Junior High Coach Rescues Woman Stranded In Snowstorm 30 Years After They Last Met

A woman stranded in last week’s snowstorm in Washington, D.C. saw her junior high school basketball coach come to her rescue more than three decades since they last saw each other.

On Jan. 3, Manyka Gaither went to a dialysis center on Brentwood Road in Northeast Washington as she normally does at least three times a week. But, when it was time to return home, the 45-year-old woman realized the extreme weather meant she couldn’t leave on her own, according to The Washington Post.

Gaither, who uses a wheelchair, usually travels with MetroAccess but couldn’t do so that day because services came to a halt due to the storm. The mother-of-four also revealed that only one of her children had access to a vehicle but couldn’t pick her up because they were stuck at work.

“I was feeling really weak and ill, and I just wanted to get home,” Gaither said.

She took to Facebook to share her ordeal and wrote, "I am stuck at the dialysis center still feeling weak and ill I need the Lord to get me home safe. I tried to go out there and got stuck. That was stupid, but God watched over me and got me back to the center safe. Pray for me and I will continue to pray for you. We all need it!"

She soon received a private message asking her, “Where are you?”

The message was from Ronald Jenkins, her former basketball coach at Deal Junior High School (now Alice Deal Middle School) in D.C.

Gaither hadn’t seen him since she graduated in 1992. Nevertheless, when she told him where she was, he told her, “I’m on my way.”

“It didn’t matter who she was. She was somebody that needed help, and I just felt like it was my turn to step up,” Jenkins said.

He told his wife, Elizabeth, that he was going to drive about 20 miles away to the dialysis facility and was pleasantly surprised to see her say: “Well, I’m going, too!”

So the two of them headed out in their warmest winter wear and drove down the slick roads, according to Audacy News. What would typically have been a 35-minute drive took them more than two hours to get to Gaither, who was the last patient in the waiting room that day.

“I just immediately cried,” Gaither said about the moment she saw her former coach walk through the door. “I felt like he saved my life. I was so sick and drained from dialysis, if he had not gotten me, there’s no telling what condition I would have been in. I am so, so grateful.”

After having a stressful morning, Gaither was still able to say, “I’m a victor, not a victim.”

“I just felt so blessed and overwhelmed,” Gaither said. When she offered gas money to her former coach, he replied, “Just give me a hug. That’s it.”

The two now plan to stay in touch and meet more often. “That 30 years did not seem like 30 years,” Gaither said. “It felt like I had not missed a day of being around him.”

“It is more than just a Facebook friendship,” Jenkins added. “We’re now connected on another, more human level. We’re friends for life.”