A few nights ago at about 3:00 am, I heard our dispatch call the city officer on the radio and ask him to call her by phone. Our County Dispatch Center dispatches for the Sheriffs Office as well as the City Police Department. Shortly after that, she asked me to call in by phone.
When I did, she told me that a man had just called to report a message that what left on his answering machine the night before at 8:00 pm. He said that it was a woman's voice saying, "this is grandma, I've fallen and I need help" she then left a phone number. The caller, who I happen to know from grade school and high school, said that it wasn't his grandmother and that he didn't recognize the number.
Dispatch said that she looked up the local number in our computer system, the reverse phonebook, and online and was unable to find a name or adderss to go with the number. I asked her to call the number, which had no answer. I asked her to re-contact the reporting party to have him check his caller ID for a name. This worked and dispatch was able to provide us with an address off of the name information and told us that the woman who lives there is 77 years old.
The address was in the city, but given the circumstances, I told the city officer that I would respond to assist. By this time, it was closer to 3:30 am.
Upon arrival, we found the house to be mostly dark except for a dim lamp in the living room. We knocked and rang the doorbell several times and loudly announced that we were with the Sheriff's Office and Police Department. I checked the doors, all locked. As I was walking around the house one more time to determine which door we might kick in, the city officer called me back to the front and told me that he heard a woman's voice say to come in through the basement. Checking some more, I found that the roll up garage door was unlocked and rolled it open. We went to the door inside the garage and announced ourselves again. She said to come in. We walked in and toward the room with the light on and there she was laying face down on the living room floor.
She had a bed in the livingroom and she was squeezed between the foot of the bed and a large chair. She was in her nighty and her walker was well out of reach. I asked her what had happened; she said that she had fallen and that due to a recent back surgery, she didn't have the strength to get herself back up. She said that she had been laying there for several hours and that she finally fell asleep.
She was a portly gal and even though Officer Smith and I are both quite strong, it was all we could do to lift her back into bed. Between trying to be gentle, and the fact that she couldn't help herself at all.
She said that she was surprised but very happy that we happened by. I asked her who it was that she had tried to call earlier when she called the reporting party; she said, "I didn't call anybody, my phone is on the bed under the pillow. I would have called for help but there was no possible way for me to."
Sure enough, her telephone was under her pillow at the head of the bed and she had been laying on the floor at the foot of the bed. We tried to figure out how the call was made but were unable to.
When we left, Troy and I just kind of looked at each other and said, "wow".