Family finds $1M in the road during afternoon drive

Most have experienced some more trifling version of the common moral dilemma. You find $20 on the floor during your commute, say. Do you hand it in knowing full well it’ll likely just be pocketed? Or do you stash it in your own wallet and thank serendipity?

Now imagine that dilemma writ large to the tune of a million bucks.

We might like to think we’re sure how we’d act in such a ridiculously improbable scenario. But can we really be so certain if a massive windfall became more than theoretical?

A family in Caroline County, Virginia, was put precisely to that test at the weekend when they literally ran over bags stuffed with close to $1M while out on a drive.

Emily Schantz told WTVR that she was out driving with her husband and children on Saturday afternoon when she noticed the car in front swerving to avoid something in the road.

The family ran right over what they assumed to be a bag of trash, and so they did the civic-minded thing. They stopped, picked it up and put it in the back of their pick-up truck, along with another similar bag they had spotted nearby.

Only when the family got back home and checked later that day did they realize exactly what kind of cargo they’d been hauling around all this time: not worthless garbage at all but rather nearly $1 million in hard cash.

“Inside of the bag, there were plastic baggies and they were addressed with something that said ‘cash vault,’” Schantz said.

The family then did what not everyone would find easy to do: they called local deputies to report their discovery.

“For someone so honest and willing to give that almost a million dollars back, it’s exceptional on their part,” Maj. Scott Moser said on behalf of the Caroline County Sheriff’s Office.

Schantz indicated that the decision to hand over the riches was never in doubt

“Do the right thing and return it,” she said. “Because it didn’t belong to us.”

Authorities are still investigating exactly how such a sum of money ended up lying in the road in the first place. One likely explanation is that the cash-filled mail bags belonged to the postal service and were en route to being dropped off at a bank.

The Schantzes may yet see their integrity recognized with a financial reward.

“Their actions deserve nothing less,” Moser said. “They saved someone a lot of money and set a wonderful example for everyone else.”