Friday, May 27, 1:30 p.m. The man hadn’t slept for two days because of travel complications experienced while returning from the west coast. He decided to run some errands. He felt very drowsy while driving. Planned to pull the car over and take a nap. Then fate intervened; he fell asleep. The road curved to the right, but the 2008 Mazda went straight. Right into a tree. At 40 miles an hour.

A couple in a car coming toward the scene from the opposite direction saw the crash. They assumed that the driver of the car was dead. They stopped to investigate. They peered inside; the driver was alive, conscious. As it happened, they knew the man as they lived in the same summer community. They called 911 for help, and then called the man’s wife to tell her the news. Then another neighbor, a doctor, stopped his car. He provided comfort until the ambulance arrived.

The man in this story is a good friend of mine, but I agreed not to use his name. We both felt that valuable lessons could be drawn from his horrific experience.

Back to the crash. The car was totaled. The airbag, which had sprung open, had collapsed. The interior was splattered with white paint which had spilled from a paint can inside the car. It was hard to get the man out of the car because the driver’s side door wouldn’t open. The man had cracked 17 ribs (the typical human has 24 ribs) although he felt no pain, at first, because of the shock to his whole system.

The emergency medical technicians decided that the man’s dire condition necessitated taking him to the Maine Medical Center. He stayed five weeks at the Center, many of them with tubes connected to various body parts. He contracted a severe case of pneumonia. His rapidly beating heart necessitated an ablation procedure.

The man’s wife and two daughters provided support throughout the stay. In fact, one daughter spent one entire night at his bedside at the height of the pneumonia crisis, urging him on to expel phlegm to clear his lungs

But he made it. My friend had narrowly escaped death not just once or twice but three times. When he hit the tree; when he got hit with an extreme case of pneumonia; and when his heart rate got out of control.

After being released from Maine Medical Center, he had to undergo physical therapy, first at home and later at a rehab facility. Today, he’s on the mend, but it will be many months before he feels “normal.”

What’s the learning here? Well, the man readily admits that he shouldn’t have been driving in his sleepless condition, a clear takeaway from this experience.

But in the final analysis, this is a story of angels. First of all, it’s miraculous that the man’s car didn’t run into another car — or runner or walker or cyclist — when he fell asleep while driving. It’s fortunate that the airbag worked and that the car’s interior grid didn’t cave in and crush him. And then there were the angels who stopped at the accident scene to provide help and support. There was the superb medical care he received from the emergency roadside crew and, later, at Maine Medical, a facility the man describes as “world class” in every way — from the doctors and nurses to the care in preparing meals. The enormous support he has received looms over everything: the many people who visited him at the hospital; the 1,500 postings on the Caring Bridge site that his wife set up to inform friends and family of his progress; and the more than 300 cards he received from people who wanted him to know they were thinking of him.

“People were in the stands cheering for me the whole time,” he reflects. “And when I came home, they’d say, ‘It’s great to have you back.’ I am overwhelmed to know that so many people cared about me.”

And that is the major lesson from this story. It takes a village to lift up someone who’s undergoing a major medical challenge or any other life setback. If someone you know — or even a stranger — is laid low from illness or anything else, extend a hand. That can make all the difference.

David Treadwell, a Brunswick writer, welcomes commentary or suggestions for future “Just a Little

Old” columns at dtreadw575@aol.com.