Claim:
A truck driver named Rusty Miller saved a mother and her baby from a snowy highway after a rollover accident.
Rating:
A rumor that circulated online in December 2025 claimed a truck driver named Rusty Miller saved a mother and her baby from a snowy highway after a rollover accident. According to the story, Miller, a 49-year-old trucker with 26 years of truck-driving experience, spotted a stroller on the side of Highway 85 in Wyoming, pulled over, came to the rescue of an injured woman and her infant, and called for help.
On Dec. 7, a user managing one of the numerous Facebook pages named Daily Stories (archived) posted (archived) the story with an image. That picture showed a truck driver kneeling to help the mother and child. The full text of the story appears later in this article.
(Daily Stories/Facebook)
A Snopes reader emailed, “This heartwarming but implausible story has shown up in my Facebook feed from multiple sources. I couldn’t find any evidence that it really happened.” Other Facebook users shared the same claim and story.
In short, while many truck drivers, and drivers of other vehicles, might truly be kind enough to pull over and help people in need of emergency assistance, this particular story was not true. One or more users created the images and text appearing in the posts with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).
This story resembled glurge, which Dictionary.com defines as stories “that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental.”
We contacted a user managing the Daily Stories page to ask about the story and the rest of the content, all of which displayed signs of being fabricated with AI. We will update this article if we receive further information.
Researching the made-up story
Searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo found no results about a truck driver named Rusty Miller saving an injured mother and her baby after a roadside accident. Additional searches of the massive and historical newspaper archives on Newspapers.com also located nothing of help. Had such an inspiring story truly occurred, news media outlets worldwide would have reported on the matter.
The story did not feature any information about the mother’s name, nor did it specify when or precisely where the incident allegedly occurred. AI-generated stories like these often contain a lack of basic details.
The text of the story displayed signs a user generated its contents with an AI tool. For example, the story ended with an overly dramatic conclusion in the same way AI tools traditionally wrap up similar inspirational tales. The end of the story read, “Look for us. Look for the trucks. We’re out here, rolling through the dark, not just delivering loads… but delivering hope wherever the road needs it.”
While AI-detection websites are far from foolproof, we noted ZeroGPT found at least some likelihood of AI-written text in the story, while Copyleaks displayed a 100% likelihood.
As for the supposed image of the scene, the Daily Stories post’s picture featured a logo in its lower-right corner for the Google Gemini AI tool. A scan of the image with Google Gemini found one of its SynthID watermarks, further confirming its inauthentic origins.
Some posts displayed several AI-generated pictures different from the one appearing in the Daily Stories post. All of the fake photos might for readers prompt the question of who stood back and captured pictures instead of putting the camera down to help — another sign of the story’s inauthenticity.
The full text of the fake story
The Daily Stories Facebook page posted the fake story about the truck driver as follows:
My name is Rusty Miller.
Forty-nine years old. Twenty-six years on the road.
I’ve hauled everything from frozen meat to carnival rides, but the heaviest thing I ever carried wasn’t in my trailer… it was a memory.
It happened one winter night in Wyoming—
the kind of cold that bites straight through your jacket and into your bones.
I was driving east, snow tapping the windshield like impatient fingers, when I saw something that made my stomach drop.
A stroller.
Right on the shoulder of the highway.
No car nearby.
No person.
Just a stroller half-covered in snow.
I slammed the brakes so hard my coffee flew out of the holder.
I jumped out of the cab, boots crunching through the icy wind, breath fogging the air.
“Hello?!” I yelled.
No answer.
I moved closer.
The stroller wasn’t empty.
Inside, wrapped in a thin blanket, was a baby—maybe six months old—cheeks red from the cold, tiny fists curled tight from fear.
My heart started pounding.
Where was the mother?
Where was anyone?
I picked up the stroller with both hands and turned it around to shield the baby from the wind. And that’s when I heard it—
A faint cry coming from the darkness below the guardrail.
I rushed over with my flashlight.
A woman lay in the snow-filled ditch, ankle twisted, clothes drenched, lips almost purple.
She looked up at me like she was seeing an angel or a monster—couldn’t tell which.
“Please…” she whispered. “My baby… don’t let her freeze…”
“You got my word,” I said. “Both of you are going home tonight.”
I carried the baby into my cab, cranked the heater to full blast, wrapped her in my spare flannel, and rushed back for the mother.
I picked her up—she weighed almost nothing—and settled her in the passenger seat.
She tried to speak but her teeth were chattering.
“What happened?” I asked gently.
“We… we were driving to Denver. Car slipped on the ice. Rolled. I climbed out… I tried to get help but—”
She winced in pain.
“No one stopped. Not one.”
I swallowed hard.
Because I knew…
sometimes the world drives right past you when you need it the most.
“I stopped,” I said softly.
“And I’m not leaving.”
I radioed the nearest trucker channel.
“Breaker, anyone near Highway 85? I’ve got a mother and infant in hypothermia danger. Need assistance now.”
Voices crackled in instantly.
“We’re coming.”
“On my way, brother.”
“Warm blankets in my rig. ETA 12 minutes.”
Within fifteen minutes, three trucks surrounded us like a protective shield, headlights cutting through the storm.
We warmed the baby.
Wrapped the mother in heated blankets.
One driver, Dave, had medical training and checked her leg.
Another, Carla, called ahead to county rescue and gave directions.
When the ambulance arrived, the paramedics said something I’ll never forget:
“If she had stayed out here twenty more minutes… neither of them would’ve survived.”
The mother grabbed my hand.
Tears in her eyes.
“You saved us,” she whispered.
I shook my head.
“No, ma’am. We saved you. Truckers don’t leave people in the cold.”
A month later, I got a letter.
Inside was a picture of the baby in a pink snowsuit, smiling so big it almost hurt to look at.
The letter said only one line:
“Thank you for stopping when no one else did.”
I’m Rusty Miller.
Just a trucker with an old rig and a stubborn heart.
And if you ever break down, get lost, or feel like the world has turned its headlights away from you…
Look for us.
Look for the trucks.
We’re out here, rolling through the dark
not just delivering loads…
but delivering hope wherever the road needs it.
For further reading, we previously reported about the time 13 truck drivers truly worked together to block a highway under a Detroit bridge to help dissuade a person from jumping to their death.
