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PROVO — A student at Brigham Young University was rewarded for her hours of volunteer service in a very big way — and her reaction was captured on national television.
Carly Christiansen, 21, is a junior studying geospatial intelligence. In the little spare time she has, she regularly volunteers at a women's prison and works as a substitute teacher.
And the thing is, she does it all without a car. In fact, she's never had one. But that never stopped her from getting where she needed to go — she'd rely on her trusty bike, even though it didn't have brakes. She's also been known to ride a bus 90 minutes to and from teaching gigs.
TV host Ellen DeGeneres heard about Christiansen's dedication to her volunteer work and invited the 21-year-old to be a "VIP audience member," on her show — the episode aired Wednesday. Christiansen thought she was just getting a backstage tour, but in reality, DeGeneres was about to surprise her by bringing her out in front of the audience to sit in the guest chair.
"I was clueless the whole time," Christiansen told KSL. "They totally tricked me. I didn't know anyone would be in the studio audience because they were dead silent… As soon as I turned the corner the audience erupted and it was surreal."
Even then, Christiansen didn't really believe what was happening.
"I was speechless," she said. "But then Ellen stood up and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is real!"
But the biggest surprise was still in store. DeGeneres asked Carly how she managed to stop her brakeless bike — particularly on hills.
"I put my feet down," Christiansen said. "I'm very long."
Christiansen told DeGeneres she even tried skateboarding for a while, until she fell off and broke her elbow. So DeGeneres brought out a hover board and told her she could take it home to make her commute a little easier.
But what's a girl to do when the weather is bad?
"If it's raining and you don't want to take that to work or school or anything like that, you can take this," DeGeneres said.
Christiansen looked over to see a brand-new car. The elated student hopped right into the driver's seat as the audience cheered her on.
"They'd been asking me questions about my modes of transportation and I was not expecting part two," she said. "I'm not in the driver's seat very often. I'm always the passenger bumming rides from people… I didn't want to leave that car."
A YouTube video of Christiansen's surprise has garnered more than 110,000 views thus far.
