Privateer, here is one that happened last night and it took some getting my head around.
We got a call at about 2200 to assist an elderly resident who couldn't turn their stove off and it was apparently glowing bright orange. A strange call and I'm afraid to say we treated it as a bit of a joke at first. When we arrived we found a wizened, little (about 4'6") old lady who asked if we were the police, despite the big red truck and the yellow turn out clothes. Our Officer's checked the stove and turned it off, then we actually waited for a bit to ensure it cooled down.
The old dear must have been 90 years of age, or more, and our Officer made us all a cup of tea and she faffed about finding biscuits. There was virtually nothing in the fridge and probably less in the cupboard, but there was tea and biscuits to spare. While we were there (about 15 minutes) she asked us several times why we had come out, we explained & she'd ask again. She'd called because she couldn't see well enough to turn the oven dial off apparently (which I'd believe she was 9/10's blind). Her family all live interstate and her husband died 13 years ago. When asked, she stated that noone came to check on her, no nurse, no meals on wheels people, noone.
Our Officer is arranging for the Community Health people to go around and assess the old dear. We checked she had smoke alarms (and that they worked), but it was an awful feeling, this poor old lady was incapable of living on her own any more, at least without assistance. On the one hand it feels good to know that we are making a difference, but there is a seriously depressing part there as well. One of our blokes is a cop and he recently found a veteran of WW2 who'd fallen out of bed after having a stroke, he was covered in piss, shit, vomit and so on and was partially paralyzed, he'd lain on the floor for two days in winter and was too tough to give up. He was taken to hospital and died in bed, with people around and pumped full of painkillers, but it is a sad way to go. It plays on my mind, there is too much of this and someone has to keep their eyes open.
