Stomach Bug Emergencies

A few Sundays ago I was reading on the couch debating whether I should go to bed or continue reading some steamy scenes in The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon (It's the fifth book in the "Outlander" series, you will love it). From my vantage point on the couch, I noticed that our backyard was blinking red and blue. Upon gawking out the window, I saw a police cruiser and a fire engine pulled up in front of my neighbor's house. I saw my female neighbor, I'll call her "Diane," answer the door so I figured it was probably either a problem with her husband ("Tom") or her young son ("Patrick"). These thoughts were confirmed when an ambulance screeched up to the curb a few moments later.

Now we don't know these neighbors well. Actually, we don't really know any of our neighbors well even though we've lived in our house for almost five years. This is based on a number of factors:

1. We both work long hours. Although now that I'm laid off I have plenty of neighbor-time but, strangely, there are not that many neighbors out and about during normal working hours.
2. We never really made the effort to get to know most of our neighbors because we bought our house assuming that we would move to a different community in a few years. We did not assume that the housing market would crash making that move impossible.
3. Many of our neighbors are elderly and don't leave their homes much.
4. Some of our neighbors are drug addicts.

These particular neighbors we know better than most but our relationship consists mostly of waving hello from our respective yards and sending Christmas cards. Occassionally, Tony and Tom will have a more in depth conversation which is pretty much why I know anything about them at all.

So I stood at the window and thought about what, if anything, I should do in this situation if it turned out to be Tom leaving in the ambulance. I knew that our neighbors would be unlikely to drag their young son to the hospital at such a late hour, however, I also knew that they didn't have many family members in the area who would be able to stay with him. As a wife, I couldn't imagine not being able to go with Tony to the hospital if such an emergency ever popped up.

But since we are not exactly friends with these neighbors, I wondered if it was my place to get involved in this type of situation or if it would be a better idea to just MYOB.

Then I saw Tom walking down the stairs to the ambulance. And I just opened my door and ran across the street without really thinking about it. Diane was still in the doorway as I ran up her front stairs. As she opened the door, I said, "Diane, I know we don't know each other well but if you want to go in the ambulance with Tom, I will stay with Patrick." She gave me a wavering smile and replied, "I'm sorry, who are you?"

Clearly I need to do a little more friendly neighbor outreach.

Once I clarified that I was Erin from across the street, she knew who I was and apologized saying she was just so shaken up she couldn't think straight. I felt a little awkward as this was not something I would normally do - intrude on a family emergency - but immediately began to feel that I had done the right thing.

Diane was very shaken up because her husband, after being sick with a stomach bug, had passed out on the floor and she hadn't been able to wake him up for a few minutes. She was very upset and was trying to hold it together for her young son but seemed grateful to have someone there to offer support.

As it turned out, I stayed at her house for about 20 minutes to wait for Patrick's elderly grandfather to arrive while Diane got a headstart on her way to the hospital. Thankfully, it was only a matter of dehydration and they were home within a few hours.

Diane called me the next day to thank me for coming over and I was really glad that I didn't follow my first instinct to stay out of it.

And two days later guess who got the stomach bug. I'll spare you the details :)