Imagine witnessing a horrific traffic accident, pulling over, then learning that while you were rendering aid to an injured motorist someone else stole your car. It sounds unbelievable, but it’s exactly what happened to two guys in Minnesota recently.
Longtime friends Chase Torgerson and Cody Charpentier were driving along a northwestern Minnesota highway when they saw a car fly through the air and crash into a median.
According to police reports, the men jumped out to help, and as they were tending to one of the injured victims they saw one of the other passengers from the crashed car hop into Torgerson’s vehicle and speed away. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, the car thief ended up demolishing Torgerson’s car about 800 yards down the road from the initial accident site.
What’s that saying about good deeds going unpunished? Try to be a Good Samaritan and you get your car stolen.
Even responding police officers say they were stunned by the turn of events.
It’s mind boggling even when you see it on paper. According to police reports, when Torgerson, who is a trained medic, and Charpentier, saw the car crash they didn’t hesitate to help. Once they got to the crash site Torgerson immediately began tending to an injured passenger who was dangling out of a blown-out window. He even put his own gloves on the victim and endured minus-34 degree windchills as he used his bare hand to call 911 with his cellphone.
Police say while Torgerson was talking to a 911 dispatcher he looked up and saw the car thief peeling away in his car.
“What can I do?” Torgerson told reporters later. “There goes my car. I’m still on the line with 911.”
In the end police recovered Torgerson’s mangled vehicle and caught up with the car thief who was hiding under a parked semi-trailer truck. Police say the man was “heavily intoxicated” and placed him in jail.
As for Torgerson, he said his 17-year-old sedan was “smashed pretty good,” but he said he’d do it again if faced with another situation.
Only next time he won’t leave his keys in the car.
Will this travel tale make you think twice about stopping to help the next time you witness an accident?
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