Guardian angel for stranded drivers
Published: January 25, 2006
Ivan Detkov was driving eastbound with rush-hour traffic on Interstate 287 Monday morning when his right front tire blew out. He pulled onto the median and waited for assistance.
Less than 10 minutes later, a white HELP truck rolled up behind him and Kamran Fateh stepped out. Fateh put on his flashers, set out flares and set about the dangerous job of changing Detkov’s flat, with just a few inches separating him from the cars rushing by on the rain-slicked highway.
“It is impossible to do it here,” said Detkov, 46, a computer programmer from Dobbs Ferry, who sat in the driver’s seat of his BMW sedan while Fateh quickly replaced the bad tire with his spare. “It would be suicide. It is a pretty bad spot.”
For Fateh, a father of four who turned 40 on Monday, it was all in day’s work. He had spotted Detkov’s disabled vehicle while driving westbound on the highway. After checking with state police to see if they needed help at the scene of a fender bender, Fateh circled back at Exit 4 to lend Detkov a hand.
Fateh is a 10-year member of the Highway Emergency Local Patrol, a state-funded program started in 1994 to help relieve congestion by clearing major roads of disabled vehicles.
Fateh and other HELP truck drivers also clear roads of debris, help police manage traffic flow around major accidents or construction delays, perform basic first aid, charge batteries, change tires, provide vehicle fluids, call tow trucks and remove disabled vehicles from the road — all free to motorists. Last year, HELP’s 32-member crew made more than 22,000 roadside assists.
With a few quick maneuvers, Fateh removed and replaced Detkov’s blown-out tire with a full-size spare and put the bad tire in Detkov’s trunk. In minutes, Detkov thanked him, merged into traffic and was on his way to work in Greenwich, Conn.
“I love doing this,” Fateh said, while cruising along I-287, scanning the road for disabled vehicles. “I hate to see people broken down. When we pull up, it’s always, ‘Thank God. You’re my guardian angel.’ ”
With a mixture of snow, slush and rain adding challenges to the morning’s commute, Fateh made three assists during his shift. On Interstate 95, just north of Exit 21, Gian Reyes sat in his VW Golf on the highway’s shoulder. Fateh saw him and swung into action.
“My coolant light went off, and I’m just waiting for my engine to cool,” said Reyes, 22, of Norwalk, Conn. “I think there’s a leak somewhere.”
Fateh lifted the hood and added coolant, but it quickly drained out. Fateh found the leak’s source, a cracked hose. He wrapped duct tape around it, added more coolant and watched that begin to drain.
“I don’t recommend you drive it home,” Fateh told him.
“I’m going to try to get off at the next exit,” Reyes agreed.
Since it was his day off from work as a car radio installer at Best Buy, Reyes figured he could try to get his car repaired.
A little later, Fateh spotted a dry cleaner’s delivery van on the shoulder of westbound I-287, east of Exit 10. The driver had just finished his morning route in Rye and Mamaroneck and was heading back to Hastings-on-Hudson with clothes that needed cleaning when his Ford van gave out.
The driver believed his problem was the fuel pump and had called for a tow after another HELP truck he approached on the road pulled into traffic instead of stopping to see what was wrong.
Fateh explained that the other HELP truck driver had gotten a call about a car broken down in a driving lane. Those calls are more urgent because they create bigger bottlenecks and can lead to more accidents, he said.
“I’m going to call a tow and put out two flares behind him,” Fateh said. “It’s not like we didn’t care about him. A car broken down in a lane takes priority over a car on the shoulder.”
Just then, the driver of the other HELP truck returned.
Fateh grew up in Scarsdale and now lives in Eastchester. The former beer salesman said he has found much more meaning in his current line of work.
“I love being on the outside, helping people,” he said.
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