Van driver delivers roadway heroism

By Jerry Sena

Clyde Widner had steered the old delivery van a thousand times along the road between Boone and his job in Abingdon, Va., but he’d never seen anything quite like this before.

“I got behind her at that last red light heading out of (Boone),” he said, recalling the Nov. 21 morning. He’d completed a tool delivery for his employer, Denton Valley Wholesalers of Abingdon, and had pointed the stubby nose of his 1985 Iveco box van out of town on U.S. 421 toward Tennessee.

He’d been following an elderly driver in a 1993 Buick, but something was terribly wrong. She’d been swerving left to right, threatening pedestrians and oncoming traffic alike. And she was only going about five miles an hour.

“I knew she was going to wreck. It was just a matter of time,” Widner said.

Eighty-three-year-old Virginia Aldridge said she can’t remember a thing after pulling out of the parking lot at New Market Center on the other side of town. She was there to meet a friend, briefly, before heading to Foscoe to pick up her diabetes medication.

“I never made it!” Aldridge laughs, her sense of humor none the worse for wear despite the harrowing experience.

Aldridge and her friend never did meet that morning. They’d mixed up the times and missed one another.

“I waited until about 20 after nine; then I left,” Aldridge said. “But I really don’t remember anything after leaving the parking lot. I remember hearing a car horn blow, but that’s about all.”

Aldridge’s blood sugar had dipped dangerously low. As a result, she was navigating King Street in an all but unconscious state.

“I just thank the Lord I didn’t kill anybody,” Aldridge, a lifelong resident of Watauga County, said.

Widner pulled up behind Aldridge as she made her way past the court house where the highway begins to climb up out of town toward Vilas.

“I thought she was drunk,” Widner said. “I didn’t find out until later it was her diabetes.”

He watched helplessly as Aldridge’s 1993 Buick crept blindly ahead.

All at once, he said, the car accelerated and veered onto the right shoulder.

“It looked like she just floored it,” Widner said. “She went into the ditch and when it came out the car took to the air.”

“One guy who saw it told the trooper I must flown eight feet in the air,” Aldridge said, marveling at how she could have slept through so thrilling a ride.

Widner had watched the whole scene through his windshield. The Buick had zoomed from five to 45 in a matter of seconds. The sedan had slammed into the bank with frightening force before sailing through the air and crashing back down on the roadway.

By then, Aldridge’s foot had been jarred from the accelerator pedal and the car coasted to a stop on a moderately steep grade.

The car paused for just a moment before it began to roll backward down the hill. Aldridge was fully unconscious now and Widner had to think quickly of a way to prevent her car from racing out of control back down the hill.

“I just pulled my bobtail up behind her before she got moving too fast,” Widner said. “It didn’t do my truck any harm. And it wasn’t anything anybody else wouldn’t have done.”

NC Highway Patrol trooper D.D. Dawson said Widner probably saved Aldridge’s life.

Aldridge’s daughter is convinced of it.

“He saved my mother’s life,” said Marlene Henson. “I just cannot thank him enough. The Lord put him there at that time for a reason.”

Henson and her brother, Bobby Dean Aldridge, have already sent Widner a bundle of gift certificates as a gesture of thanks.

“My brother and I both called him at different times to thank him. I asked him what restaurants he likes. He said Hardees. So my brother and I got him some gift certificates for Hardees and Wal-Mart.”

Virginia Aldridge can laugh about it now. The aches and pains have faded along with memories of her 11-day stay at the Watauga Medical Center. She’ll continue physical therapy to rehabilitate the hip she broke during that wild ride.

With three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, Aldridge said she likes to stay busy with keeping her own house, doing her own shopping and working out in the garden. She doesn’t expect this little mishap will slow her down for long. “I’m hoping not!” she exclaims when the question comes up.

She won’t be driving anymore, though. “They’ll probably take my license away from me,” she said. “I’m not going to fuss about that, though. I was fortunate I didn’t kill anyone. If I was to hurt a child like that I just wouldn’t have been able to live with that on my conscience.”

• Jerry Sena may be contacted at jtsena@wataugademocrat.com.