Recent S.F., CA. Tragedy serves as a warning!
An elder was hit by a motor vehicle on the Great Coast Highway at 5 a.m. a few weeks ago. It was dark and lightly raining and there are no street lights at 5 a.m. on what is a major road along the beach. The roads were wet. The senior was in robe and pajamas. While having life-signs at being loaded into ambulance, sadly the senior died in transit to the ER.
The driver was compliant, had no way of stopping in time, senior had wandered directly out onto the highway where there was no beach crosswalk. Driver was in total shock at having hit someone.
I know many who visit AC wonder if their senior still is safe alone, or safe in their rooms. We hear of "wandering" a lot.Though something like this is quite rare in our city, and we seldom get all the details, this became a controversy when it sort of "went political", as things can these days, and a group began protesting that "A visit to the beach shouldn't constitute a death sentence" and so on.
This was a simple tragedy in which things all went wrong. There's a driver that has now to live the rest of his/her life knowing they hit someone. A family must bear the guilt and self-questioning that may occur in a case like this.
All take care. All take precautions where/when able.
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Now someone’s dad, husband, or grandpa is dead because those looking after him couldn’t watch him 24/7. Sad.
Of all the things I forgot I did forget the diagnosis.
Family did not know he had exited the home and continued asleep.
That's the why of it.
The ambulance driver wrote about it because of all the slander going on. He was so incredibly kind and sad. He said he never looks directly at the face of someone he helps to pick up. He isn't the one to do assessment, and he doesn't know how he could contain what people see and go on with the work.
Very tough. Our lives are FULL OF HEROES. They are everywhere.
We've had a 69 year old gentleman with dementia missing since last Sunday(it will be a week tomorrow)after he wandered away on foot from his home, and he still hasn't been found.
I can only guess that at this point it will be his dead body that will eventually be found.
Yet another tragic end to a preventable story.
About ten years ago
The point is that this could have happened anywhere in sf.