Double trouble: Couple’s cars each break down in snow

WASHINGTON — One breakdown is bad enough, but one couple went through it twice as the snow fell Thursday.

Jessica Lanham knew the conditions were less than ideal Thursday, but needed to get back to her Baltimore-area home.

“I kinda had a feeling it would be bad — not like this though,” she says.

After leaving her job at Montgomery Mall, she lost control of her Honda Civic, striking a median.

She was able to limp the car to Chevy Chase, where she pulled into a shopping center, only to have her battery die.

In came her fiancé, Brandon Orff, to the rescue — or so the plan went.

“As I was driving down 495, the lights just went out in my vehicle, the radio went off, and my wipers stopped working,” Orff says. “It was pretty hairy.” He pulled onto the shoulder, where his Chevy TrailBlazer stalled out and would not start back up.

But after a ride to Chevy Chase, Orff rounded up some jumper cables and got the Civic running again, making it one car down, one to go for the couple — which was good enough for Lanham.

“Good sound!” she exclaimed, as her Civic whirred back to life.

John Aaron

John Aaron is a news anchor and reporter for WTOP. After starting his professional broadcast career as an anchor and reporter for WGET and WGTY in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he went on to spend several years in the world of sports media, working for Comcast SportsNet, MLB Network Radio, and WTOP.

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