A search for the man who saved her: ‘Before Twitter goes away, maybe help me find my hero?’

A stranger became a hero to Rose Andresen on the eve of Dec. 27, 2020. When her husband, then 39, fainted at the wheel while driving on Interstate 10 near Jacksonville, Fla., the couple crashed off the side of the highway. A mystery man swooped in and saved their lives.

Andresen, 41, recalls the accident with unsettling clarity. She and her husband, Adam Terrell, were driving from North Carolina – where they were visiting her ill father-in-law – to Fort Walton Beach, Fla., where the couple was living at the time.

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They were about 10 hours into the drive, and it was dark out. They were listening to an audiobook, when suddenly, Terrell quietly said: “I don’t feel so good.”

“The next second, he was slumped over the steering column, completely unconscious,” Andresen said.

The car was on cruise control, going 70 miles an hour. Andresen managed to reach under her husband to put the hazard lights on, and she took hold of the steering wheel from the passenger seat, swerving the car across three lanes of traffic.

“Everything was slow and fast all at once,” said Andresen.

She knew they would crash, and to avoid other vehicles, she aimed for cluster of trees off the highway.

“We went through those trees and down an embankment,” Andresen remembered, adding that she couldn’t find their cellphones once the car came to a halt. “We were alone in the darkness.”

The passenger door wouldn’t open, so she climbed out the window, and went searching for help. She saw a big SUV that was headed in the opposite direction take the nearest exit, get back on the interstate and pull up beside her. He made several “deliberate, calculated decisions,” Andresen said.

The driver told her he had already called 911, then he helped her find her way back to her husband. He didn’t leave the couple’s side until the ambulance arrived.

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“No one else even slowed down,” Andresen said. He was “the only driver who stopped that night.”

The couple was rushed to the hospital, where they were both treated for broken backs. Doctors also diagnosed Terrell with a heart condition – which explained his sudden collapse – and gave him a pacemaker.

“It was a condition that he already had that we didn’t know about, that was probably exacerbated by the incredible amount of emotional distress he was under,” said Andresen, citing his father’s poor health. At the time, her own father was also critically ill, and they had plans to travel to Arizona to say goodbye to him.

Despite their anguish – both physically and emotionally – the couple was determined to thank the stranger who came to their rescue. They felt defeated when they realized his name was not listed on the police report, and they weren’t sure how else to track him down.

“It’s something that I think about a lot,” said Andresen.

On Nov. 12, the couple was chatting about how the two-year anniversary of the accident was approaching.

“It’s almost Thanksgiving, and we’re thankful to be alive,” Andresen said, adding that both she and her husband have recovered. “It feels miraculous.”

In the same conversation, they spoke about Elon Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter, and the chaotic changes on the platform. Some have speculated that the site will soon cease to exist.

“I’ve been on the internet for a very long time,” said Andresen, who is a vampire tour guide and author based in New Orleans. “I have seen the death of AOL, I have seen the death of LiveJournal and I have seen the death of MySpace.”

“I’d like to believe that Twitter is going to hang around,” she continued. “I don’t want it to go away, but experience has shown me that it might.”

So Andresen decided to put out a plea on the site, hoping to find her hero. She wrote a thread chronicling the story, and described the driver as best she could.

“I remember almost nothing about him. He was driving a bigger SUV. Maybe it was brown, or blue?” she wrote. “There was a child’s artwork on the floorboard of the passenger seat. He was kind. He kept me calm. He stayed til help arrived.”

“If there’s any way to find him before this site goes dark, I’d like to do so. I would like to be able to thank him for stopping. I’d like to be able to tell him that we lived,” she wrote in another tweet. “I want him to know that not a day goes by that I don’t think of his kindness. As we approach the 2-year anniversary of the accident, I’d like, very much, to be able to thank him in person, or over the phone. Help me with this long shot?”

People on Twitter sprang to action. Some shared suggestions and tips, while others offered words of kindness. The thread has more than 54,000 likes, and 16,000 retweets.

In addition to showing support, several people also shared their own harrowing stories of being saved by a stranger – or saving someone they did not know.

“I hope you find him. When I was little, my grandpa died in the car my brother was driving with my sister and I. Two strangers took us to a bank where a family member picked us up,” one person commented. “My mom said she always regretted not putting an ad in the paper to find them. Kindness.”

“I don’t know anything about 12/27/2020, but I once stopped for a guy who crashed head on into an 18 wheeler, and 20 years later a car stopped to call for help when my dad crashed his motorcycle on a lonely road in the Rockies,” another person wrote. “It’s always good to know people care for strangers.”

There were many more stories like that. Andresen was stunned by the response to her thread.

“It’s incredible to see how many people have gone through something similar,” Andresen said. “It’s one of those things that makes you feel connected to humans.”

So far, Andresen’s quest has yielded two leads, though neither was the right guy. She still has hope that she will find her hero, but she said sharing her story publicly has been a worthwhile endeavor regardless.

“I’m going to be thinking about these whirlwind two days for the rest of my life, as much as I think about the accident,” she said. “It’s profound when you find yourself connected to people in that kind of way. It’s humbling, and anchoring.”

There is a chance, Andresen said, that her hero doesn’t want to be found.

“If he never comes forward, but sees this, I want him to know that I watch the road differently now,” she said. “I know what I’ll do if I see something. Because of what he did, I look for opportunities in the world to pay it forward.”

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