A determined South Carolina father wasn’t about to let Hurricane Helen stop him from walking his daughter down the aisle, so he took a horseback ride and walked more than 20 kilometers through debris and flooded roads to attend her wedding.

David Jones told the amazing story to a local broadcaster WJHL and People magazinerecounts how what should have been a two-hour drive to his daughter’s wedding venue turned into a 13-hour odyssey.

Jones began the journey in Boiling Springs, South Carolina, and the destination was a church in Johnson City, Tennessee – about 160 kilometers away – where his daughter, Elizabeth Marquis, was married on Saturday.

Jones got into his car Friday evening and started driving. He was diverted several times on Interstate 26 due to heavy flooding from Hurricane Helen, but after about seven hours behind the wheel, he reached the Tennessee border.

At that point, it was 2 a.m. the next day and a state trooper told Jones he had reached the end of the road. The police officer told him that the rest of Highway 26 was out of service, and side roads were closed.

“You have to understand. ‘My daughter’s getting married at 11:00 this morning, and I’ll be there to walk her down the aisle,'” Jones recalled telling the cop.

With only about 40 kilometers left in his journey, Jones decided to do the rest of the journey on foot. He parked his car at the bottom of the exit ramp and started walking.

He used his phone’s flashlight as the only light to guide him through the heavy debris destroyed by the Category 4 storm. But the former marathon runner did not expect the extent of the devastation caused by Hurricane Helen. He told WJHL and People that he sometimes had to climb over 2-meter-tall piles of debris in complete darkness.

“It was pitch dark, no street lights, nothing. He said the devastation was beyond description, parts of the roads had been washed away. “And I can tell you a lot about the fields of mud and debris where I had to climb up six piles of rubble from old fences and huge trees as tall as Seven feet, and it was just a tangled mess and dead ends and everything. kinds of things.”

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Along the way, several state soldiers he met asked him to turn back. But Jones won’t take no for an answer.

At around 3 a.m., he came across a bulldozer and bulldozer working to clear the road of hurricane debris.

“I thought I was going to try to get around it, so I got down into the mud that looked like quicksand and soon reached my knees,” he said.

The backhoe operator did not see him get stuck in the mud and nearly hit Jones. Fortunately, he was able to free himself, although he lost a shoe in the process, and later returned to retrieve it.

“I knew I couldn’t do it without shoes,” he said.

Eventually, he made it to Irwin, Tennessee, where the roads were clearer and cars were driveable.

“A state trooper pulled up next to me, rolled down his window, and said, ‘Sir, are you the one trying to go to your daughter’s wedding?’ I laughed and said: Yes, sir, I am. Jones remembers.

The officer offered to give him a ride downtown Irwin, which Jones accepted, but after that, he returned to walking trips.

Along the way, Jones carried a red reflective stake to avoid being hit by cars.

As he continued walking to Johnson City, another car pulled up alongside him and happened to be driven by a man Jones worked with at Texas Instruments.

The former coworker drove him the remaining 12 kilometers to Johnson City.

“In all, it was about 27 miles — 10 by car and 17 by foot,” Jones said.

Jones put on a spare suit, changed into new clothes, and arrived at St. Mary’s Church in time to walk his daughter, the Marquise, down the aisle.

“It meant the world,” he says. “Every father wants to walk his daughters down the aisle.”

The electricity was cut off in the church, so the ceremony was conducted by candlelight. At the reception, Jones presented his daughter and son-in-law with the reflector he carried during his trip.

“I told the story of the 27 miles and how if there was any way, I would find it. I and the others shed a lot of tears,” he says. “I said, ‘I want you to keep this reflector as a reminder to always protect each other, even in your darkest hours.’ “This is a much-needed time, as it was for me, and for you both, to continue to be a reflection of God’s goodness, because you are good people.”

Marquez told WJHL she was touched by her father’s dedication.

“It’s emotionally moving to know that my dad loves me so much, and that he would come and go through all that to get to my wedding and be there on time,” she said.

Meanwhile, Jones said he was no hero and did “what any father would do.”

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