By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – What could have been a nightmare scenario for a family visiting the Peninsula last weekend turned out a lot better when a Port Angeles police officer went beyond the call of duty for some strangers.
The story begins Sunday evening when Sgt. Tom Kuch and Officer TJ Mueller got the call of an accident at 8th and Race Streets. They arrived to find that a family, including children and a dog, were driving through town on their way back from Rialto Beach when their car struck a manhole cover that had been blown into the street by the torrents of rainwater going through the system.
The cover damaged the underside of the car to the point that it was no longer drivable, and the family had pulled over. The family was staying in a vacation rental in Port Ludlow and were now stuck without a car, which was towed, and no available rental cars at that hour.
Sgt. Kuch suggested Officer Mueller should load the family and their dog into his police cruiser and drive them all the way out to Port Ludlow, a generous offer. We’ll let Police Chief Brian Smith tell you what happened next.
“Officer Mueller thought, ‘Well, there’s no rental places where I’m taking them, they’re on vacation, their car’s disabled.’ So he decided to get a better plan, and he gave him his Volvo station wagon. Just gave them a car and said, ‘You guys can use it until, you know, you can figure out a car rental. And so they had a car that they drove to where they were staying and they came back on Monday, and I think it took till Monday afternoon for them to get an appropriate rental car, but then they got that and then they resumed their vacation.”
But that’s not the end of the story. Chief Smith says the encounter led to weird coincidence that night.
“And so, while this was happening, Tom Kuch brought the young boy over to the police station so he could use the bathroom, and realized that his birthday was the day before, and Tom’s birthday was the day before, so Tom and him had birthday cake. You know, for them, it was all in a day’s work, but I thought it was just a cool story and, you know, TJ was like, ‘Yeah, I’m glad to loan them my car’.”
All in a day’s work for a Port Angeles cop, but Chief Smith is understandably proud of his officers.