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 Lilah Clevey. One gray winter morning in 2012, Lilah started the trek from her boyfriend's house in Ann Arbor, Mich., back to her college - about an hour away. At the beginning of the drive, she stopped to get coffee and to gas up her car.
LILAH CLEVEY: And I went to pull out of the gas station. And because it was so gray, I thought I had looked. And I did not look well, and I slammed into another car. I completely T-boned it. The car was a silver gray, so I like to think it blended into the skyline, but I also know a lot of it was also me. I was not being careful about it. I was young. I felt invincible. I know that I blacked out for 10 or 20 seconds, and then I came to. My glasses had flown off, but that I actually didn't even realize for a half hour because I was so in the zone. I had such high adrenaline.
So after I came to, I got out of the car. The car I hit was, like, 30 feet away. I walked over, and I was really freaked out because her entire driver's side was slammed in. This was immediately terrifying because I knew someone was sitting there, and that meant someone was probably hurt. But the driver is standing next to the car, and she looks OK when I first look at her. And she seems more concerned about me because I'm crying like a baby because I was 19. This was such a scary thing that had happened, and I was the one who did it. So, you know, in some ways, I should have been responsible - and I was very apologetic - but I was also just, like, a baby in that moment.
And this woman, this angel, instead of yelling at me, thinking I was entitled, thinking I was reckless, she held me. She mothered me in that moment, which I really needed. And I asked if she was OK 'cause I could not believe she could be OK, and she said she was. So of course I asked again because how could I slam into her driver's side and her be OK? And she told me that she has a metal arm. And so this metal arm protected her from the blow. That felt wild to me and so lucky that the woman I happened to slam into - her arm - happened to have a prosthetic arm that was a shield that protected her.
(SOUNDBITE OF FIGURE AND GROOVE'S "NATURAL WORLD")
CLEVEY: If she was standing in front of me today, I would just tell her I appreciate people like her and that I wish there was more people like that in the world that see people for the good in them and not the mistakes they're making, especially when they're young and just trying to learn.
CHANG: That was Lilah Clevey of Petoskey, Mich. You can find more stories like this on the "My Unsung Hero" podcast.
(SOUNDBITE OF FIGURE AND GROOVE'S "NATURAL WORLD") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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