Community help appreciated

To the editor:

I want to give a huge thank you to several people who all took part in changing the perspective of one person. Kevin Thompson was in a horrible accident that took two lives, and he was stranded for one week in the city of Marion. I met him at the hospital where he had been taken after the accident.

The first thing he told me was how great the nurses were and that the food was amazing. He also told me that he had nothing but the clothes on his back because everything else was in the truck that was towed to Galva.

Amy Richmond contacted Mrs. Conyers at the hospital auxiliary, and we were able to get him clothes. They did not charge him anything and he was amazed again. I drove him to Galva where we were told that he could not enter his truck or even look at it.

He was not able to get his medicine, but I took him to get what he needed. We put him in the motel where he stayed for the next week. I cannot imagine being stranded in a small town with no clothes, no money, no toiletries, and a phone that was broken in the wreck.

I took him to Edward’s to eat on Friday morning. Big Mike met him and handed him some money, and told him to pass it forward.

Chris Ensley drove him to Emporia to try to get his phone fixed. Instead, he had to buy a new phone.

Everything was moving slow for him, and the emotional pain was obvious. He told me no matter how you looked at it, he had killed two people. What a burden to carry.

The load he was carrying was nut butter that had to be kept cool. He thought he had enough diesel to keep it cool for about seven days. He worked with his company to try to put more diesel into the trailer. That was not going to happen.

Then Mrs. Zorn got involved. She made phone calls, and she even wrote a story about the incident and Kevin’s plight.

Amazingly, the place in Galva became interested in trying to help, and things started happening.

I just want to thank so many people who reached out to this gentleman.

His wife sent us a message that simply said, “We have never been treated like that in our entire life, thank you to everyone in Marion, Kansas, and we will be coming there so that we can thank everyone personally.”

Carl Helm, Marion