Two sheriff’s deputies in Florida turned a stop at a Wawa convenience store into a lifeline for a 71-year-old woman living in her car — buying her food, fuel and cash, on bodycam, in a video that has now gone viral.
Clay County Sheriff’s Office deputies Mark Maertz and Dalton Mahlke met the woman, who has not been named in coverage, at a Wawa in Orange Park. She had been living in her car, had run out of money for food and fuel, and was waiting for a check due on Friday while trying to get home out of state. “I sat in my car days in this heat and I just can’t do it anymore… I get my check on Friday, but I can’t go three days without eating,” she told them.
“Why get a medium when you can get an extra large?”
Maertz bought her a sandwich, chips and a drink — telling her, “Why get a medium when you can get an extra large?” — plus fuel for her car, and gave her cash. The exact amount of cash was not reported. She said: “This is heaven on earth to me right now.”
The bodycam video went viral and was featured on NewsNation’s “Jesse Weber Live”. Sheriff Michelle Cook said she was “incredibly proud” of the deputies. Maertz said: “You could tell by the sound of her voice that she needed some help… It’s kind of a standard thing.”
The standard thing
Maertz’s line is the one that stays with the story: that helping a stranded 71-year-old eat and get fuel is “kind of a standard thing”. For the woman in the car, it was not standard at all — it was, in her words, heaven on earth, on a day when she could not go three days without eating and her check was still two days away.
The video travelled because it shows the job at its simplest: two deputies, a sandwich, a tank of fuel, and a woman who needed both. No ceremony, no press release, just a bodycam and a quote about extra-large drinks. Sometimes the standard thing is the whole story.
