Escaped!

After all this talk of prison last week I thought I tell you of a recent jailbreak. We found 87 year old Enid sitting outside the bakery in Glenroy. She’d somehow come to the attention of the staff who’d called an ambulance because they thought she must have been unwell. Enid was immaculately dressed, with her hair perfectly done, an ornate brooch, a pressed blouse and a simple handbag in her lap. My partner was astute (awake) enough to notice our Enid was wearing only one earring – women are definitely more attuned to that stuff - I have to look down and check that I’m wearing pants some days after nightshift, let alone notice what nanna is wearing. Anyway, despite being slightly miffed I hadn’t spotted it, I had to concede it was a good pickup. The missing earring said right away that something wasn’t right. And someone as well dressed as Enid was not leaving the house til everything was just right.

Enid clearly had some dementia. She would answer our questions to the best of her ability but then when she didn’t know the answer, would ignore us, lean forward and look down the street like she was expecting a bus to come along, or perhaps somebody she knew. If you smiled at her, she would return the most genuine smile and say “Hello dear” like she’d just met you all over again. She was beautiful old nanna and my partner and I were both ready to take her home. Sadly our service frowns upon you keeping patients as pets, so we set about trying to find where Enid was from. A few phone calls later and I spoke to the nursing home a few streets away – It turns out yes, as a matter-of-fact they do normally have a resident called Enid, but today they couldn’t seem to find her. Would they like her back? Why yes they would!

We made one last call to our Duty Manager to notify our intention to return Enid and her earring to the nursing home and then we loaded her up, checked her out and drove round the corner to the home. I rang the buzzer and chuckled as I said “are you missing an Enid?” into the intercom. I let the staff know about her missing earring and they promised to look for it. Apparently that morning Enid had got all dressed up as she always does and “headed off to church”. Usually she is apprehended at the door before she gets far, but today she’d somehow made it past 2 key coded security doors, out of the grounds and down to the local shops. Not a bad escape for an 87 year old in broad daylight. We waved goodbye and then headed off to our next job.