The Man Who Saved Me and Disappeared

It happened nearly thirty years ago. Bruria Elimelech, a mother of three from the Sharon region, went to Tel Aviv to meet a good friend. After spending time together, they headed out in her friend’s car. But as they drove toward the exit of the city, a car from the opposite direction lost control and crashed into them.

Bruria, sitting in the passenger seat, was thrown forward into the windshield with tremendous force.

“I found myself in complete chaos,” she recalls. “There was loud noise, darkness, and a strong smell of gasoline. The car had flipped, and the door frame was pressing down on me, making it hard to breathe.”

At that time, Bruria wasn’t religious. She didn’t keep mitzvot and hadn’t really thought much about Judaism. But in that terrifying moment, her chin bleeding heavily, trapped under the crushed metal, she did something she hadn’t done in a long time. She called out to Hashem.

“I was scared to my core. I cried to Him, ‘Please, do something. I have children who need me!’”

Rescue services had been called, but every second felt like an eternity. Her friend, who had been driving, was quickly pulled out with only minor injuries. But freeing Bruria was more complicated.

“They couldn’t get the door open,” she says. “They needed to bring in a mechanic with welding tools, and with all the traffic around us, it wasn’t easy.”

So she did the only thing she could, pray. “I couldn’t stop thinking the car might explode. I felt helpless and filled with regret for even coming to Tel Aviv that day. All I could do was close my eyes and beg Hashem to help me.”

And then, something extraordinary happened.

A man, a complete stranger, pulled over, walked up to the wreck, and somehow managed to open the door and gently lift her out. He placed her on the road and stayed by her side, not leaving even for a moment.

“It still doesn’t make sense to me,” Bruria says. “How did he manage to do what no one else could?”

That day, Magen David Adom (Israel’s emergency medical service) was on strike. There were only a few ambulances operating, and delays were expected. The man stayed with Bruria the entire time, talking to her and giving her strength until the ambulance finally came. He even rode with her to the hospital.

At the hospital, as doctors worked to remove shards of glass from her body, Bruria mentioned that she felt something sharp in her eye.

“One of the doctors quickly said, ‘There’s nothing there. You’re just imagining it.’ But that man, my mysterious helper spoke up and pointed exactly to where the glass was.”

Thanks to him, the doctor took another look and found the shard. He saved her eye.

But then came the mystery. After a quick procedure to stitch her eye, Bruria came out and began looking for him.

“I asked the doctors, ‘Where’s the man who came with me?’ And they looked at me confused and said, ‘What man? There was no one here with you.’”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“I told them, ‘He helped you find the glass in my eye!’ But they insisted I had imagined it all.”

Shaken, Bruria knew in her heart that something very unusual had happened. She needed clarity, so she went to a rabbi she knew and told him the full story.

The rabbi listened carefully and said, “Call him an angel, call him a person, it doesn’t matter. He was a messenger from shamayim (Heaven), sent to save you.”

That answer deeply touched Bruria. It opened something in her heart. It wasn’t just her body that had been rescued, it was her soul, too.

“Hashem saved me twice,” she says quietly. “Once from the accident. And once by waking me up spiritually. For that, I will be grateful for the rest of my life.”