BUCKEYE, ARIZONA — Jose Cuellar had just delivered a load to a Walmart in Buckeye and was heading back on Interstate 10 when a monsoon storm turned violent around him. He called his wife on his headset to warn her things were getting bad. Then the wind picked up his empty semi-truck and threw it on its side near I-10 and Verrado, and water started rising in the cab.
Cars drove past. Nobody stopped. Then one man did.
“This guy, just a gentleman, showed up and he asked me, ‘Are you okay?'” Cuellar said. “And I said, ‘No, I’m not.’ He told me he was going to get me out.”
The man had no uniform, no badge. He was not a first responder. He broke through the windshield of the overturned truck and helped Cuellar unbuckle his seatbelt and climb out as the water level in the cab continued to rise.
“I felt the water level was going up. I didn’t know if I’d drown or something,” Cuellar said. “He just showed up. I was able to take off my seatbelt, and he was able to help me.”
Then the man was gone. Cuellar never got his name. He remembers he may have been wearing glasses.
Cuellar’s wife Jennifer, who has been married to him for 22 years, said she believes the timing was not a coincidence. “I tell him God sent him to be there for him. Because cars were passing by and passing by. Nobody stopped. Even though the weather was so bad, he was willing to help. He was willing to risk his life.”
Cuellar was taken to the hospital with injuries and has since been released. He and his family are now searching for the man who stopped when everyone else kept going.
“He saved a person,” Jennifer said. “Throughout all our life nothing like this has happened. For us, he’s a hero.”
Anyone who may know the identity of the Good Samaritan is encouraged to reach out so the Cuellar family can thank him.
Interviews courtesy of local media.
📸 Image(s) used under fair use for news reporting.
