DECKER TRUCK LINE DRIVER RESCUES YOUNG WOMAN DUMPED AT TRUCK STOP

2/11/2022
Alexandria, Virginia        

The Truckload Carriers Association has named Mark Giles, from Point Blank, Texas, a Highway Angel for aiding a young woman after she was dumped behind the parking lot of a truck stop. 

Giles pulled into a truck stop off Hwy 59 near Domino, Texas one evening in late December and parked in the back to do his post-trip inspection. As he was checking the back of his trailer, he happened to glance around and saw what looked like a body lying in the grass next to some trees. Alarmed, he rushed over. “She looked like a young girl, maybe 12 years old,” he shared with TCA. “It looked like someone had dragged her back there behind another truck and left her. She was in a fetal position, facing away from me, with an arm over her face.” The girl was breathing, but unresponsive. Giles ran back to his truck and called 911. He then hurried back to the girl to wait for help to arrive.   

When sheriff’s deputies arrived, they discovered the girl was actually a 28-year-old woman. Giles was horrified. “She was just an itty bitty thing and couldn’t have weighed more than 80 pounds,” he recalled. They managed to get her talking, but she was quite dazed and very weak. “She said she had ridden all the way from Ohio to Texas with one of the truck drivers parked nearby,” said Giles. “They got her into an ambulance and took her to the hospital.” Giles later talked with one of the officers who told him the young woman likely wouldn’t have made it through the night if he hadn’t found her. “I’m not the one who saved her life,” insisted Giles. “God did. All I did was make a phone call. I don’t normally go to that truck stop, but the good Lord sent me there (that night).”  

Giles has been driving for 27 years. “As truck drivers, we cover a lot of miles,” he says. “It makes you look around. We see (a lot of) things out there. There are a lot of people who can’t protect themselves. It takes so little to make a phone call to help someone. If anything comes out of this, I hope it’s that we help each other.” 

TCA has presented him with a certificate, patches, lapel pin, and truck decals. The company has also received a letter acknowledging him as a Highway Angel.

Since the program’s inception in August 1997, nearly 1,300 professional truck drivers have been recognized as Highway Angels for the exemplary kindness, courtesy, and courage they have displayed while on the job.

Special thanks to the program’s Presenting Sponsor, EpicVue, and Supporting Sponsor, DriverFacts.