Good Samaritan ripped off while helping crash victim
Nov 12, 2012, 7:00 AM | Updated: 10:19 am
A Snohomish County woman, who stopped to help the victims of a freeway car crash Saturday, learned that no good deed goes unpunished.
Washington State Patrol Trooper Keith Leary says nursing student Peggy Ray was one of a number of drivers who stopped after a 74-year-old man suffered what was likely a medical problem, swerved across two lanes of traffic and smashed into a pickup truck.
The Toyota Camry ended up in a drainage ditch near the Snohomish River Bridge. Ray says she saw the car “flying through the air like something out of the Dukes of Hazzard.” Ray says she helped break out a window and comforted the crash victims until emergency crews arrived.
Ray had just stopped at a cash machine and left an envelope containing $900 on her seat. When she came back to the car, the money was gone. It was rent money, according to the barista with six teenagers.
“When I actually seen the envelope, I thought: ‘no way. I’m going to pick this envelope up and there’s gonna be money in there. There’s no way that somebody just took this envelope like nothing,'” said Ray.
When she realized the money was gone, Ray says she started to cry and asked if anybody had seen somebody around her car.
It turns out that somebody at the crash scene called a reporter and Ray’s story got out. Monday morning, she got a call and learned that a donor had agreed to reimburse her the entire amount that was stolen, $900.
Ray hasn’t lost her motivation to help others. “I would do it every day if I needed to, like, that’s what I do. I would not even hesitate to help somebody… and it was not about my money being stolen.”
Ray says she’s been gettings lots of calls of support and she calls the gesture to make her whole “amazing, unbelievable.”
Ray doesn’t wish anything bad upon the person who ripped her off but she thinks that kharma will even the score.
