Florida woman dials wrong number for help, but still gets lift for sick brother

Jimmy John's workers answer call and drive veteran to hospital

COLUMBUS, Neb. – The call wasn't like anything Jason Voss had ever taken before.

"She just started going off about how she was in Florida, and she needed help," Voss told Omaha, Nebraska, TV station KETV.

The manager of this Jimmy John's sandwich franchise in Columbus, Nebraska, listened as the women explain she had just returned to Tampa from visiting her brother in Columbus who just had surgery. He was having complications and needed to get to the hospital.

"He was like in a lot of pain. It's the same issues he was having this morning and I can't find a ride to the hospital," Lisa Nagengast told the TV station.

In an interview with Nagengast over Facebook, she said her brother didn't have enough money to call a cab, there was no Uber and since he's a veteran he couldn't call 911 unless he had prior Veterans Affairs approval.

Nagengast thought she was calling a caseworker.

"I don't know if it was me who wrote the number down wrong, or I missdialed it," Nagengast said.

Rather than say she had the wrong number and hang up, Voss did something amazing.

"Someone needed help, and I guess it was convenient that I work at some place that had drivers," Voss said.

But being a manager he couldn't leave so he told her someone would call her back.

That someone was Zach Hillmer.

"You could tell she was upset about her brother you could tell she was upset," Hillmer said.

That's when Hillmer explained what number she called.

"Well this is Jimmy John's," he said.

"I'm sorry I called the wrong number. I apologize. Thank you and I'm going to go now, and he said ‘Wait, wait," Nagengast said.

Hillmer hopped into his car, picked up her brother and took him nine miles to the hospital.

"You could hear the relief in her voice that something was going to get done. That was kind of nice just to hear that -- that made it all worth it," Hillmer said.

Also that Hillmer was helping a fellow veteran.

"Till the day I die if another service member needs help I'll be going to do it," Hillmer said.


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