A truck driver changed a woman's life after a car accident — and said she changed his

Transcript

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Time now for "My Unsung Hero," our series from the team at Hidden Brain. "My Unsung Hero" tells the stories of people whose kindness left a lasting impression on someone else. And today's story comes from Frances Brisse. One day in February 2023, Brisse was in the car with her son, his wife and her three grandkids, going down Interstate 95 in Georgia. All of a sudden, they collided with a large truck that was driving erratically. The impact threw Brisse against the windshield. She rebounded back into the lap of her daughter-in-law whose leg was broken in the crash. They were both in immense pain, and that is when her unsung hero arrived, a truck driver named Terry Reavis.

FRANCES BRISSE: I remember hearing his voice tell my daughter-in-law, I'm going to hold her off your leg to give you some relief. I remember hearing you say that. And I felt him, and it was like it was a comfort holding me there. There was somebody comfortable holding me. And I felt OK. So they got me out of the vehicle, got an ambulance, and they got all of us to the hospital. We went to a trauma center in Jacksonville. I stayed there for 21 days. That was the hardest 21 days in my life. And I got home, and I got the police report. And I said, you know, I'm going to call some of these witnesses. I really need to know what happened.

I couldn't remember a whole lot. When I heard his voice on the phone, it was just as much comfort as it was that day. And he told me everything I said at the accident. He knew my kids' names. He knew my mother's name. He knew everything I had just went through. And I was like, wow, I said all that to you? And he's like, you changed my life. He's like, you showed me that I needed to love more.

And I didn't know what to say because God changed my life that day too. But there was a lot of good come out of a lot of bad things. Terry and us are still friends to this day. He is our highway angel. And we've stayed in touch with him to this day. We actually went and met him, and we got to sit down and have lunch with him. And when we got to hug him for the first time, it just felt comfort. It was comfort. It was somebody that cared for my family. They actually stopped and cared, and that's very hard to find. He's our hero. And we'll always stay in touch with him for the rest of our lives.

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CHANG: Frances Brisse of Homosassa, Fla. Her unsung hero, Terry Reavis, is a recipient of the 2024 Highway Angels of the Year Award. It's given out every year by the Truckload Carriers Association to truck drivers who do exceptionally good deeds on our nation's highways. You can find more stories like this at hiddenbrain.org.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.