Diane Day 3

3

TITLE: An Elderly Lady Falls



Explanation of the Act: We all lead busy lives. Weekends, especially, seem to be the time that we need to catch up on all the chores that we did not manage to complete during the week. We rush about, then, take a quick break for lunch before we begin again. We rarely stop to focus on others unless something critical happens.





Date: October 2009



Event: As we were leaving a fast food restaurant a few months ago, on our way to a mall to buy something for the house, an elderly lady tripped and fell as she was entering the store. The sidewalk was constructed in such a way that the curb had some valleys in it and if you are not paying attention to the design, anyone could easily lose their footing. This woman went down with a thud. We helped her up, brought her back into the restaurant and sat with her. Needless to say, she was very upset. In a situation like that it’s hard to know what to do. She did not want us to call an ambulance, even though it was apparent she might have broken her wrist. She wanted to speak to the manager and asked us to track him down, which we did. She was hungry so we bought her lunch. We stayed with her until the manager assured us that he would make sure she got medical attention.


Reactions: She was elderly, but still wanted to be able to take care of herself. At first, she refused medical attention, but then realized that there was a good chance that she had broken a bone. We believe she accepted the manager’s offer to call an ambulance. We admired her independence and her spunk even though she was in pain. We discussed whether we should have taken her to a hospital, but when we realized that it was important to her to control her situation, we knew that we did the right thing by giving her support when she needed it and respected her wishes. I’m pretty sure she was not going to sit back and allow a dangerous sidewalk situation go unnoticed.



Would I do it again? Yes

Cost: About $6.00
Effort: Listening to someone who was really hurt and upset

Time: 30 min