It wasn’t until Lenny Smith thought about fuelling up his vehicle that he realised what he’d done.
The Motueka man had made the common modern-day mistake of popping his wallet and phone on the roof of his car while he organised himself to drive from home to Tasman to run an errand. Alas, he got distracted before jumping in the driver’s seat, and these two rather crucial items never made it inside the vehicle.
When he got home some hours later, he asked his wife Sally rather hopefully whether she had picked up his wallet and phone from their driveway.
She had not – but she already knew where they could be found. Darius from Tahunanui was travelling behind Lenny on the Mariri straight, and not far from the roundabout, had noticed something lose its traction on the car roof. He turned around and pulled over, dodging traffic to pick up the scattered cards that had exploded from the wallet. The man, who lives in Tahunanui, carried on towards Nelson and dropped the wallet at the police station there, and the police managed to find Sally’s number. The couple were heartened to learn that everything inside remained, including $90 cash.
“It was just really nice to see that there are some really neat, genuine people out there,” Sally says.
Her husband’s luck did not end there, however. A Golden Bay couple who were travelling close behind Darius noticed Lenny’s phone on the road, and stopped to pick it up. Although the screen was fractured, they found a contact within with the label “sister” beside it, and chanced a call. A plan was quickly hatched, and the couple dropped the phone off to its owner on their way back through Motueka later in the day.
Lenny says he has already been given enough of a ribbing to star in a photo for Nelson Weekly but he reckons it was wonderful to get his items back.
“It gives you faith in people, doesn’t it.”
