Dad walks 30 miles after Helen for daughter’s wedding

A South Carolina father risked his life by walking 30 miles across Hurricane Helene-ravaged Tennessee to make sure he could walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding.

On his arduous five-and-a-half-hour night journey – much of which was in complete darkness – David Jones climbed over mountains of heavily flooded debris, avoided heavy machinery and even got stuck in mud up to his knees .

Miraculously, he reached the church on time.

He initially planned to drive from his home in South Carolina to Johnson City, Tennessee, about a two-hour drive under normal circumstances. But nature had other plans, and after spending seven hours on the road, they were informed by a state trooper in the home area that Interstate 26 – and any possible return routes to the venue – were impassable due to severe flooding.

Undaunted, Jones — a former marathon runner — steeled herself to scrape it the rest of the way despite her phone’s flashlight being the only source of light, according to the local outlet. WJHL reported.

“It’s just…it’s horrible,” Jones said. “And I can tell you a lot about mud and debris fields where I have to climb over six, seven-foot high piles of debris of old fences and huge trees and it’s just a tangled mess and dead-end roads and Everything was different kinds of things.”

While no part of the journey was easy, he recalled one particularly harrowing moment where he wondered if his luck had run out as he encountered a crew clearing the road with heavy machinery, e.g. He got stuck in the mud.

Given that it was completely dark and the operator had no idea he was there, the swinging arm of the backhoe almost injured him, he was ducking down repeatedly to avoid brain damage as he Was continuously getting stuck in the mud.

“I was knee-deep in mud and couldn’t move,” Jones told the outlet. “And he doesn’t look at me. Of course, his taxi is facing the other way. Most of the time, he’s moving this thing around, and I’m dodging. Really, I’m thinking it might happen. There was a lot of prayer at that time.”

Somehow Jones managed to free himself from the muddy prison that had almost become his tomb, in the process losing one of his shoes which he later had to retrieve before continuing his journey.

Once in a desperate attempt to be visible to the cars coming out of the flood zone, Jones held up a mirrored stake, which he later placed on his daughter, Elizabeth, and her new husband to commemorate his uncertain and unconventional route to the wedding. Gave it as a gift.

“I brought the reflector to the reception, and I presented it to Elizabeth, my daughter and Daniel just to remember them, to be a protector and a good reflection of each other and a reflection of God,” Jones said emotionally. ,

Elizabeth said that until after the ceremony she had no idea what her father had gone through.

“It’s very emotional (to know) that my dad loves me so much, that he would go through all this to be at my wedding and get there on time,” Elizabeth Marquez told the outlet. “

Although Jones resisted being called a hero, claiming that he did what “any father would do”, Elizabeth said that he is a hero to her, and that she is “so grateful that he did that.”