In which I meet one of my neighbours

[anef]

Had a slightly weird experience earlier today.  I had gone into town to do some shopping, and when I got back I had to park a bit further up the road than I normally do.  I parked in front of a house that I had never seen before parked in front of before.  When I opened the car door to get out I glanced sideways and saw a little old man in the doorway of the house.  He was half-naked (from the waist down) jumping up and down and shouting "Help!"

It's not the sort of thing you can ignore.  I sat there for a minute considering my options.  I decided reluctantly that "leave now and don't look back" was probably not amongst them.  I thought that even if he did mean mischief he was probably too little and old to cause me serious damage, so I went over to ask him what he wanted. 

He wasn't very coherent, and I ended up going inside with him.  The house was overheated and there was a chairlift a the bottom of the stairs.  The phone was off the hook and one of those patient alarms was ringing.  He was in a bit of a state, but asked me to go upstairs and get him some clothes from the middle bedroom.  I found a quilt and a dressing gown, and managed to get him into the dressing gown and sat him down with a cup of water, and tried to work out what I ought to do.  It didn't help that he couldn't hear very well and his communication was very confused.  He did try to make some phone calls (including to the police, and 999) but the phone didn't seem to be working.

I think what had happened was that he had had problems getting up and had fallen over, and had pushed his patient alarm button, and nobody had come, so he had just got himself more and more worked up.  He couldn't ring out because (as I discovered) there was an upstairs phone that was also off the hook, so he couldn't get a dialling tone.  While I was there a nurse did answer the alarm, but she couldn't seem to understand what he was saying (this was mostly "come at once, emergency", so I'd have thought that was clear enough).  I tried to explain as much as I did understand and she ended up saying that she would ring his relatives, although some of them seemed to be in Australia.  There was a list of phone numbers on the wall so I started ringing them, and eventually got through to someone who said that she was his great niece, and was shopping in John Lewis, and would come as soon as she had collected her purchases.

So I found him his cup of water again and asked if he'd be all right for half an hour (which was about as long as I thought it would take for his niece to get there), and he said he would be, so I left.  I suppose I should go past there and check things look all right when I go out again, though I don't particularly want to.  I've even forgotten his name by now, though he did tell it to me.

Comments

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Well done.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

What fjm said. What you did was exactly right, by the sound of it. And none of it easy. Though of course you worry that it wasn't enough, that you ought to check again.

[andrewducker]

You did the right thing - well done.

I had to do something similar when I was about 15 - and thankfully my parents were in and able to help. Not nice, and I'm not surprised you didn't want to go back.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

It sounds like an excellent thing that you were to hand and so calm and sensible.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I think that counts as an Adventure.