Midsouth Jeep Club Driving Healthcare Employees to Work in Harsh Winter Weather

Jeep owners from Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee are driving medical workers through deep snow.

Many parts of the United States have been hit by a winter storm that has introduced levels of ice and snow that some local drivers have never experienced. While this unusual snowfall is lots of fun for Jeep owners who want to exercise their four-wheel-drive system in something other than dirt or sand, people with front- or rear-wheel-drive vehicles aren’t having as much fun. In fact, the snow and ice in many places is preventing people from getting to work. That is a problem for any industry, but it is a particularly serious issue for the medical industry. Amidst an ongoing pandemic and an increased spike in healthcare emergencies due to the winter weather, the inability to get doctors and nurses to work could cost people their lives.

Fortunately, according to the Daily Memphian, a group of Jeep owners has been tirelessly driving healthcare workers in and around the Memphis area to their jobs. These volunteers are not being paid and the healthcare workers are not charged for the ride, with some of the Jeep owners working 14 to 16 hour days on their own dime to help keep the local hospitals in motion.

Midsouth Jeep Club Springs to Action

This all started when Bart and Tonja Hobbs were having dinner on Valentine’s Day and discussing the winter storm that was headed for the area. Both owning Jeeps, they are members of the Midsouth Jeep Club, so they reached out to other members of the club to see who might be interested. Once they had a group of Jeepers who wanted to volunteer their time, they needed passengers. Tonja Hobbs works for American Paper and Twine and one of that company’s clients is the Baptist Memorial Health Care system.

“I started calling around to all the Baptist hospitals,” Hobbs said. “It’s free. We know we need to get essential workers where they need to be. We don’t care if they are a janitor, we don’t care if they are a neurosurgeon. We know they need to get where they need to get.”

The Jeep club began giving rides to healthcare workers and since then, over 2,000 people have been taken to work by one of the members. At this point, the club has a dispatcher fielding ride requests and sending out drivers 24 hours a day, with some drivers spending as many as 16 hours a day behind the wheel. In some cases, those drivers are also working full time jobs of their own, so they are burning the wick at both ends to help keep the local medical system running as smoothly as possible.

The impact has been substantial. On Monday, February 15, Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis in more than 100 workers call off, unable to make it through the harsh winter weather. Each day since then, the Midsouth Jeep Club has helped to reduce that number more and more, all free of charge. The image atop this piece shows a group of the club members in action during a portion of the storm.

Jeepers Helping in Other Areas

There have been a variety of reports similar to this one from the Daily Memphian, with Jeep owners helping to get essential workers to and from their jobs each day. If you have a four-wheel-drive vehicle, you are comfortable driving in harsh winter weather and your area is being pummeled with ice and snow, check with your local Jeep and other brand off-road clubs to see if similar programs are available near you.

Photo: Midsouth Jeep Club

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Patrick Rall

"Before I was old enough to walk, my dad was taking me to various types of racing events, from local drag racing to the Daytona 500," says Patrick Rall, a lifetime automotive expert, diehard Dodge fan, and respected auto journalist for over 10 years. "He owned a repair shop and had a variety of performance cars when I was young, but by the time I was 16, he was ready to build me my first drag car – a 1983 Dodge Mirada that ran low 12s. I spent 10 years traveling around the country, racing with my dad by my side. While we live in different areas of the country, my dad still drag races at 80 years old in the car that he built when I was 16 while I race other vehicles, including my 2017 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and my 1972 Dodge Demon 340.

"Although I went to college for accounting, my time in my dad’s shop growing up allowed me the knowledge to spend time working as a mechanic before getting my accounting degree, at which point I worked in the office of a dealership group. While I was working in the accounting world, I continued racing and taking pictures of cars at the track. Over time, I began showing off those pictures online and that led to my writing.

"Ten years ago, I left the accounting world to become a full-time automotive writer and I am living proof that if you love what you do, you will never “work” a day in your life," adds Rall, who has clocked in time as an auto mechanic, longtime drag racer and now automotive journalist who contributes to nearly a dozen popular auto websites dedicated to fellow enthusiasts.

"I love covering the automotive industry and everything involved with the job. I was fortunate to turn my love of the automotive world into a hobby that led to an exciting career, with my past of working as a mechanic and as an accountant in the automotive world provides me with a unique perspective of the industry.

"My experience drag racing for more than 20 years coupled with a newfound interest in road racing over the past decade allows me to push performance cars to their limit, while my role as a horse stable manager gives me vast experience towing and hauling with all of the newest trucks on the market today.

"Being based on Detroit," says Rall, "I never miss the North American International Auto Show, the Woodward Dream Cruise and Roadkill Nights, along with spending plenty of time raising hell on Detroit's Woodward Avenue with the best muscle car crowd in the world.

Rall can be contacted at QuickMirada@Yahoo.com

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