Kansas City Chiefs player finds and rewards homeless man who helped him free his car from snow

Thanks to social media, Kansas City Chiefs offensive lineman Jeff Allen has located a homeless man who helped him to dig his car out of the snow.

What's the story?

Allen, 29, was driving to the AFC divisional playoff game Saturday to play against the Indianapolis Colts when his car got stuck in a snowdrift. He made it to the game, and the Chiefs won 31-13 to advance to the AFC Championship on Sunday against the New England Patriots.

Early Sunday morning, Allen tweeted about about the man who had helped him free his car from the snow and whom he had never gotten to thank.

"My car got stuck in the snow before the game & a nice guy named Dave help pull me out without knowing I was a player. I want to give him tickets to the AFC championship game for helping but don't have a way to contact him. He drove a 97 or 98 Black Suburban. Pls RT."

As of the writing of this article, that tweet had close to 20,000 retweets and more than 43,000 likes.

Later Sunday, Allen tweeted "Update: Despite the recent influx in people changing their name to Dave in the KC area lol, I was actually able to track down the Dave that helped me thanks to the power of social media and #ChiefsKindgom. Thanks for your kindness"

Who's Dave?

According to KTRK-TV, the man who helped Allen was Dave Cochran. Cochran is homeless, and reportedly lives in his truck along with his girlfriend and his dog.

"I was driving down 40 highway [U.S. Highway 40] and saw a couple cars stuck," Cochran told KSHB-TV. "I pulled one car out before that then I saw another car stuck and I told my old lady, 'We have to help him.'"

Cochran said he saw the car (presumably a rental) had Texas plates and assumed the driver wasn't used to the snow.

"He wasn't used to this weather. He isn't used to this coldness," Cochran recalled.

"After I got done helping him, he told me he's a Chiefs player," Cochran recounted. "I didn't look at him as no Chiefs player. I just looked at him as a normal person. You know, and I'd hope that he would do the same for me as I did for him."

Cochran said it was "just his natural habit" to help people, and that he never expected anything in return.

Correction: The original version of this article mistakenly indicated that Allen was headed to the AFC Championship game, rather than the divisional playoff game. We regret the error.