A storm chaser in Iowa is being called a hero for saving a couple during a pre-Christmas blizzard. Clarence Smith has been chasing storms for decades, but this was his first time chasing a blizzard and that’s when he discovered the couple stuck in their car after it slid into a ditch on a snow-covered road.
Smith says he found them about five minutes after they slid off the road and an energy company worker was also on the scene to assist him with the rescue. The men weren’t sure if they should even try to pull the driver and his wife, both in their 70s, out of the car in the intense weather, but they made a plan and got them out safely.
The couple had been on their way to a doctor’s appointment in Ames, but the wind and snow proved too powerful. “That wind felt like it was going to take your legs out from under you,” Smith recalls. The rescuers drove the couple to a convenience store a few miles away and a sheriff’s deputy took over helping them. “They were glad that we were both there, and the shock of it was still wearing off a little bit for them to wrap their head around it all,” Smith says. “I’m sure that’s not anything less than a traumatic experience.”