Massive snow and ice storms have hit much of the nation this week. The same was true in Texas, where a massive pileup of more than 130 cars left six dead and many more injured.
But Senior U.S. Federal District Judge James Nowlin, 83, of Red Rock, Texas, has a snow story that involves fewer people and has a much happier outcome. Stuck in the snow on his ranch for more than an hour after falling and injuring his leg, Nowlin thought he might die—until a providential prompting led to his rescue.
Despite his age, Nowlin remains active as a judge for the Western District of Texas but has spent more time at his rural ranch recently due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And even with last Sunday’s snowfall, he needed to put out the trash for Monday pickup.
On a ranch, that chore is a little more complicated than in the big city. Nowlin drove his car down the long driveway to the gate, where what he knew might be an icy cattle guard stretched across the drive.
“I was in the process of moving it out the front gate, kind of across that cattle guard, but I was trying to stay away from the cattle guard,” he tells KVUE.
That’s when the unthinkable happened. Nowlin slipped and fell, landing in front of the cattle guard and, because of what doctors later identified as a fractured femur, was unable to rise or walk.
In a supreme effort, he pushed himself the 50 or 60 feet back to his car. He says he was “thinking I could grab hold of the door handle on the driver’s side and pull myself up. I was unable to do that.”
Nowlin had no phone with him and wore only a sweatshirt and sweatpants with no coat. Worse, snow continued to fall, and he knew no one waited for him inside the house. “I think I said, ‘Oh, God,’ several times,” he says.
Though no one knew of his plight, an Amazon driver busy with Sunday deliveries and wary of the snow was approaching his location. Elisha Infante, a delivery associate for Strategic Growth Logistics, tells KVUE, her voice breaking at times, “I never go to Red Rock, ever.”
But that day, she did.
“I was turning a corner and something told me, look to my right,” she says. “And I don’t know what it was. I don’t know if it was a spirit, an angel … I saw a man frantically waving his hands, and he had a lot of blood on his hands, and I knew he was in a lot of trouble.”
Because of the dangerous conditions, Infante passed Nowlin and then reversed, coming to his side to offer assistance. She immediately called 911 and threw her jacket over him. “It was absolutely freezing,” she says, noting that she worked to keep him talking until paramedics arrived.
“When I saw him, I thought, That’s somebody’s grandpa,” Infante says, her voice breaking. “I know somebody put me there. I know that for a fact. And I know a lot of people don’t believe in faith, or they don’t believe in stories like this, but it’s real. Somebody sent me there.”
“An angel and a saint,” is how Nowlin, now recovering from surgery to repair his leg, describes his rescuer. “I believe that I would have probably perished if she had not come by.”
And Nowlin isn’t the only one who received a happy ending. The judge contacted an area car dealer and arranged for Infante to receive something she hasn’t had in seven years: a car of her own.
“Whatever the cost was, I’m happy to bear the cost,” Nowlin says he told the dealer.
A grateful Infante says she doesn’t feel she deserved such an extravagant reward for her part in the supernatural encounter. In this case, a little kindness went a long way.
And neither Nowlin nor Infante will ever forget it. {eoa}
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