Being in the right place...

I missed meeting a friend yesterday, never caught up with her as to why she didn't make it. (see below)  I hope all is well.  While sitting around, I got to chat with the administrative person at church, who works in a small office with computer and printer.  That was nice.   But after a while I decided to go on home.  That's when the administrator said she had a message for me, but she couldn't find it, and didn't remember what it said.

I called my friend and left a voice mail, asking her to reschedule.

Went on home and got the mail.  And there was a woman with an electric wheel chair walking her dog, on one of those leashes that retract.  But the leash had gotten under the big motorized wheel and wound several times around.  The woman was trying to go back or forward and another woman was rushing out of the laundry room (right next to mailboxes and the neighbor with wheelchair and dog).  She tried to do something, but needed to go pick up a grand-kid at school.

Location of boardwalk in front of laundry room (no people and tables today.)  Mailboxes in corrider to right. Office is in building to right.

I was free to help, but couldn't figure out how to unwind the many turns of the leash (more than just once) on the axle of the wheel.  I thought maybe we'd have to cut it, but also I wanted to get the manager and or the maintenance man to come help.  The manager came out of her office with me, to find our neighbor lying by the wheelchair, trying to reach through the few openings in the wheel.  Manager and I were both worried about neighbor on the boardwalk.  She said she knew how to get down and work things that got caught.  She actually had moved the chair back and forth a few times, and now only had one more loop stuck on the axle.

The Manager had contacted the maintenance man, to perhaps use some tools to reach the leash?  In the meantime, I pulled one end, and neighbor puled the other, and then she reached through and pushed the leash the other way, and at last it was free.

By then we'd put the dog who was shivering from the 31 degrees of cold into the laundry room.  But we brought him back outside.  And neighbor was praising God for giving help.  But she couldn't get up from the boardwalk, as she's paralyzed from the waist down.  The foot rests of the chair were in her way to lift herself up to sit in it.  A couple of neighbors tried to lift her, but she was facing the chair and was just total weight, not able to get into it.  And they complained of their back problems.

I offered to get a straight chair from the laundry room, and she was able to get herself pulled into it, and then transferred sideways into the electric wheelchair.  By then it was snowing lightly.  And then the maintenance man came to help, and there wasn't anything left for him to do.

So I figure I was in the right place at the right time.  And then I was happy to bring my mail home to my warm house, and feel thankful for what abilities I have after seeing what my neighbor had to deal with.

And then I turned to Facebook and read about someone who got a horse out of the second story hay loft using a power lifter thing (and I can't find it again, sorry, I don't know who posted it, someone in Virginia I think.) My life is so simple!

And then my friend emailed to apologize for standing me up.  She had been in ER with a TIA this morning.  She said that our meeting wasn't really that important.  I agreed!