My Hero

As many of you know, Chizz sometimes has the knack of being in the wrong place at the wrong time - terrorist sites, Heathrow when he is supposed to be a Gatwick, SFO when he supposed to be at Oakland airport, the other end of a golf club that has just hit a ball that just sliced into the knee of a non-English speaking Japanese employee of the Korean consulate, etc. Well, it appears the shoe is on the other foot here. The other night when he was rushing off to the gym, Chizz was walking along admiring the architecture (or so he told me) when he noticed across the street what appeared to be a body on the ground between two cars. He walked over to get a better look and it indeed turned out to be a body on the ground, a body of a woman. She was conscious but understandably very upset. She had fallen down between the cars and either wouldn't or couldn't get up. Chizz tried to ascertain whether she had been injured but she was not very coherent. He wasn't sure whether she had a few drinks at the local pub to unwind or if she had hurt herself and was in some kind of shock. He was able to determine that she just lived a few houses down, so he went down to her house and brought back her husband. Between the two of them, they were able to get her up and get her to her house. She did not want an ambulance and we surmise that she had spent the preceding hours at the pub which probably caused her fall. Kind of a strange way to start your workout, which is why I don't go to the gym. Right.

So, yesterday Chizz and I decided we were tired of looking at the dead plants in our planter boxes and appointed ourselves building gardeners. We were going to set off to the local Homebase and pick up some plants. Kiki was off with friends and Snake was staying in to do homework. We went out our flat and into our building foyer, when Chizz stops dead in his tracks, cocks his head to one side and appears to be listening. I am thinking perhaps he heard Snake calling after us, so I say "Did you hear Snake calling after us?" Original, huh? He shushed me!! He goes to the apartment door of our neighbor and says "Are you okay?" We hear a feeble, "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up". I have to fight back the urge to tell her to use her Life Alert button. But she tells us that she has fallen and can't move to open the door. I have seen her around the apartment building before, she is unsteady on her feet and I think she is probably in her late 70s. I call 999 (the UK equivalent of 911) and ask for an ambulance but I explain to the operator that I am not sure how they are going to get in the apartment. The operator says that she will also send the police and they will get into the apartment somehow. Within 5 minutes, the ambulance arrives with 3 attendants. The attendants go through our apartment and the downstairs neighbors and determine the best course of action would be probably to smash her window and gain entry that way. Although they didn't ask, that was my vote too! The whole time this was going, Chizz was sitting on the floor talking to the woman, trying to keep her alert. She kept repeating that she had fallen, she couldn't move. Chizz was very soothing, trying to keep her calm. She did stop talking several times, we weren't sure if she had fallen asleep or worse. Finally, the police arrive about 10 minutes later. They assess the situation, climb through our window to the roof to see if there was a way to gain entry, go through the neighbors yard and see if they can get in that way. They decide the best thing is to break the door down. I am worried about this because we don't know how close she is to the door. If she isn't badly hurt at this point, a door falling on her might is most certainly going to aggravate the situation!! But they need to call in another police car, one that is equipped with the rammer (I am sure there is a technical police term for it but I don't know what that is). Several minutes later, another police car arrives and 2 officers are carrying in the rammer, which is basically a large, thick pole with handles on it. On the heels of these two policemen is a woman who turns out to be the neighbor's daughter. She has a key and the ambulance attendants are able to assist our neighbor. She recently had some new medication and it makes her more unsteady on her feet. Her son had spent the night but had left early that morning for work. So Mrs. H. probably had not been on the floor that long as it turns out but still all in all probably a scary situation for her. They checked her out medically and she was fine so it was not necessary to take her to the hospital. The daughter was very grateful that Chizz had heard her. Mrs. H. is actually 86 years old and apparently very stubborn and independent. She refuses to use a "stick" (cane in American) or have live in care. I have a feeling Mrs. H and her daughter are going to have some discussions about those issues this week. If the daughter had been 3 minutes later, she would have been cleaning up wood splinters all over her mother's entryway. Mrs. H. was not right by the door so if they had taken down the door, she wouldn't have been hurt but probably very surprised!

It was amazing that Chizz heard her, her voice was very faint. In this day and age, we all bustle about so quickly that sometimes we don't see or hear things around us. We all need to rely on the kindness of strangers at some point in our life. I am very proud of Chizz that he heard both of these women and took time to help them. We would all like to thing we would but lets face it there are quite a few people who wouldn't or couldn't be bothered. I am proud to be married to him. Now if I could just get him to remember which airport he is flying out of.