Sleeping Bags?

Posted by admin

November 29, 2008

Harold and Beulah Bassler, an elderly couple from Martinsburg, Pennsylvania, were enjoying their usual after-church Sunday drive. They were on a small country road, admiring the scenery, when suddenly a large car approached. The driver (who they later discovered was drunk) was aiming right for them. Harold swerved, but there was nowhere for their car to go except off the road. It bounced down an embankment and toppled into a gushing stream,. Harold and Beulah both shouted for help.

Fortunately, within minutes, many people in the area ran to assist them. It was a small town, and just about everyone knew everyone else. As some of the men hung onto the car, and others grabbed the Basslers to keep them from being pulled away by the current, everyone saw a handsome blue-eyed stranger drive up and stop. “Here, let me help. They’re going to be cold!” he said, grabbing two brand new sleeping bags from inside his spotless automobile. As the neighbors pulled Harold and Beulah out of the water, they tore off their outer clothes, and laid each one inside a sleeping bag. When the ambulance arrived, the attendants left the couple in the warm bags while they drove them to Nason Hospital in Roaring Springs, PA.

Excitement over, everyone now looked around for the handsome stranger. But he was nowhere to be found. How could someone have driven off without anyone noticing? And why had he arrived on a little-traveled road—with those comfortable sleeping bags—at just the right time?

Due to the warm bags preventing hypothermia, the Basslers survived their ordeal, and had several happy years together afterward. No one ever saw the stranger again. But there was one more peculiar postscript: Not only did the stranger disappear, the sleeping bags did too. Uncle Weldon Bassler attempted to retrieve them from the hospital, to have them cleaned and possibly returned to the mystery man. But he was greeted with blank looks from the emergency room staff.

“Sleeping bags?” more than one replied. “I don’t recall seeing them at all.”