An alert 15-year-old boy has been hailed a hero for saving the life of an 89-year-old woman after he noticed that she hadn’t collected her papers for three days.
Liam Apps was completing his paper round before school when he noticed papers from the last three days were still stacked at the elderly woman’s doormat. Worried, the teenager told his mom about it after he finished school.
The mom-son duo then solicited help from neighbors and together they broke into the property.
“[We] went round the back of the house and knocked on the window,” Liam said. “At first we had no response but then there was a voice that shouted they couldn’t get off the floor.”
The quick-thinking youngster then dialed 999 and asked for an ambulance while his mother, Katie, and the neighbors broke down the back door.
Liam said: “At first we couldn’t see where she was but after going inside we saw her laying down in the corner.
“It looked like she‘d fallen over, she had a big cut on her leg, and although I couldn’t see any other injuries she had a pressure sore on her back because she’d been laying down at an angle for a couple of days.”
According to Liam, who had been delivering papers to the woman on a daily basis since 2019, the last time he spoke to her was just before Christmas when she gave him a tip as a gift.
“The elderly lady said it hadn’t been nighttime while she had been on the floor which I thought was strange, but, she was probably confused and dehydrated,” Liam said.
Due to Liam’s timely intervention, the elderly lady made it to the hospital and has managed to recover. Reflecting on the incident, Liam said he feels good to have helped the elderly lady because if he hadn’t done anything, she would have still been lying on the ground.
Needless to say, Liam’s mother, who is a midwife, was really proud of her son. She said, “I can’t say I’m surprised because he’s a really good lad.”
“After we got home from the house the paramedic that came to take the lady rang Liam personally on his mobile and thanked him and said what a wonderful thing he had done,” Katie further added.
The mom from Wigmore, Kent, also mentioned that at first, her son was a bit “shell-shocked” and “panicked” being unaware of what to do. However, she believes he did “really well,” as he made the call to the ambulance while she and the neighbor broke into the house.
While Liam initially felt like it was not a big deal to have gone out and helped, thinking that anyone could have done it, after receiving a whole lot of messages from his friends he believes it is “cool” now.
Though the elderly lady gave her rescuers permission to break down her door, a GoFundMe page has now been set up to pay for repairs and has already raised more than double the target of 150 pounds (approx. US$205).
“The door is going to be fixed and the GoFundMe page will raise the money for that,” Katie said. “Also, this lady’s house was pristine and her carpets were quite blood stained so we'd like to get her carpets cleaned and maybe get her some flowers for her to come home to.”
