A North Texas carpenter is still at a loss for words after a stranger came to his aid.
He was stranded on the side of the road trying to get to work when she stopped to help.
Both say a higher power brought them together.
“1995 GMC V8, gas guzzler,” said Joshua Stewart. “Depend on this big raggedy girl but she gets me there.”
It’s his only way to get to jobs as a licensed carpenter.
Stewart was on his way to a job-site early Saturday morning along Highway 114 in Southlake when he began to feel the truck having problems.
“It was making a shaking noise and went poof and then I came to a screeching halt right there,” he said. “The bottom of my truck was on the ground.”
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Stewart was stranded about 30 miles from his South Dallas home.
A Southlake police officer stopped to provide help and informed Stewart he would need to get a tow truck to remove his vehicle.
The fee was almost $400.
“I knew I wasn’t going to be able and afford that. I don’t have much money,” he said.
Feeling hopeless, Stewart says he leaned on his faith.
“I asked God prior to that if you can send somebody to help me,” he said. “And…she came out of nowhere.”
She, is Martha Stewart of Grapevine.
The two are not related.
“I was leaving Pilates, I was returning home and I saw this truck stranded on the side of the road,” said Martha Stewart. “And this voice inside of me, you can call it a voice, your inner voice, your conscious, I call it God said: You’re going to go back there and help them.”
Stewart says she wanted to pay if forward after a neighbor recently helped her in her time of need.
She looped around a few times and then pulled up to the scene.
“All of the sudden I’m just sitting there and this lady walks up and she says ‘I want to help you,’” he said. “I’m like ‘what do you mean you want to help me?’”
Help, she did.
Southlake Police snapped a picture of the duo and posted about the encounter on the department’s Twitter page titled: restore your faith in humanity.
Stewart not only paid the tow truck fee, she also looked at his worn tires.
“He told me he has a 4-year-old little girl and I thought well if he’s driving this truck around and it’s raining I don’t want that little girl in there and then he’s going to have a blowout so I told him I would buy him four new tires,” she said.
Four new tires and rims to be exact.
“I didn’t know what to say at first,” he said. “I was speechless!”
“We’re so busy in our own little world, and I’m guilty of this, we don’t take the time to stop,” she said.
“There’s so much bad happening you don’t expect nobody to help you on the side of the road like that. She just totally proved me wrong on that and there’s still good people out there,” he said.
She has also pledged to help the college graduate and licensed carpenter find full-time work building homes in North Texas. The 30-year-old also builds dog houses on the side.
