Senior U.S. Federal District Judge James Nowlin was spending some time at his ranch last month when he had a terrible accident.
He told KHOU, "Well, as a creature of habit, I normally on Sunday afternoon when I'm at the ranch, will take the trash can out and put it on the road outside the gate where the trash guy comes on Monday morning and picks up the trash."
He was trying to avoid walking on the cattle guard, as recent snowfall made it slippery. Unfortunately he stepped on it, he slipped, and even fractured his femur in the fall. He didn't have hill cell phone handy, there was nobody else to help him, and he was only wearing a sweater and some sweatpants. And it was freezing.
For more than an hour, Nawlin laid helpless, until Elisha Infante, a driver for Strategic Growth Logistics, an Amazon Delivery Service Partner, drove by for a delivery.
She explained, "And I was turning a corner and something told me, look to my right. And I don't know what it was. I don't know if it was a spirit, an angel, the guardian of some sort or just intuition. I saw a man frantically waving his hands and he had a lot of blood on his hands, and I knew he was in a lot of trouble and I stopped. I passed him because I couldn't brake immediately, obviously, and I passed him. And I just kept thinking like, 'Oh, my gosh, what am I going to do,' you know? So I just reversed and I stopped and I knew it wasn't good because I saw he didn't have shoes on."
She called emergency services, waited half an hour for the medics to arrive, and even wrapped Nawlins in her own coat to keep him warm.
The pair kept in contact, and as a show of thanks, Nowlin bought Infante a brand new car as she had been without one for a while.
Infante hopes her story inspires others. She said, "And especially during this pandemic and during these rough times, you know, we need more kindness right now. And every single day we have a choice to be kind or to not be or to ignore people ... choose to be kind," and Nowlin echoes her sentiments. "You know, in this day and time, with all the problems they've got going on in this world, it is an indication that there are good people left in this world," he said.
