But within me, together with fear, the
rage.
Who could do something like that?
Who could abandon a helpless old woman by an empty road in freezing rain?
I had no blanket.
No bag.
Disabled and special needs
No phone.
No food.
Not even a note.
Nothing to indicate that someone wanted to be found.
Nothing to prove that someone cared.
It seemed as if someone had left her there waiting for the night to finish the job.
When the ambulance finally arrived, the red lights were reflected on the wet road and the mud that surrounded us was red.
Vehicle tyres and wheels
Two paramedics ran to us.
One checked his pulse.
The other raised a eyelid and lit his eye with a flashlight.
The first paramedic looked at me and then watched the empty road behind me.
“That’s how you found her?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
People and society
“Completely alone.”
His expression changed.
Occupational health and safety
It was no longer just worry.
It was suspicion.
They wrapped her in thermal blankets and carefully lifted her from the chair.
I watched them as they boarded it to the ambulance and for a moment I thought my share was over.
I had found her.
I had asked for help.
Psychology
I should have come home.
But I couldn't.
Something inside me wouldn't allow me to leave that woman a second time.
So I followed the ambulance to the hospital
I sat in the waiting room with the rainwater still falling out of my hair and mud drying out in my shoes, unable to stop shaking.
Every time I passed a doctor or nurse, I would get up to ask if I was still alive.
Shipments and Logistics
Finally, a nurse approached.
“He’s stable for now,” he said. “But he suffered dangerous hypothermia and severe dehydration.”
I released the air that seemed to have been holding for hours.
But the nurse was not finished yet.
“There’s something else,” he said quietly.
My stomach shrugged.
Anatomy
“What?”
He lowered his voice even further.
“She seems to have been sedated.”
I felt like the hallway was leaning around me.
“Sedada?”
“We still don’t know what,” he replied. “But I wasn’t just asleep.”
That word changed everything.
I sat in the waiting room with the rainwater still falling out of my hair and mud drying out in my shoes, unable to stop shaking.
Every time I passed a doctor or nurse, I would get up to ask if I was still alive.
Shipments and Logistics
Finally, a nurse approached.
“He’s stable for now,” he said. “But he suffered dangerous hypothermia and severe dehydration.”
I released the air that seemed to have been holding for hours.
But the nurse was not finished yet.
“There’s something else,” he said quietly.
My stomach shrugged.
Anatomy
“What?”
He lowered his voice even further.
“She seems to have been sedated.”
I felt like the hallway was leaning around me.
“Sedada?”
“We still don’t know what,” he replied. “But I wasn’t just asleep.”
That word changed everything.
Sofas and armchairs
Sedate meant that someone could have given him something.
Someone could have left her completely helpless.
Someone could have placed her in that wheelchair and abandoned in a place where she thought no one would find her.
Shortly after, the police arrived.
People and society
They asked me absolutely everything.
Where I saw the wheelchair.
What condition the woman was in.
If there was any other car nearby.
If I'd seen anyone walk away.
I tried to remember, but my mind was full of rain, headlights and the image of that thin hand hanging from the armrest.
Hospital and treatment centres
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I only saw her.”
One of the officers nodded slowly.
“Maybe he saved his life.”
But I didn't feel like a hero.
