Jeremy Bell, Copper Jacket Trucking

My son's girlfriend, Reilly, and I were driving to Arvada, CO on our way home from dropping my son off at college in Grand Junction when all the warning lights on my dashboard started coming on. We had just cleared Glenwood Canyon when both the tachometer and speedometer dropped to zero while the car was still in motion. I swerved to exit the highway and got to a side road just moments before the car shut down completely. At Exit 133 on I-70, we were still 140 miles from home in the middle of nowhere. The closest gas station or restaurant was 9 miles away and my cell phone battery was at 2%.

With the hood propped up on my car, I was hopelessly peering inside when a man approached us on foot. At first, I was wary. A clean-cut man in a polo shirt out walking around with no car in sight seemed suspect. He asked if we needed help and all I could think to say was, "I don't know." I was overwhelmed by the decisions of who to call and what to ask for with the few minutes of phone power I had left. We had called my husband and Reilly's father and they were on their way to help us but wouldn't arrive for hours and it would be long dark by the time they got there. The man asked if he could take a look under the hood. Within minutes, he had an idea of what was wrong with the car. He guessed that the alternator had gone out and the car had been running off the battery which was now dead. After some hesitation, he left to get his truck, claiming he had a battery charger in it. As he disappeared over the rise, Reilly and I were worried. On foot against two of us, he didn't seem that threatening, but we would be defenseless against a man in a vehicle if he meant to do us harm.

A few minutes later, a giant 18 wheeler came over the rise, navigating slowly on the narrow dirt pull-off that wasn't meant for a tractor-trailer. The "truck" pulled up next to my car and the man got down from the cab and went to work. He hooked my battery up to a portable charger, reached into the sleeping compartment of the cab and retrieved a phone charger attached to an extension cord to charge my phone, then handed me a chilled bottle of water.

With nothing to do then but wait, we started to talk. The man's name was Jeremy Bell. He was about a week into a long trip that would take him back and forth across the country several times. Trucking safety rules require drivers to take an additional 24-hour break on top of the typical 10-hour break if they would otherwise exceed 70 hours of driving in an 8-day period. He was on a mandatory 34-hour rest when he decided to stretch his legs and take a walk up into the hills, hence the reason he approached us on foot. A retired Army Sargent, Jeremy started Copper Jacket Trucking after he left the army. Working for himself, he takes contracts from a variety of companies to transport their goods cross-country. His current trip had him taking a load of metal parts to a distributor in Las Vegas. He would then pick up a load of used appliances and start back across the country headed for Pennsylvania. For every mile he drives, Jeremy donates 2.2 cents to Mission 22, a non-profit that provides services to veterans with PTSD in an effort to reduce veteran suicides.

Once the car battery was charged, Jeremy did a quick test to confirm that the alternator was the part that had failed, then suggested that my husband stop at an auto parts store on the way up the hill to get a new one. Next, he pulled out a large toolbox and when to work removing the broken alternator. As the sky grew darker, Jeremy showed no sign of leaving us to fend for ourselves. Instead, we shared stories about our travels, our families and our jobs while we waited for the alternator to arrive.  When the other men got there, Jeremy set to work putting in the new alternator - a job that took only a few minutes with his skilled hands and many tools. As we put the hood back down and prepared to leave, I asked Jeremy how I could repay him. Without him, I would have been waiting alone in the dark with no phone and no water for my husband to arrive, then spending many days and hundreds of dollars trying to sort out towing, repairs and retrieval of my car from 140 miles away. Jeremy's response? "just 'like' Copper Jacket Trucking on Facebook and we'll call it even."

So, Jeremy Bell, I like, Like, LIKE!!! Copper Jacket Trucking! If you are reading this post, please visit the Copper Jacket Trucking Facebook page and add your recommendation. Jeremy selflessly served us in the military, created a business to serve our need to get goods across the country, then continues to serve through his generous donations to at-risk veterans and damsels in distress. If ever their was a person and company worthy of our likes, it is Jeremy Bell and Copper Jacket Trucking.