ATLANTA -- It's 4 pm on the day before Thanksgiving and traffic is already thick on Atlanta's downtown connector. A small sedan with four people inside is on the inside lane of the highway, up against the median wall, the tire on the drivers side, flat as a board. They are in an unenviable position with just a few feet separating their vehicle from the cars whose drivers are desparate to be moving faster, getting to their destination.

A similar scenario had a deadly ending 12 hours earlier. This time it was on Interstate 285 near Riverside Driver. A 26-year-old Duluth woman had car trouble and pulled her Nissan X-terra over to the inside lane. For whatever reason, the woman opted to get out of her car and make a run for it. A tractor trailer struck and killed her.

While to some people it's obvious, stay in your car, to others, it's a dangerous proposition, hoping that the hundreds of cars zipping past you will see you and not hit your car. Georgia State Patrol and DOT officials recommend people stay in their cars and call 911 and 511 if they get stuck. 511 will dispatch a hero vehicle to your location. But those same officials acknowledge that staying in your car in heavy traffic is a dangerous solution. Sandy Springs police say one of its police cars parked behind a stalled vehicle was hit on 285 and officers report witnessing countless near misses.

11Alive asked holiday travelers what they would do and it was a split, about half saying they would stay put, the other half saying they would try to cross to safety.

The car stuck on the connector wednesday afternoon was lucky. 11Alive watched as a hero unit showed up and guided the car across all lanes of traffic, blocking all the vehicles behind them, shepherding them to the safer side of the highway.

Sandy Springs police say they will continue to investigate the I-285 fatal.