A man trekked 30 miles – through destruction caused by Hurricane Helen in the US – to walk his daughter down the aisle.
David Jones set off on what was supposed to be a regular two-hour drive from South Carolina to Johnson City, in Tennessee, the night before his daughter’s wedding.
After being diverted multiple times due to the devastation, he finally crossed the state line, but was told that was the end of the road.
Mr Jones told News Channel 11: ‘You have to understand. My daughter’s getting married at 11am this morning and I am going to be there to walk here down the aisle.’
The dad was left with one option – to walk the rest of the journey to the venue in the middle of the night.And so he did.
He soon found himself walking through total darkness with only his mobile as a light to guide him through miles of debris.
The trek nearly became a fatal one too as Mr Jones encountered crews clearing off the roads with a backhoe, but failed to spot him trudging through reams of mud in the pitch black.
‘I was up to my knees in mud and couldn’t move,’ he recalled the incident. And he doesn’t see me.
‘Of course, his cab is facing the other way and he’s swinging this thing around and I’m ducking.
‘Really, I’m thinking this could be it. There was a lot of prayer at that point.’
Mr Jones managed to survive and then crossed the Jackson Love highway bridge to make it back to the Interstate 26.
Miraculously, a motorist who he knew picked him up and drove him the last eight miles to the wedding, just in time.
His daughter, Elizabeth, said: ‘That’s so emotionally moving to know that my dad loves me that much.
‘That he’ll go through all of that to get to my wedding on time.’
Her dad insisted that he is no hero, however. ‘It’s what any dad would do,’ he said.
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