My heroes

On June 26, a hot afternoon, I was putting garage sale signs out for the next day.

What I didn’t know at that time was at Nokomis and Stainback Roads is about a 13-14 ft. culvert.

It is so grown up with weeds that it looks to be maybe 2-3 ft deep.

As I was sticking the sign into the ground, my footing gave way and the next thing I knew I was 9-10 ft. down in the culvert standing on a ledge.

There was no way to get out and I was in and surrounded by briers and poison ivy.

I was stunned at what had just had happened to me, that was for sure!

Out of nowhere, God sent me two 14-year-old boys, Mark Arnett and his friend, Dean, who lives next door to him.

They peered down at me and said, "Lady, are you ok?"

I told them I was, but there was NO WAY I could get out of there.

Mark said he wanted to try to pull me out.

I was amazed at this young man’s courage.

So he tried, but he started to fall in, so I let go.

Mark was determined to get me out of the culvert, so he repositioned himself and said he wanted to try it again.

Slowly I started climbing up and got Dean to take my other hand.

Together, those boys pulled me up level to the road where I could crawl out the rest of the way!

I find joy that we, in our society, still are bringing up youth who will care enough to help a stranger in need.

Mark Arnett and Dean are to be commended on what they did.

I personally have gone over and talked to Mark’s parents, but have not caught Dean’s parents yet.

I am so proud of them.

Now, as for the City of Red Oak, on Monday, June 30, I called and talked to the lady who handles the roads and maintenance around the roads.

She knew the corner that I was talking about, but had NO IDEA that there was that deep of a culvert, or even how big the pipe was.

She assured me that she would get a crew out to at least get the weeds cut way back and possibly take other measures if there was such a deep "hole" there.

Guess what—NOTHING has been done.

The weeds have grown up even more.

That corner (Nokomis & Stainback Rds) is a very dangerous corner and needs railing put up around it so that cars turning too sharply or people (like me) won’t fall into the deep culvert.