An incident that happened last Sunday has been bugging me the whole week. It happened last Sunday evening while my family was walking towards my car after we had dinner.
This area was a very run down part of town where most seniors tend to be living alone. It has a long history dating back to the 1960s where some of the first public housing blocks were built. Even after multiple renovations of the public areas over the years, one can still tell that it was a poorer part of town as the residents were mainly old folks and shops here were generally selling only basic necessities and cheap food.
While walking, we saw an old woman who was walking very slowly on crutches while trying to pull a trolly behind her. She was in a dangerous position in the middle of the road and looked to be having difficulties in her steps. I looked to my older son and suggested that we should help her.
As we approached her, we asked if we could help and inquired on where she was going. She told us that she was looking for a taxi but the main road was more than 50 meters away. We then helped her move slowly to a safer pedestrian walkway beside the road and told her that we will hail a cab for her and then get the car to drive over to her current position instead. We managed to get the cab and put her into it. The driver asked where she was going and we discovered that here destination was just a few streets away. Makes sense as she hardly could have walked her way there in her condition. I pressed some cash into her hands just to make sure that everything will be alright before we closed the car door.
Thinking back later, I started to have doubts about the whole situation. While well intended, did we do something wrong instead? The area is well known for seniors living alone whom might have disabilities and possibly even mental conditions. When I spoke to her, her eyes looked back at me with the blank look, as if she was not there with us. She mentioned a specific address (block number) of the street she wanted to go but when I checked later on google maps, I could not find that block.
Could she be having demetia and had just started wandering around her home? Could we have caused her to become lost by sending her further away from her home before her care giver could find her? Our initiate best intentions may have caused a problem if this was the case. Sadly, I will never know what was the eventual outcome. Hopefully, the driver can help her and if she was still confused, to bring her back to the original location again.
So should we have helped her or mind our own business? I really don’t know now…
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