Last Tuesday was balmy in two ways, balmy because I could bike without fear of ice, and balmy because my bike rides led to the unexpected. In fact Tuesday became my double samaritan day.
Early in the morning, as I pedaled quickly to an appointment, I heard a child’s voice call out, turned around, and saw one of my grandsons standing outside his front door in his pajamas. He looked upset.
“I came outside for my skateboard.”
“Oh?”
“And actually I’m locked out.”
“Did you ring the bell?”
“About a hundred times. Everyone’s upstairs.”
I called his parents on my cell phone and waited till he got inside.
Later in the afternoon, as I biked along Jarvis, I heard the voice of an older woman, “Help me, please help me, please come here!!!”
I stopped and looked around. A young woman passed without pausing, not even curious, more interested in her recreational walk than in someone’s call for help.
“Please come here, I’m in the garage!” I couldn’t see the person in trouble, and suspected she couldn’t see me.
“I’m coming,” I called, nervous about what I’d find, and stunned that the passer-by kept right on passing by. I peered into the garage, and a little old lady, neatly pressed jacked covered with mud, was sitting on the concrete floor, trapped between her van and the wall. She’d squeezed through the van door with her grocery bag and slipped in mud. Wedged in too tightly to change her position and invisible to passers-by, she’d been there over an hour.
My grandson had been ringing the doorbell; this lady had nothing to ring. Her cell phone was in the house, she couldn’t see around the corner of the garage, no one could see her. “Finally I just started praying for someone to save me,” she said. “Then I glimpsed a wheel of your bike.”
I stood there grasping my handle bars, bike basket loaded with groceries, and tried to figure out what to do. “I can’t lift you myself,” I told her, “I’m going to call the police.”
She didn’t want me to at first, “I’m not even hurt.” Well, I didn’t want to be the one to hurt her. “Maybe you should call the police,” she said.
I dialed 911, was switched to the Shorewood Police, told them she was unhurt and didn’t need an ambulance, then waited with her, chatted and waited, chatted some more. “The other day in the Bayshore parking lot I heard someone calling for help, looked around and saw an old lady lying on the ground next to her car. She had slipped on the ice, so I helped her. Maybe you’re my reward!” she joked. “I would have stopped, even if you hadn’t helped her,” I replied, hoping I won’t need a reward anytime soon. The banter may have been light, but really, I felt so badly for her I wanted to cry!
A door slammed, and a man walked into the alley next to the garage. I explained what had happened, and he, too, tried to figure out how to get her up. The space was too tight and the floor too slippery. “Don’t worry, the police are on their way,” I told him, but he wouldn’t give up.
When the police arrived, one of them squeezed around the van so she had support on both sides. They helped her up, opened the back of her van to give her a spot to sit down for a few minutes, and I left. A few days ago I saw the police digging out a car that had skidded into a snow bank. Now that the snow is melting, they’re lifting people out of mud!
