I live on a street that’s just off of a very busy main thoroughfare in my city, one of a handful of “pikes” that radiate from downtown. This pike is all businesses, but the side streets are residential.
Driving home from work yesterday, I was in line at the stoplight at my intersection, about 6 cars back. I saw a older woman up ahead, on her knees on the sidewalk next to some bushes and a post-and-chain barricade. She was pulling at the chain and fiddling with something. For a minute I though she was working on the chain or perhaps doing some landscaping work. The light changed and I drove by, and I realized she was trying – with no success – to pull herself up.
The small business on that corner has a parking lot you can enter from both the main street and my side street, so I turned the corner and turned back into that parking lot, and tried to yell and ask if she needed help. It was so noisy from the passing traffic that she either couldn’t hear me or I couldn’t hear her, so I parked the car and got out and went over.
Sure enough, she was at least 70 and had fallen down walking home from the store – she had a little shopping bag. She’d hurt her knees and ankle and was just too weak to get back up. I wasn’t sure how long she’d been there but obviously I was the only person in that rush hour traffic who’d stopped. I tried to help her up from a few angles and approaches and I just wasn’t strong enough to overcome her awkward position, injuries, and general weakness. During this 10 minute period, when it should have been obvious what was going on, with several changes of traffic light resulted in vehicles parked right next to us, no one said a word.
When it was clear to me that I wasn’t going to be able to get her up on my own, I had her get into a sitting position on the sidewalk to get off her knees, which were really hurting. I went back to my car and got my cell phone and called the non-emergency number for help. I thought they’d send a policeman – which, in my city, at rush hour, in a non-emergency, can take an hour or more. Luckily they sent the fire dept, and they were there in about 5 minutes. She was embarrassed, but as we were waiting I tried to reassure her, that’s what they’re here for, my father was a fireman (true) and they’re happy to help.
The guys got her up and asked her health-related questions to make sure there weren’t other problems – dehydration, diabetes, heart or lung problems, etc., and checked out her leg and determined it was hard for her to stand, much less walk, on her own. So they got an ambulance there right away and bundled her off to the hospital. She was so grateful to me, thanked me endlessly, and all I could say was, “You’re welcome, would hope someone else would do the same for me.” From the time I placed the call to the time the ambulance pulled off was 10 minutes, maybe 15 at most.
I live in a city well that has a strong reputation as being “friendly” and “helpful.” I have NEVER been in a position where I had car trouble or some other similar issue where at least 3 or 4 people stopped and asked if I needed assistance. So, I was doubly appalled that this poor woman would probably be kneeling there still if it wasn’t for me. I suppose it might have been because she looked down-and-out – in fact, until she told me where she lived (a retirement tower just up the street) I thought she might have been homeless. Her unkepmt hair from under a ball cap, missmatched, somewhat raggedy clothes, and a plastic shopping bag that had seen better days could have put some people off. I wonder if she’d fallen down in a more well-to-do part of town, or if she had been better dressed and groomed, if the outcome would have been different? I dunno.
