The electric vehicle of an unfortunate Washington, DC, tourist ran out of battery in the middle of a remote West Virginia road on Friday. Thankfully, a few unlikely good Samaritans were nearby to rescue the stranded traveler.
The wild sequence of events was recounted by Tucker County State Sen. Randy Smith (R) on Facebook, which occurred near a coal mine on Mettiki Coal access road U.S. 48, a few miles outside of Davis, West Virginia, according to WTRF.
“Today at our mine off Corridor H an electric car from DC ran out of battery at the road entrance to the mine,” Smith wrote.
The state senator noted that the vehicle was stranded in the middle of the haul road, meaning that workers had to act fast to not impede incoming traffic.
As a few coal miners came to assist, it was soon realized that the vehicle could not be moved by a tow truck since the bottom of the car was all plastic with nothing to hook onto.
With few options left, the coal miners worked with the driver to push the vehicle up the road to the mine where the traveler could recharge his car.
“If you look closely you can see our coal stockpile and load out in the background,” Smith noted as the five coal miners and driver are seen pushing the vehicle in a photo.
While electric vehicles have recently symbolized an elitist shift away from natural energy resources such as coal, natural gas, and oil to renewable energy sources, that narrative was set aside on Friday as the coal miners were more than willing to help the unfortunate traveler.
“This just shows you coal miners are good people and will go out of their way to help anyone friend or foe,” said Smith. “I’m honestly glad they ended up where they could get some help because they couldn’t get a tow truck to come and this is out in the middle of nowhere.”
Smith added that one of the good Samaritans even gifted the D.C. driver a “Friend of Coal” license plate to take home with him.
You can follow Ethan Letkeman on Twitter at @EthanLetkeman.