STR Automotive's 'Humble Hero' Appeal - help get our customer's vehicle back on the road!!

This story begins on the afternoon of Wednesday, 10th August 2016 in the Wayby Valley Road area of Wellsford.

It had been torrentially raining since Tuesday evening and the Warkworth/Wellsford areas were experiencing the worst flooding they had seen in years. Rivers were swollen, paddocks, fences and roads were under water, schools were closed and communities cut-off. We were to make it onto the evening news it was that bad!

In spite of all of this there were people (some would say, foolishly) trying to drive through the floodwaters and not surprisingly getting stranded. As always, in stories like this, there were locals out there, the unsung heroes of the community, towing these vehicles and their occupants to drier ground and safety, sacrificing the safety of themselves and their vehicles in the process. Our 'Humble Hero' was one of these locals.

He had already towed 4 vehicles to safety before coming across a family of 3 (2 adults and their child) sitting on the roof of their stranded vehicle, submerged in angry floodwaters, no cellphone reception and miles from any help. Our 'Humble Hero' weighed up his options and decided to risk a rescue attempt.

He put down the windows of his ute (to avoid drowning inside the cab) and yelled to the stranded victims to jump onto the bonnet and hang on! As they were almost safely out of the deepest part of the floodwater, the ute's engine cut-out in protest. Managing to restart the engine, our 'Humble Hero' floored the accelerator and made it to dry ground.

Unfortunately, this is not our happy ending! Barely out of the floodwater his ute gave one last protest and refused to restart thanks to all the water damage. Our 'Humble Hero' now found himself stranded and the one in need of help.

The next day he arranged to have his ute towed to us at STR Automotive, where we were still hopeful we could flush out the water and get the vehicle restarted. But no, the damage was terminal.

This is where our 'Humble Hero' thought his vehicle insurance would come into play. But no, his policy doesn't cover flood damage!

Now, we can't speak for you, but about this point we felt a huge sense of injustice and started to wonder how we could help.

So, we decided to donate our time involved in replacing the engine to this appeal. We do not believe our 'Humble Hero' deserves this large cost for his brave actions. This got us thinking that there were probably other like-minded souls out there who would be happy to support our 'Humble Hero'.

The fantastic team at Warkworth Repco certainly agree. They have generously donated the cambelt kit, clutch kit, oil and filters to this appeal. Paramount Engineering in Silverdale also agree and have kindly machined the flywheel for free.

We now ask you, would you like to be part of this story and its happy ending? We are calling for donations to cover the expense of the new engine to get our 'Humble Hero' back on the road...where you may just need his help one day.

Thank you for keeping community spirit alive and believing in happy endings!