Cries in the Night

I was super tired Thursday night October 3, 2013 so I went to be early around 8:30p.m. I woke up the next morning slightly before 4:30a.m. to use the restroom. When I got back in bed I heard this knocking on a wall and then I heard a man calling for help. I lay there for a few minutes and he kept calling for help. I couldn’t tell where the man was. I knew that the people in the apartment below me were two ladies and it wasn’t them. I don’t know who is in the apartment to the right side of me, but it didn’t sound right next to my head. I knew that there was an older man on the left side of the ladies underneath me, but I didn’t think that it was that man. I got up and went out to the living room and I could still hear the man. I have really good hearing, so I knew that just because I could hear this guy didn’t mean that he was in the apartment complex I was in, he could have been outside or in the one behind me. I hear the family in the apartment complex behind me all the time. I opened the window and I could still hear the man. I couldn’t decide whether or not I should call out, “where are you?” I know there are some homeless people that hang out at the park across the street and that it could have been one of them. At one point it sounded like the man was walking away. I couldn’t decide what to do. I went out my front door to listen but I couldn’t hear anyone.  I thought about calling 911, except that I didn’t know where the man was located. I knew I couldn’t go back to sleep though. I also thought about the shows I had watched where they mentioned that if only someone had called 911 the person would still be alive. I didn’t have a phonebook to look up the regular number for the police but I finally remembered I had gotten a book from the chamber of commerce and that they might have the number in that book. I did find the number and called the police station. I told the man that answered that I could hear a man calling for help, but that I had no idea where he was located. He took down my information and told me he would send some officers to check it out and if they had any questions they would contact me. I got dressed and probably five minutes later three officers showed up at my door. They had walked around but the only lights they saw one were mine and they hadn’t heard anyone crying for help. They asked me some questions like how long had I heard the cries, where was I when I first heard them. I invited them in and at first they declined but eventually they came in and asked me a few more questions. They told me that they would hang out for a few more minutes and if I heard the man calling for help again that I should call them back. I told them that I knew the guy on the bottom floor on the left side was an older gentlemen but I didn’t know who was on the right side and that the people under me were two women. They woke up both the guy and the ladies under me and I felt bad about that. I sat in my chair out in the living room for about another five minutes after they had left, debating whether I should try to go back to sleep before I had to get up and get ready for school. I finally decided that I would at least lay back down on my bed until it was time to get up. As soon as I got back to my bedroom I could hear the man calling for help again, but this time it was weaker. I got up quickly and went out my front door.  At that same moment one of the ladies from downstairs was coming out of her apartment and I asked her if she could hear him too. She said that she did and she had called the officers back to tell them that it was the man in the apartment next to them. He was an older gentleman. She went down the sidewalk a little to see if the officers were able to get in and help the man.  They were able to do that. She said that it was lucky that I heard him and that she hadn’t heard him before the police woke her up but after she was awake she had listened for a few minutes and then was able to hear him from her bedroom, but it was very faint. After that I went back into my apartment because I knew there was nothing more I could do. A few minutes later the lady from downstairs knocked on my door to tell me that the police had called an ambulance for the man. She told me that normally she is a light sleeper but was so exhausted that she hadn’t heard anything. She said that their dog hadn’t even barked. She told me again that it was lucky that I had heard the man calling for help and had called the police.

I am so glad that I did hear the man calling for help and that I called the police so that they were able to get him the help he needed. It is scary to think that since this is an old man that lives alone that it could have turned out much differently for him.