Help Christian Rebuild After Car Fire

I’d like to introduce you to Christian.

While I was on my way home from Austin, TX to Waco, driving on I-35, I saw a man (Christian) on the side of the road with his car stalled. I noticed it had a little bit of smoke coming out so I pulled over. As I was veering off onto the shoulder, the smoke got thicker and I noticed he was headed back towards the car. I ran towards him and saw him open the back door for something. My immediate thought was he had kids, animals, or something important to him. Flames started coming out of the hood. He quickly grabbed his 2 dogs out of the back of the car and started running towards me. As we were running, BOOM! The car started exploding and the flames got bigger and bigger. He had tears in his eyes and so much concern on his face. I grabbed his dogs and my heart sank as I heard him fight back the tears and say, “Everything I own is in that car! My whole life is in that car!” As he gave me his dogs, he ran back to his car, opened the trunk, and started throwing stuff off to the side of the road in a last attempt to save something. Anything. I watched as he threw boots, clothes, bags, backpacks, and luggage that would only go up in flames later too.

At this point, 2 more cars had pulled up and started screaming for us to run away from the car. BOOM! You could feel the heat and hear the car exploding as we ran. One woman was calling 911 as another group of men moved our cars further down the road. It felt like forever for the police and fire trucks to pull up as we all stood in the Texas heat, watching this young man’s whole life burn. He fought back every single tear he had to say thank you to those of us around.

We learned he was 5 1/2 hours away from his destination in Arkansas. He said, “How am I going to get there? What am I going to do?” And so many more questions.

There was a grandmother on her way to drop off her granddaughter and the other car had 2 college buddies traveling to DFW for one to fly back to Hawaii. It was an amazing moment of multiple strangers helping another stranger. The granddaughter randomly pulled dog food out of her car for the dogs and the other guys grabbed a bottle of water for Christian. While we stood there talking to one another and formulating a plan to get him home, we watched Christian talk to the police.

He walked away with a business card, was told his car would be towed, and that was it. He knew everything was/is replaceable, and was thankful to be alive, but…

Everything physical thing this man had, gone in an instant.

We continued to all say how thankful we were he was safe and so were his dogs, Chief and Lola. He knew it could have ended very differently and he was so thankful to be alive.

As we all talked and learned briefly about where Christian was headed, the woman tried to offer him some money, and he refused saying he couldn’t take it. The men who helped tried to get his CashApp handle and he again said he couldn’t take it, all while holding back tears with a smile.

After the flames were extinguished and the multiple people tried again to offer something to Christian, he humbly declined.

In our hour and a half drive back down to Austin to meet his friends, I got to know this young man a little better and I can tell you, this is a kid who has his head on straight. He shared a little bit of his life with me and I learned that he has overcome quite a lot. He has big plans and big dreams. And his car, (his older sister’s 2012 beater), a high school graduation present, was supposed to be the big start.

Besides losing his only source of transportation, his birth certificate, social security card, driver’s license, and more important documents were in the car. He lost his clothing, work boots, and more. And despite all of that, he was most sad about losing his dog’s food and not being able to pay me gas money for helping him.

I’m hoping to raise $5,000 to help Christian replace some of the items he lost and put towards a new car. 100% of the money will go to him. Let’s give this kiddo a win!