SAN ANTONIO -- “I wasn’t afraid of death, the last six hours, I was asking God to hurry up, you know?” said Robert Porter, who was rescued after being trapped in his car for three days.
He survived World War II in Japanese waters, a crippling back injury, heart attacks, and more recently, pancreatic cancer. But the 85-year old didn’t think he’d survive being stuck in his vehicle near the bottom of a ravine.
Officials found the elderly gentleman dehydrated but alive, after nearly 72 hours in temperatures above 90 degrees, without food and less than 8 ounces of water.
On a whim, Robert Porter said he traveled down a lonely, rural road about 200 yards from his home to look at a pond. The steep grade of the road, combined with the soft calilche dirt, kept Porter from escaping. Instead, Porter said his car would roll back and pin itself against a tree.
Porter was stuck, thirsty and starving, but he had plenty of something else: time. He said he had time to think about his family, time to reflect, and time to talk to God.
“I said, “Lord, I can’t understand why you expend energy on me. I’m not worth it.’” Porter said.
A bloody wound on the back of his hand is the only visible reminder of his experience. Porter said he cut himself trying to recover the pen he dropped between the seats. With the pen, he wrote out his final thoughts to his family, scribbled across the center console.
Porter added, “One thing I wrote, the very first, was ‘This was an accident.’ Underlined! Because I was afraid somebody might think I committed suicide.”
He also inked instructions about how he wanted a closed casket at his funeral.
I asked Porter about what goes through a man’s mind day after day, stuck in the driver’s seat.
His thoughts, he said, wandered… from getting his family to pay some of his outstanding medical bills to where he should urinate.
His battery worn down from honking his horn for days, Porter couldn’t even roll down his windows when a neighbor, by chance, spotted his car. Porter said he was too weak to do anything but shout for help.
The neighbor peered inside the car and called for help.
With that, the note on the console—no longer the thoughts of a dead man—had become a reminder to the living of how precious life is.
Porter said, “Right about the second day, I thought I was dying. So, I prayed to God to turn on the extra power. And by gosh, it worked!”
Porter said he’ll now concentrate on giving more to charities and enjoying his family.
His note written on his console also requested that the homeowner’s association improve the road that trapped him, displaying a sense of humor Porter maintained in a life-and-death situation.
