Salina ? Because of factors beyond his control, Theodore Welborn was a little late this week for a very important appointment.

And if not for an unknown man in a white Jeep, he might have been even later.

The hearse carrying the 85-year-old Welborn to his funeral Thursday ran out of gas on the way to the church where his funeral was to take place. His son, Steve Welborn, said one of his sisters was upset about the delay at first. But after they had a chance to think about it, they decided it wasn’t so bad.

“We thought Dad would probably think it was really kind of cool,” Welborn said. “What better time to be late for something than your own funeral?”

Welborn said he and other family members piled into cars Thursday morning and headed to St. Mary’s Catholic Church, where the service for Ted Welborn was to take place. Some family members rode in a limousine provided by the funeral home, and others rode with Steve Welborn in his vehicle.

“We were going down Ohio Street, and the hearse turned off on one of those side streets,” Welborn said.

Welborn said he continued on to the church after he found out the hearse was out of gas so he could tell people waiting there what had happened.

“I went up and told (the priest) that we might be a little late starting, because he didn’t have anybody to have a funeral for yet,” he said.

Meanwhile, the driver of the hearse flagged down a man who was driving a Jeep and asked for help. The man either drove a funeral home employee to a gas station, Welborn said, or went and got the gas himself.

Regardless, the man helped get the hearse to the church less than 10 minutes after the service was to have started.

Now the family would like to thank the man, but there’s one problem: Nobody thought to ask him his name. Welborn said all they know is that he drove a Jeep, and, according to one of Welborn’s nieces, was “really good-looking.”

“We just want him to know we appreciated it, and it was nice of him to stop,” Welborn said.