On the evening of Dec. 23, 2023, Spire Service Technician Charley Richardson got a call about a possible gas leak in the city of Mount Vernon in southwest Missouri.
Odd thing was, Spire didn’t have any gas service within 5 miles of the address.
After checking with the city to see if it was possible someone had smelled gas blowing in from another area, Richardson decided to drive out to the location just in case. It was a good thing he did.
As he got out of his vehicle at the intersection of a rural highway, he glanced 20 feet down into the nearby embankment and was shocked to see a small Lincoln SUV in the ditch. Scrambling down, he went to the driver-side window. Inside the car was an older woman who smiled up at him, cradling her small dog.
She explained that she’d missed the turn under rainy driving conditions and had gone straight down the embankment. She wasn’t hurt, and the car wasn’t damaged. “Then I noticed the presents,” said Richardson. “The car was just full of wrapped Christmas presents”—destined for her son and his family in Monett.
Richardson planned to call a tow truck, but the woman was running late and asked if he’d just try to get the car out himself. So, after helping her up to the side of the road, Richardson hopped back in her car—with her little dog sitting right next to him—and gave it his best.
His first two tries didn’t work. But outside, the woman was cheering him on—“Come on, come on!”—and on the third try, the tires got some traction, and he was able to get the car out. After giving him a big hug, “off she went,” said Richardson.
It was, in more ways than one, a Christmas miracle. If Richardson hadn’t been sent to that exact address, it was unlikely that anyone else would have come by on the dark road, especially with temperatures dropping and snow beginning to fall. Plus, the SUV was impossible to see unless someone was standing on the embankment.
“I was happy to see that no one was injured, first of all,” said Richardson. “And to be able to help her get where she was going, to spend Christmas with her family, that was a great feeling. It made my night.”