Three ordinary people, connected by two moments almost 30 years apart, one terrifying, one sweet. Plus a yellowed 2015 news clipping. And a story with an unexpected moral.
The first person is Tony Namrod, owner of a Subway restaurant. The second is Suzanne Stone, Amway representative. And the third, the connection bringing them together, is Tom Mahoney, American Legion Post 791 Commander, who missed the first, awful moment, that very cold early January morning in 1993.
Stone had dropped off Amway associates in Elgin, and was driving home.
“During the day, you work,” she explained last week. “So when you’re building an Amway business, it’s at night.”
But she never made it home, not that night, or for many days to come. Her car skidded on black ice and slammed into a building at Devon and Nagle.
It was 4 a.m.
She doesn’t remember anything after that. The story will have to be picked up by Namrod, then 22, coming home after the late shift at IBC Bakers in Schiller Park.
“I stopped for a light at Devon and Nagle,” he said. That’s when he noticed the car smashed against the building. He remembers thinking: “Something’s wrong. It looks like a fresh accident.”
He pulled over, went to the crumpled wreckage, saw Stone, then 41, bleeding heavily.
“Son, don’t leave me,” she said.
“I’ll never forget these words,” he said. He took her purse and used it to prop up her head, then went sprinting to the nearest pay phone.
He returned to her, but help tarried, so he went back to the phone and called again. Is this really an emergency? the 911 operator said. “Does it sound like I’m ordering a pizza?” Namrod said, quoting Bruce Willis in “Die Hard.”
A movie buff, Namrod is quite proud of that reply.
Namrod went into the Army for eight years, as a linguist, then ended up running the Subway in Northbrook. He was proud enough of his actions that night to mention them in a brief interview in the local paper when he took over the business.
Stone didn’t know anybody had helped her. As far as she was concerned, her car skidded into a wall and she woke up in the hospital, one lung collapsed, her face smashed.
“It never hit me how I got there,” she said. “I just assumed an ambulance picked me up and took me.”
Enter Mahoney. He knew Stone because he, too, worked with Amway. He was partners with her late husband. And he knew Namrod because he ate at the Subway, and eventually read the small Pioneer Press news article, “Tony Namrod, Subway owner” framed behind the counter. It was a Q&A that started out talking about Namrod’s service in the military.
Years went by. Then Mahoney had a thought. He took a picture of the article, so he could share it with the guys at his American Legion post. Encourage them to patronize Namrod’s Subway. Only then did he read to the end of the article, where Namrod is asked, “Tell me about one of the strangest things you ever did,” prompting him to recount rescuing the woman who had crashed into a building.
Mahoney realized he knew that woman.
A reunion seemed in order.
On Friday, Mahoney and his wife, Sheila, ushered Stone into the Subway.
“Tony, Suzanne. Suzanne, Tony,” he said.
“Oh my God,” she said. “Hi.”
They embraced.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said. “My whole family thanks you.”
“I’m so glad to see you both together,” said Mahoney.
Having one’s life saved creates a sense of obligation.
“I wish I were wealthy. I think that my life is worth a million dollars, but I don’t have it,” Stone said. In the article, he had mentioned his favorite restaurant, Shawarma Inn, 5232 N. Lincoln.
“So I’ve gotten you a gift card,” she said. “I wish it could be a thousand dollars.”
Turns out, that’s plenty.
“I didn’t do it for anything,” said Namrod. “Thank you is enough. That’s all I need.”
A small moment, perhaps. But then life is made of small moments, interrupted by occasional large, crashing ones. Mahoney watched the reunion, and had his own conclusion, a life lesson which as a writer I can heartily endorse. This reunion might have happened years ago, had he gotten to the end of the story.
“Read the whole article,” Mahoney said. “I stopped after the first paragraph.”
