In the middle of a cold, rainy night in Harrisburg, two Entergy Arkansas employees found themselves in a situation where no routine service call could prepare them for.

Journeyman serviceman Alex Pace and journeyman lineman Matthew Kaja were performing their routine duties to provide better power for our customers. After responding to a downed wire call, they noticed something unusual, a single headlight glowing from a ditch along the road.

“At first, we thought someone had pulled up to ask about the outage,” Kaja said. “But when we stopped, we realized something wasn’t right.”

They discovered a woman who was trapped inside her vehicle after she hydroplaned, hit a bridge and landed on its side in a deep ditch.

“She couldn’t get out,” Pace said. “When we got to her, she was yelling for help.”

The vehicle was positioned at a dangerous angle, teetering on the edge of flipping further into the ditch.

“There was a real possibility thing could’ve turned much worse,” Kaja said.

With no time to waste, the two went to work. Their first priority was to make sure she was okay and call emergency responders.

Then, using a wench from their service truck, they carefully secured the vehicle and pulled it back into a safer position to get her out.

“It was raining and cold,” Pace said. “We put her in the bucket truck with the heat on until the ambulance got there.”

Pace also helped her check in with her family.

“I got her phone so she could call and let them know she was okay,” he said.

In a moment that could have ended very differently, timing proved to be everything.

“If we wouldn’t have been there at that exact time, who knows what would’ve happened,” Pace said.

For both men, the experience left a lasting impression.

“It feels good to help someone in a situation that could’ve ended up very tragic,” Kaja said.

This is another example of our lineworkers going above and beyond the normal duties to serve our customers in their time of need.

“It’s rewarding actually helping someone other than getting the lights back on and making sure she gets back to her family at night just like we all want to make it home at the end of the day,” Kaja said.