The Petrol Attendant Who Saved the School Run

Photo Credit: Kids' Stories | Good Things Guy

When a mom’s car broke down on the way to fetch her children, a kind stranger named Clement did something she would never forget.

There are heroes who wear capes, heroes who fly through the sky and heroes who arrive on the pages of our favourite storybooks. And then there are heroes like Clement, who was standing at a petrol station one day when a mom needed help.

Laine was driving to fetch her children from school when a warning light suddenly appeared on her dashboard. Her car started losing power and she knew something was wrong.

“Oh dear”, she must have thought. Her children were waiting for her, she was new to the area and there was nobody nearby she could call for help.

So Laine carefully made her way to the closest petrol station, where the attendants tried to help. They replaced the oil but there was another problem. The car still would not move properly.

That was when Clement Nciki heard what was happening.

Clement worked at the petrol station, and when Laine explained that she desperately needed to fetch her children from school, he asked her one question.

“Can you drive a manual car?”

Laine could.

And before she really knew what was happening, Clement had parked his own car next to hers. His keys were waiting in the ignition, and he told her she could take it.

Imagine that!

Clement did not know Laine. He did not know whether she was a brilliant driver or someone who bumped into pavements every Tuesday. He simply knew that a mom needed to get to her children and he had something that could help her do it.

Then, while Laine drove away in his car, Clement went straight back to work.

Thanks to him, Laine reached the school in time and collected her children. When she returned, Clement’s kindness did not stop there. He let her use his car again so she could take the children home, while her husband came back to return it.

And Clement was still not finished helping.

He arranged a tow truck and found someone who could fix Laine’s broken car too.

Laine later shared the story because she wanted other people to know what Clement had done. She called him her “knight in shining armour”, although there was no horse, castle or shiny suit of armour anywhere in sight.

There was just Clement, his car and a set of keys.

And that is what makes this story so special.

Being a hero does not always mean doing something enormous. It can mean noticing that another person is stuck and asking, “How can I help?”. It can mean sharing what you have, giving your time or choosing to trust someone when they need it most.

Clement could have watched Laine struggle and carried on with his day. Instead, he decided that her problem mattered to him too.

And because one person chose kindness, a worried mom became a relieved mom, children were fetched from school, a broken car found its way to someone who could fix it and a story worth sharing travelled much further than Clement’s little car ever did.

That is the wonderful thing about kindness.

You never really know how far it might go.