Residents save elderly accident victim from the cold

NEW MADRID, Mo. - On the afternoon of Jan. 16, an elderly woman was brought to the police department by two residents who found her stranded in a car near LaForge. The woman’s car had slid off the road, down an embankment and was stuck in the snow at the bottom of the embankment.

When the man and woman found her, the elderly woman’s car wouldn’t start and temperatures were in the teens. An officer took the woman inside and gave her a blanket then called for an ambulance to be sure the woman was OK.

While speaking to her, it was clear that she was confused and didn’t know where she was going or where she was at the time. The officer ran the woman’s name, birthdate and social security number and found that she was listed as a missing/endangered person out of Mississippi; the woman, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, had been missing for approximately 14 hours and a silver alert had been issued a few hours earlier.

The woman was transported to the hospital by ambulance where she was later reunited with family members. She was wearing only a T-shirt and shorts and was obviously not prepared to be out in the winter weather.

Had it not been for the actions of two local residents, she would have been in serious danger as nighttime temperatures hovered around zero that night. They truly went above and beyond to be sure the woman was cared for and it almost surely saved her life.