What you are about to read is a story of unbelievable luck, and the kindness of a stranger.

A nine year old boy and his mother decided to go camping for Thanksgiving weekend. The boy’s father had died a few weeks earlier and it was an especially tough time of year for them, since this would be the first Thanksgiving they hadn’t spent together as a family.

They lived in Arizona and so they went camping in a nearby desert area, just the two of them.

In a freak accident, their van veered off the road as they were driving, and landed in a canyon. Realizing that his mother was pinned in the car and slowly dying from internal injuries, the 9 year old left her in search of help. Night was approaching fast, and temperatures are known to fall to dangerously low levels in the desert.

Disoriented, he tried to get help, but realized they were completely alone. As night set in, it got colder and darker.

Out of nowhere, a stranger appeared. The two of them tried to pull the boy’s mother out from her position in the van, but they weren’t able to. She died a short time later.

The boy, now orphaned, was completely alone in the desert except for this man he had never laid eyes on in his life.

Despite the cold, the stranger took off his jacket and wrapped it around the boy. He built a fire for the child, comforted him, and the two waited with him until morning when authorities found the them huddled together by the side of the road.

The boy was immediately airlifted to a nearby hospital. The man, whose name was Jesus, was immediately thrown in prison.

Everything you have just read is true and actually happened on Thanksgiving night, 2007.

The boy? He was unharmed, although police said he probably would have died had it not been for the stranger who happened to be in the right place at the right time and came to his aid.

The stranger named Jesus? He was an undocumented worker so desperate to come to the United States and make a better life for himself that he set out in the desert to try and cross the border all alone and without papers.

Read more about this incident here.