This is a recommendation I wrote for Nick Athanasakos for his LinkedIn profile. It is fairly self explanatory.
This recommendation doesn’t fit any of the canned profiles provided by LinkedIn, so I went with the ‘service provider’ profile LinkedIn offered, which is not accurate.
I was lucky enough to run into Nick at one of the times in my life when I needed help the most. This is a recommendation of what a great human being Nick is.
During Christmas 2009, my extended family and friends undertook a week long road trip. The last leg of our trip brought us to a rental property in West Lake Tahoe (Tahoma city) area. We were in two (front wheel drive) SUVs and a minivan. There were six children, the oldest being 5 years and two elderly parents in our group.
The last quarter mile of our journey took us up a hill, where the roads were slippery and icy. We had driven north from Bishop that day and even though we carried snow chains with us, we did the mistake of driving into the road without them. And before we knew, we got stuck in ice and snow.
The light faded quickly and the temperature dipped to the mid 20 degree range. Between the three of us, who were all engineers(!), we couldn’t fit the snow chains correctly in the dark and cold. We were simply not used to doing it. We had tested the chains in the safety and warmth of our garages back home, but that was no education of how to put chains in icy and cold conditions. And we all panicked at the same time.
An hour or so later, Nick arrived at the scene. We had called AAA to tow the minivan which was stuck in snow, so Nick single handedly put the snow chain on the two SUVs. Nick had to work without his gloves in the biting cold. Often he was lying flat on his back on the ice and under the car and helped us get ready. We thanked him and he left the scene.
AAA arrived and said they wouldn’t tow the minivan since it was a situation that could be fixed by snow chains; and since they had to attend to an accident, they refused to fix the snow chains and left us alone, now sitting in total darkness at much lower temperatures.
Again, as our luck would have, we ran into Nick again. This time around, Nick brought a friend along with him. We also had another good samaritan who helped us and with their help and much struggle, we were able to add the snow chain to the minivan. The chain got stuck in snow and twisted itself. Nick (and the other person who helped us) literally fought with the chain for nearly 30 minutes or so in that biting cold under very little light provided by our flash lights.
With their help, all three vehicles were chained and we were able to get out. I shudder to even think what we would have done that night without Nick’s help.
I learned how to be a good samaritan from Nick that night. I also learned the power of helping those in need that night. All 14 of us who went through that night would remember Nick for the rest of our lives.
Thanks Nick. Thanks for being such a good samaritan.
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