After Checking A Single Mom’s Impounded Car, A Police Officer Knew He Had To Act Quickly

Ebony, a mom of four from Atlanta, Georgia, worked hard to provide everything she could for her kids. She had a job at a local store to keep them fed and clothed. And when they needed to focus on their studies, she took them to the library.

On one particular trip, though, Ebony was pulled over by the police. And as she knew she was in trouble, she immediately began to well up. “[The officer] came to the car and asked why I was crying,” Ebony recalled in a 2018 interview with CNN. “And I was like, ‘Because I know my license isn’t good.’”

But despite Ebony’s obvious remorse, her punishment was far harsher than a warning or fine. Her car was taken to an impound lot, and the attending officer put cuffs on her. A colleague of Ebony’s then came to collect her kids, while her sister traveled from Florida to help look after them.

However, as the mom of four sat in her jail cell, her story began to circulate the Atlanta Police Department. You see, to Ebony, it wasn’t just a car that had been impounded. And as police examined the vehicle further, they realized she had been hiding a dark secret from the world.

After word of what officers had found spread, the story reached Deputy Chief Jeff Glazier. He realized everything was not as it had first appeared, and he felt compelled to learn more about the woman and her situation. Then, after discovering the truth, he reportedly said to his wife, “We have to do something about this.”

Initially, everything had seemed normal on the surface. Ebony showed up to work every day, and her kids were keeping up with school. But each evening when she clocked off from the store, something was happening that the mom had kept hidden from her colleagues.

“When I got off work, we would just sleep right there in the parking lot in my car,” Ebony told Atlanta’s WSB-TV. “A lot of people didn’t know that, because I was still going to work.” So, this mom and her four kids had a lot more than a car taken away. They’d lost their home.

When Ebony hadn’t been able to scrape together the deposit for a condo the year before, the hard-working mom found she had no options left. She and her kids — brothers Calvin, Jaheame, and Issac, and their little sister Danniaja — loaded their belongings into Ebony’s 1997 Buick.

The car was, quite literally, the family’s home. They’d eat together, play video games and hang out there. And at the end of the day, they would sleep in the vehicle. This wasn’t ideal, but Ebony couldn’t find any shelters that would accept whole families, so it was the only way they could stick together.

In total, the family lived out of the car for six months — right up until the vehicle was impounded. “That’s the worst I ever felt, not being able to provide for my kids like I should be,” Ebony explained to CNN. “Because as a mother, that’s your job.” But as it turned out, it may have been the best thing that could’ve happened to the Rhodes family.

Word of the case got through to Glazier from a colleague who, like Ebony, was a single mom herself. And as luck would have it, Glazier had recently encountered the head of a shelter for homeless families. Wanting to help the mother and her four children, the deputy picked up the phone.

And thankfully, there was enough space for the Rhodes family, despite it being a busy time of year. Glazier couldn’t wait to share the news. “When he called me that day, I just started crying,” Ebony told CNN. “Because I’d been trying to get into different shelters for a long time. No one would ever accept us.”

Yet Glazier still wasn’t satisfied. “You know, staying in a shelter is not optimal,” he told CNN. “I considered that the whole time just to be a short-term solution for this family. Because even those conditions weren’t great by any stretch of the imagination.” The officer was determined to do more.

Glazier dug a little deeper and got to know the family. He learned about the challenges Ebony had faced and soon became firm friends with her and the kids. “For the last year, I’ve watched this strong woman raise her children in the most difficult conditions,” he told AJC News in 2017.

There are still challenges that threaten the Rhodes family’s stability. The mom of four sometimes gets ill, but if she doesn’t work, she doesn’t get paid. On top of that, her daughter has lupus and severely impaired vision, while one of her boys struggles with asthma and learning difficulties.

And although Calvin went to work in the evenings as soon as high school was over, Glazier remained concerned about the family’s needs. So, he set up a GoFundMe page to create a “safety net” for Ebony in times of difficulty.

With the funds raised, Glazier has ensured that the Rhodes family has a year of rent and bills paid in advance. They also got another car when the Buick broke down. But from what the police chief has said to CNN, it seems it was the least he could do.

“If you talk to Ebony and you watch her, she has a great work ethic,” Glazier said. “It’s just that she was sick. And so when you’re sick, you can’t work, and you can’t make any money. When I first met her, she had two jobs… trying to do the right thing. She’s trying to earn money for her family.”

Like Ebony, Courtney Potts also met a kind stranger. He wasn’t far behind her on the road, either. And as the random observer got out of his car, Courtney greeted him with relief... until she took a better look at his face.

It was October 2021, just a week before Halloween. But ghouls, goblins, and nasty monsters couldn’t be blamed for Courtney’s misfortunes in Columbia, Tennessee. Instead, it was just one of those days that every mom has experienced while shepherding her small children around in a car.

Yes, Courtney is the proud parent of two children. She welcomed her son Walter Kade into the world back in August 2018, while her daughter Ellie Ruth was born in June 2020. And the mom’s Instagram page is full of smiley pictures of the pair. There probably weren’t too many grins in her vehicle when everything was going wrong.

With Walter and Ellie in tow, Courtney was heading to her folks’ place in Columbia. Traveling with two young kids is daunting enough without the added pressure of being the only adult! At least Walter was fast asleep during the drive. But the same couldn’t be said of his younger sister. It may have made being stranded all the more stressful.

Yep, Ellie was wide awake and growing increasingly agitated as the journey went on. We can only imagine how tough that must’ve been for Courtney. It’s pretty difficult to concentrate on the road and keep a fidgety kid happy at the same time. And it only got worse from there...

Despite all that, Courtney pressed ahead on the road. Maybe Ellie would calm down by the time she got to her grandparents’ house? The only solace her mom could take at this point was that Walter wasn’t disturbed from his slumber. Adding a grumpy toddler to the mix may just have been too much!

Anyway, Courtney probably thought that would be as bad as it’d get before arriving at her mom and dad’s place. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case... at all. Without warning, one of the car’s tires suddenly burst on the road. The car’s smooth glide turned into an alarming limp. What would she do now?

Looking back on that moment, Courtney said, “I was scared to keep going. So I just had to stop because I didn’t want to mess my wheel up.” The fact that she had two young kids on board may have influenced that decision as well. Why take the risk?

Courtney carefully veered off to the side of the road. Crisis averted, right? Well, not quite. You see, she now faced an even bigger problem. The beleaguered mom had no choice but to stop her vehicle on a very dicey bend.

Courtney was in a tough spot — literally. It was too risky for her to attempt changing the tire herself. At the same time, staying in that spot for a while wasn’t advisable either — especially with her kids in tow. What should her next move be?

Well, the mom of two held out hope that another driver would come to the rescue. There had to be someone out there who’d be willing to step up, right? And, thankfully, she didn’t have to wait long for her wish to come true.

Courtney’s bad luck was finally broken when a gray pickup truck slowed down and carefully reversed into the hazardous bend. The person behind the wheel was a guy in a hat and dark shirt. To millions of folks, he would look instantly familiar.

As if the man’s gray pickup wasn’t intimidating enough, he then called out to Courtney with a strong, twangy voice. Anyone would be a bit on edge in this situation, but what he said immediately put Courtney at ease.

Courtney recalled the exchange to CBS News. “He was like, ‘Hey I almost hit you! This is a really bad road. We’ve got to get out of this curve,’” she said. The helpful stranger suggested she start the car up again and tail him to a safer spot on the shoulder.

Courtney obliged, and then the man joined her outside to discuss their next move. Luckily, she did have another tire on hand, but it was buried beneath a bunch of stuff in the car. So, the pair got to work fishing the thing out.

Eventually, the tire was retrieved and ready to go. But Courtney’s bad luck reared its ugly head again as they tried to put the new wheel in place. The helpful stranger was using the jack from her vehicle, but soon the tool began to buckle under the weight. Did she break a mirror before leaving the house or what?!

It didn’t prove to be a big deal, though. The selfless driver grabbed his jack instead and just carried on. And a second person pulled over to see what was happening. It was turning into quite the roadside gathering!

Mind you, as the drama unfolded on the side of the road, something was eating away at Courtney. After hearing her rescuer’s voice for the first time, she was convinced that she recognized it. But it couldn’t possibly be who she thought it was. Not with how her luck had been going!

Was Courtney on the right track? Or was she simply mistaken? In truth, it didn’t take much longer for Courtney’s suspicions to be all but confirmed. As it turned out, her highway hero was one of the biggest country music stars out there!

Yes, Luke Bryan was the driver in question. What are the chances of that? Apparently, the singer and American Idol judge has land in that region of Tennessee, and he was traveling there with his two sons. Courtney couldn’t believe her eyes as the situation unfurled before her.

You can hardly blame Courtney for that. After all, how would you react if a famous face decided to throw themselves into helping you out of a jam? We’d be equally speechless! But how did Courtney act around Bryan once she realized who he was?

Courtney said, “I’m not one of those to be like, ‘Oh my god it’s Luke Bryan!’ I was just trying to be cool, and I didn’t want to make him feel awkward. He didn’t act like a celebrity, not even a little bit. He just looked like anybody else that would have pulled over.”

But while she attempted to act “cool,” Courtney did do something as Bryan got to work on her car. Using her phone, she recorded the country star as he was on his hands and knees. You don’t see that every day, after all! She picked up some of Bryan’s conversation, too.

As Bryan is unscrewing the wheel, he’s heard saying, “I should’ve got my two young’uns out here and taught them!” Apparently, the only thing that stopped him was how dangerous their surroundings were. And he had another piece of advice for the young mom.

During an appearance on KFDI-FM in 2021, Courtney recalled, “[Bryan] was so worried. He was like, ‘Look you’ve got some wear inside the tire. You need to get some new tires because that’s how this happened.’”

That must’ve felt so surreal — direct advice from a country music sensation! And Courtney knew that she couldn’t allow the good deed to go unnoticed, so she shared the video of Bryan fixing her tire on social media. She probably wasn’t prepared for the media frenzy that followed, though...

To start with, Courtney posted the clip on her TikTok page. And after tagging Bryan, she wrote, “I cannot thank him enough for stopping to help me and my babies!” Since then, the video has had around 6.4 million views. Yes, it’s gone viral!

Courtney’s post has also had roughly 1.3 million likes and generated over 8,000 comments. It was a hit. And if that wasn’t enough, she shared it on her Instagram page as well. The clip with Bryan has earned more than 14,000 likes there.

There are a few kind-hearted comments on Instagram, too. One social media user wrote, “[Bryan] just seems like the kind of young man that would help anybody that needed [it], and that’s a good thing. He’s not one of those [celebrities who’s] stuck on himself. He still helps others.”

Another Instagram user agreed, writing, “That’s awesome! There are still great, down-to-earth people [who] will get their hands dirty to help someone in need. No matter how famous they are! Thank you Luke Bryan for being such a wonderful and great guy.”

Of course, Bryan wasn’t in the dark about the video’s existence for long. CBS News, Today, and Taste of Country all covered this unique story. We wonder if Bryan had any idea this would happen when he first stopped to help Courtney? He did go on to share his reaction after the video went viral, though.

Speaking to Taste of Country Nights in 2021, Bryan said of his decision to help, “I just did what you oughta do. I had no idea [Courtney] was videoing me. When I saw it the next day, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, this is gonna get out there.’” It even reached Columbia’s mayor, who reached out to Bryan with an unusual offer.

Chaz Molder wrote, “Luke Bryan, we are grateful for your act of kindness in our community. To show our appreciation, we would like to honor you by presenting you [with] a key to the city and having you serve as the Grand Marshall of the Columbia Christmas Parade alongside Santa.”

And Courtney gushed to WKRN, “I would just tell [Bryan] thank you so much for stopping. He didn’t have to do that. Him being from the south, he knows people would have stopped, but he chose to stop even when he was busy, and I am just so grateful to them.” Nope, she didn’t forget about the other helpful driver!

Courtney also reflected on the internet’s response to the video, admitting that it left her reeling in shock. “There’s people that I haven’t talked to in years that have shared it. For that to go viral, I was just blown away, and it’s one of those things where you go, ‘What just happened?’” she said.