And he still had on his fedora. He stuck his head out the window, and he said, hey, buddy, if you can get up this hill, I'll take you in town to the hospital. Yes. When he. When he made his offer to me, I was still pretty far down that cliff, and it was almost straight up. So that's when I started climbing up the hill. There were enough of those little tree saplings about the size of your wrist. They were about that size that I could grab one, pull myself up, and then put my foot on that one and reach up and grab another one and put. And, you know, it seemed like I had. I don't know. When I first tried to do it before I noticed him, I couldn't do it. But when I knew he was up there, suddenly I just. I don't know, it was like I had some kind of superpower. I could hoist myself up, up that cliff. I was surprised that I did it. Before I knew it, I was at. When I got to the top of the little cliff and I reached up and I grabbed his door handle and opened the door, and I got in. I'm really bloody. I mean, I'm gonna. I'm gonna make a mess. His car was kind of an older car, probably from the late 40s. It seemed like his entire car. The clothes he was wearing the house and everything had no color to it. There was. There was no red. There was no. Everything was gray and brown. And he drives maybe a quarter of a mile or so, and he had this jacket kind of wadded up in the. In the seat between the two of us. He picked up his jacket and without looking at me, looking straight ahead, handed it over to me and said, you know, buddy, I was in the war, and I've seen people hurt like this, and if you don't do something about it, you're going to die. Take my jacket, put it on your head and hold it real tight. I took the jacket from him, and when he handed it to me, I recognized it immediately because my father had one exactly like it. His jacket was a military jacket, an old waist length jacket with kind of stretchy sleeves and a stretchy bottom and zipped up the front. I just took it to the top of my. I do remember reaching up and making sure that my little piece of skin was in the correct place there. My scalp. And I put the jacket down on the top of my head and held it really firm. And I held it there all the way to town. When we got close to my hometown of Paintsville, he said, which hospital do you want to go to? And I said, well, my mom used to work at the clinic, so let's go to that one. So in about a minute or two, we're at the clinic, which was on Main Street. He pulled up in front and he said, I can't get out of the car. Can you. Are you okay? Can you make it? And I said, yeah, I think I'm gonna be okay. I was really weak, but I opened the door, got out, and it was only like three steps that I had to step up. And he drove off. So he turned to the left and drove back in the same direction we had come in. You know, I can't really remember much. I'd lost a lot of blood. When I got into the hospital, somehow I got upstairs to where the operating room was. The next thing I realized that I was lying on an operating table and somebody had a kind of a bowl underneath the back of my head, and they're sewing me up. They had called my mother. She came there and she was saying, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, I'm all right. I'm fine. And she said, yeah, they gave you 55 stitches. You've got a cut all the way across the back of your head. You know, thank goodness you got here. And who was. Who was the guy that brought You. And I said, I have no idea. After I got out of the hospital, after about three days, I believe my father said, why don't we go back out there and talk to that guy and talk to him about cleaning his car up, because you evidently bled in it a lot. So we drove out to the scene where this happened. We just pulled out right there. And he said, you know, right down there is where you went, went over. And you could see the place where, where the car slid over. And you could see the place in the, in the gully that I had made on the right hand side. And you could see on the left hand side of the road where I had gone over the cliff and where I'd hit this rock. And there was glass and stuff still down at the bottom of that little ra. When we went out there, we pulled up to that little driveway. We just pulled out right there. And he said, there's no way you could have been in that driveway. That little road that led from the main Road, Highway 40, over to his house was grown up with weeds. Weeds like waist high, some of them really big weeds. And there was no way a car could have been parked between that road and that house. We're talking about three or four days. There's no way those weeds could have grown up in just three or four days. Now, I know I just had a traumatic accident. You know, I got hit in the head. So maybe I don't remember things correctly, but I distinctly remember his car sitting in the driveway and him walking out and getting in that car. So I asked, you know, my girlfriend's mom and dad and other people that lived around there, who, who is this guy? They said, nobody has lived in that old house for a long time. So whoever he was, he doesn't live. You know, at the time, yeah, I was only 19 years old. I was just happy to be alive and healing up and back to school, get on with my life. But as time has gone by, I think about this. I don't think I'm special or, you know, that somebody saved me for something. But I've always wondered if maybe there's something I'm supposed to have done or have done. Maybe I've already done it, or maybe I haven't done it yet. Have you ever heard the story about the little old lady whose car has broken down and a guy comes along and stops and helps her and she says, thank you very much. Can I pay you? He goes, no, no, no, you don't owe me anything. Just the chain of love continues. She Goes in a little restaurant for a bite to eat, and a waitress who's pregnant comes over, and the lady says, I'll. I'll pay it forward. And leaves her a big tip of, like, hundreds of dollars. And then that night, the waitress is home with her husband and says, a lady gave me this big tip, and her husband is the guy. The guy that helped the old lady, I believe in. Ten years later, almost exactly 10 years later, it was Christmas Eve, 1971. I was driving home to see my mother in Paintsville, Kentucky. And in the middle of the exit ramp was a car upside down. And I had heard that sometimes people do block exit ramps, and when you get out to help, you know, they waylay you. So I parked on up the exit ramp. So I was, I don't know, 50ft away or something like that. I opened my trunk and got my tire iron, big metal iron out, and I kind of held it behind my leg as I walked down there. Well, I realized pretty soon that this really was a wreck. And the two guys that were standing there evidently had come by next, and they were both drunk. They didn't know what to do. And I. I came up and I said, you know, what's going on? They said, you know, this guy's wrecked, and we can see him in. And the car started burning a little bit. It was upside down, and when the hot gas hit the muffler, it started to flame. And this thing is going to burn up pretty, pretty soon. So one of the guys said, you know, we need to break that window. I happen to have that tire iron in my hand. You know, we. We mashed the window out, broke all the glass out. And one of those guys pulled this guy out of his car and one of his Christmas gifts, one gift out of his car, and he had it full. I mean, he was surrounded by. And these were all wrapped packages with ribbons, and they were all around him. He must have had the whole back of that car full of gifts for his family. When the car caught on fire, they all burned up, burst into flame, and we gave him the one gift that we've been able to save out of the car. In the meantime, they called the local fire department. They were putting out the fire. And I drove on home to see mother. But I just wonder, maybe that was it. It happened almost exactly 10 years later. Or maybe it hasn't happened yet.

Narrator (28:52)

Spooksters, let this be a reminder to you. Always take extra care when rounding those tight curves. You never know who's going to be nearby watching over you. A big thank you to Bill Love for sharing your story with the Spooked. The original score for that piece was by Leon Morimoto. It was produced by Annie Nguyen. Don't go anywhere because after the break, we're back on the road, headed to rural Montana and a snowstorm is coming. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. You're listening to the Don't Look Bad special. My name is Dylan Washington and we're sharing stories from our supernatural sister show, Spooked. Now, I've heard some people driving, listening to Spooked, they get so engaged they forget to make their turn. I understand, but what if you really did get lost? Really lost, who come to save you? Our next story comes to us from the wilds of rural Montana, Snap Judgment.

Bill (30:59)

I was an emt, which is the emergency medical technician in Dillon, Montana. This story takes place on New Year's Eve, 1987. I was having dinner with my boyfriend at that time, his name was Hank. And we were having New Year's Eve dinner. I was on call 247 and so I just wore a pager all the time and I got a page and the page said, man down in alley. And so I immediately responded and I said I had to go on this call. So I got to the young man, he was about 14 years old and he was having seizures. The boy had freckles, he was a red headed green eyed boy. So we were trying to contain him enough to protect him. But he was 14, he was a pretty, pretty good sized boy. And it took a lot of the police and these guys are big guys to control his bodies enough that we could strap him down. We transport him to the hospital, which was about three minutes away, and they immediately did blood tests and they came back and told us that there was cocaine in his system. And they said there must have been something else in there, laced it with something and that they were going to keep him, you know, put him in ICU right away. And actually, as I'm thinking about this, I remember with that boy making eye contact with him at one time and he knew he wasn't going to be okay. He knew. And yet we went for it anyway. We did everything to save that boy's life. Even though his body was still there, there was something missing. He wasn't dead, his body was alive, but his soul had already moved on. So I'm going to ask you just to imagine that it was New Year's Eve in your life and you had just seen a young boy in grand mal's seizures. And then you find out that the reason this boy is so seriously ill is because he got some cocaine that was laced with something. Would you get mad? Especially if you knew that the man that possibly brought in the drugs was your boyfriend. When I went home, I just couldn't sleep because I knew that Hank was bringing in drugs. And it was just so upsetting to me that perhaps that boy got one of his drugs. I went to bed for a little bit. It's about 3:00 in the morning. And I got in my car and that's one way that I can calm my little spirit is by going into nature, going for a drive. It's cold, it's dark, and in Montana, these old roads, I mean, they're just two lane highways. And I just headed to where I knew where it was always calming for me, which was Yellowstone park, which was about three hours away. So it was a nice little drive. I probably hit there maybe 5:30 in the morning or something. It was still dark and I remember turning off and then I just went, wow, this road doesn't seem like the same place that I usually go. It was cold, it was very cold and there was probably about 2 1/2, 3ft of snow. I think the biggest thing I was thinking was I knew that they were bringing those drugs in and it made me very mad. And so my mind was really playing tapes of if I did this, I could do this, if I did that, I could do this. I realized I was lost probably about an hour up the road. And it was just the wind was shaking the car when I was driving, it was just blowing so hard, this blizzard. And I knew I couldn't try and turn around because I would get stuck. And then I went, man, this is not good. As I'm driving, the snow is literally just coming over. The car was so deep I was pushing through it and. And it was coming over the top of the car. And I reached down into my Jockey box to see if I had any food. And I had a half a piece of gum and I didn't have any water, I didn't have any other food. I still had about a half a tank of gas or so. And I decided that if I would stop and then just turn the engine off until I, you know, got really cold and then I would start it up. I probably had enough gas for about six hours. I don't even know where I am and there is so much snow and the blizzard is happening. If this continues, my car will be completely covered. They won't find me. And I went, this is it. This is where I'm gonna. This is where I'm gonna die. And I just kept thinking about my daughter, Brandy. And then I heard a truck come up behind me. And this guy pulls up. He's got this about. I think it was about a 60 Ford pickup, blue and white. He had a cowboy hat on. He's got the guns, and in the back, I would say he was probably in his 50s. He was really tall. He had a brown hat, and his hair was kind of that dirty blondie brown. It was all straggling. He had a beard and blue jeans, and his face was full of wrinkles. And he just said, what in the hell are you doing out here? And started yelling at me. And I'm like, I don't really know what I'm doing out here. I think I told him, I think I'm lost. And he just kept asking me, who are you? Who are you? And I was trying to tell him who I was, but he wouldn't listen to me. He just kept on, who are you? What are you doing? What are you doing? And I really started getting scared because he was getting pretty loud, you know, and the rifles are in the truck. And he looked at my plates. He says, you're from Montana. I said, yeah. And he says, well, do you even know where you are? And I said, I have no clue. And he says, well, you're in Idaho. And he said, I'll follow you, and I'm going to show you how to get out of here. And so I got in my car and started driving. And there's still no road. And he was so close to me that I could. I could see him. He had green eyes. They were emerald green eyes. And he was right on my tail. And then he starts honking his horn, just laying on his horn. So I stopped, and he walks up to my car and he. And he says, okay, down there, you're gonna. Do you see the telephone post? And I could see him in the distance. And he says, just follow the fence line. And you could see a fence line down there. And he says, it'll get you to that town. And then he says, there's a gas station down there. Go to the house and knock on the door in the back of the gas station, and they'll help you. And I got in the car, and I'm driving, and he's right on my butt again. I was watching where I was going, but also watching him. And then he just vanished. Just disappeared. And I thought, well, he must have taken A road or went off the road, you know, off somewhere. And so I stopped and I got out. And then I backed up a little bit because it was like, where could it be gone? He just disappeared. There was no sign. And then I looked down and there was only one set of tracks, and they were my car tracks. There was no other car tracks. There were no truck tracks. This is weird. Like, how could that have happened? Because I know he was there. I never touched him and he never touched me. But I could smell his breath. I could. You know, I could feel the heat coming off his body. He was so close to me. For him just to vanish like that, it was like, what could that have been? I got chicken skin, you know, like, even though he was really angry, that man was really angry at me. There was a genuine caring about me. I remember looking into his eyes and wondering, where. Where did he come from? And then I remembered that boy and he had the same kind of eyes. They were green. Although the little boy's eyes were all bloodshot and stuff. It was like the same eyes, same color eyes, that emerald green. Oh, my God. It was the spirit of that boy. And I know that's who came. I got back in my car after checking out the car track thing and headed. Headed towards the telephone post, and I got to a little town called Dubois, and I stopped and went to the house, knocked on the door. They gave me some gas, and then I headed back to my brother's house where they were having a New Year's Day party.

Narrator (43:10)

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Valerie, for sharing your story. Valerie's story comes to us from the book Trucker Ghost Stories. It's edited by Annie Wilder. Original score was by Leon Morimoto, is produced by Eliza Smith. Oh, yes. This is but one episode crafted in the dark of night. If you want more Spooked, if you need more Spooked, the new season of Spooked is streaming right now. Spooky Season of the Wolf. Amazing stories from people who can scarcely believe it happened themselves, available this very moment on each and every podcast platform. Spooped. Spooped was created by the team that walks under the light of the full moon, except, of course, for Mark Ristich. We can't get those roller skates off him. There's Anna Sussman, Eliza Smith, Chris Hambrick. Ain't he Nguyen. Lauren Newsome, Leon Morimoto, Davey Kim, Renzo Goriot, Taylor Dukat, Marisa Dodge, Zoe Ferrigno, Tiffany, Liza Ann Ford, Doug Stewart, Isaiah Sims. The Spook theme song is by Pat Mesini Miller. My name is Lynn Washington. Know that people tend to hide the things most dear to them in the darkness, in the underground, in the shadow. The first mistake is to fail to consider who you are hiding your secrets from. As for me, everything I hold dear, I like to keep it close. And I never ever, never, ever, ever, ever turn out the.