Stranded Tulsa Traveler Escapes Denver

Friday, December 22nd 2006, 3:53 pm

By: News On 6

A Tulsa man is counting his holiday blessings, after he was stuck in Denver. Tom Gulliver flew there Wednesday on a business trip for his company, Level 3, and watched as 28-inches of snow piled up outside his hotel. Now he's home, just five hours after leaving Denver. News on 6 reporter Steve Berg has more on Gulliver's Travels.

What's the only thing better on Christmas than Santa's sleigh? The corporate jet. And what's the only thing better than Santa's arrival on Christmas? That would be dads.

It's a small miracle that Tom Gulliver is here after what it looked like Wednesday.

"The snow y'know was going horizontal,â€ Tom Gulliver said. "It was hard to walk against the wind. It was blowing so hard, and the snow was coming down so hard. It was a mess."
He says he hadn't even made it to his hotel when they closed the Denver Airport.

"So then I was wondering, oh boy, what now,â€ Gulliver said. "I think panic set in when they interviewed an official and DIA, and she said they were expecting 160,000 people at that airport on Thursday."

"And I knew with the flights being so full for the holidays, I wasn't quite sure he was going to make it home for the holiday, so we started praying a lot about that time," Tomâ€™s wife Susan Gulliver said.

Tom made plans to drive back, but Susan was not thrilled with that idea.

"I thought well, that's going to take a long, long time, probably a couple of days, and I didn't want him driving at night obviously in the snow and the ice," Susan said.

Then he got word from a Level 3 official that the corporate jet was on the way.

"And she said there were two flights going on Friday, and there was room for me if I wanted to take it," Gulliver said.

It didn't take him long to answer, and once they were airborne, it only took a little more than an hour to be home for the holidays.

The Gullivers say Level 3 deserves a big thanks for sending the jet. As a matter of fact, the jet is also taking some Denver-based employees, who were stuck here in Tulsa, back home.