POLICE Called to 92-Year-Old’s Home, What They Discovered Next is Shocking.
The life of a cop ain’t easy. There is always something going wrong in the world and, unfortunately, most of the time their problems are bigger than your average speeding ticket. Cops face danger every single day, even when they aren’t actively fighting wrongdoings or dealing with serious gangsters. They never know what struggles they might face. From car chases to shootouts, there is nothing that cops aren’t ready to face, and unlike most of us easygoing citizens, they don’t have the option to say no when duty calls.
That was exactly the case one morning when the Gainesville Police Department received a call concerning an elderly woman who lived alone. Her neighbors called in because they hadn’t seen her for days and they hadn’t heard much coming from her house. Any number of things could have happened. She could have died and there was no one to find her, or she could have been lying on the floor from a stroke for days without help, or things could have taken an even more sinister turn. The elderly are easy targets for robbers and scammers, especially when they live alone.
That was one reason why, when she took the call, Officer Christine Miller was quick to hop in her car with her partner. Helping people was one of the many reasons why Officer Miller decided to apply to the police academy. She had spent her entire life helping others. Back when she was a little girl, her parents had taught her the importance of service. They were good people who understood the importance of giving back. They volunteered at food banks regularly, collected canned foods for poor people, and even spent time at the local animal shelter. They weren’t rich people, but they had enough to get by and were always worried about those who weren’t as lucky as them.
Unfortunately, Officer Miller’s parents didn’t turn out that lucky. When she was only in high school, her mother got a stage 4 diagnosis and was feeling under the weather a lot. Young Christine helped her father take care of her, but then her father ended up with a brain disorder at the same time. As soon as her mother got rid of the first illness anyway, other health-related problems jumped in. The diagnoses weren’t good, and they were just getting worse and worse.
There were days when Christine felt like she was living through a bad movie, because if she saw the things that were happening to her on a screen, she wouldn’t have believed they were real. She loved her parents very much and didn’t understand how such good people could end up being so sick and hurting so much. There were a lot of trips to the hospital, and even when they were at home, there was always something to be done. There weren’t many people around to help, so Christine ended up doing a lot of these things on her own. She cooked for her parents, gave them their medicine, and made sure the house was kept nice and tidy.
All the while, she made sure not to neglect her own studies. She did her homework every night, was never late to school, and got good grades. She wasn’t the best in school, but she did all right, especially given the circumstances. Thankfully, they did get to see their only daughter get accepted into and graduate from the school of her dreams: the police academy.
Christine had never been the type of girl to play with dolls or dress up as a princess. She preferred action figures with police officers or firefighters, and her parents always supported this. For Halloween, she dressed up as a doctor or a pilot or something along those lines, but the idea of being a police officer had always appealed to her. She hated the idea of injustice and was obsessed with watching mystery shows and reading about old unsolved cases. She was so prepared for the police academy that everyone on the force was impressed. It was no surprise she graduated top of her class. Knowing that Christine had achieved her goal, her parents passed away, proud to have been able to call her their daughter.
Christine’s job ended up being tougher than she anticipated, but she was prepared. She didn’t mind the long, grueling hours, and while she didn’t enjoy some of the more boring aspects of being a cop, like giving out parking tickets, she knew they were important tasks that needed to be done. She was glad when she could do something that didn’t involve anyone getting hurt. She hated turning up to a case when there was an obvious injustice that had been done, especially when there was nothing she could do about it.
When she got the call about the elderly woman, Mrs. Samantha Hill, she was worried that might be the case. She had seen plenty of elderly people being scammed or hurt by people who wanted to take advantage of them, so she was pretty cautious when she rang Mrs. Hill’s doorbell. She and her partner were prepared for the worst. Seeing as Officer Miller’s partner, Officer Jennifer Van, was pretty new to the job, Miller was worried that they might be facing a situation her partner wasn’t quite prepared for.
Miller had gotten a good reputation for helping out new officers, especially women who came from situations like her own, and Jennifer was one of those. Being a cop isn’t easy to begin with, and being a female cop is even more difficult. There were still lots of outdated cops in their department who didn’t think that being a police officer was a job fit for a woman. They often said it was too dangerous for women or that they would get too emotional, but Officer Miller always proved them wrong. She could keep her cool during any tough situation, she faced danger head-on, and she had never mishandled things. She had gotten hurt a few times; every cop has a few scars or bruises, as it is just part of the job. Officer Miller wore her scars with pride. She proved her skill to her colleagues, and eventually, it helped other women gain the respect they deserved too.
Slowly but surely, the number of female cops grew to a pretty good number. The department was even recognized on a national level for the high number of women they had in their force and for some of the initiatives they had started to make the workplace more accessible for women. They had set up things like cheap childcare, community events, and, of course, they made sure that women were getting paid just as much as the men for the same job, which sadly just wasn’t the case in a lot of police departments or in most jobs.
Officer Jennifer Van looked up to her a lot and was trying not to show how nervous she was at the front door. Jennifer was fresh out of training and had only done things like visit schools, teach children how to cross the street, and hand out some parking tickets. She had learned how to face danger in training, but being faced with danger for the first time is intimidating no matter how well-trained you are. There are some things that you just can’t prepare for, and she could see that Officer Miller thought things might not be good.
To reassure her partner, Officer Miller went in first, ready to flash her badge and weapon no matter what might come their way. The front door was unlocked, so they didn’t need to break anything, but they were still pretty cautious and made sure to call out to say that they were entering. This was an important thing to do in case people complained later about police breaking and entering into their homes. Not everyone was a huge fan of officers, which had been a big shock to Officer Miller when she joined the police force and encountered people who just hated cops for no reason at all. She understood why some people were scared of the police; it was frightening to see people with weapons, but she knew what she was doing and she always reassured people that she was there to protect them from the real bad guys.
She whispered to Officer Van to keep her cool but that she should be ready to call backup, as some jobs were just too big for two officers.
As they tiptoed through the dark living room, they noticed an odd smell that kept getting worse as they approached the kitchen. There, they found moldy bread on the counter and bowls with rotted fruit being devoured by fruit flies. A few roaches scampered out of the way, and Officer Miller was certain she spotted a mouse tail disappearing somewhere. She had to cover her nose as she opened the fridge, and once she opened it, she felt sick. The light didn’t come on, and she doubted it had been working for several days because the milk and yogurt were all spoiled. It wasn’t much food, but the things that were there had gone bad a while ago. Officer Miller couldn’t close the fridge quickly enough.
The next thing she did was check to see if the lights were working. They weren’t, and when she tried to turn on the sink, there wasn’t any water. The pipes made a weird sound like they were starting to rot, and she suspected they hadn’t been used in a few days.
While she was checking out the kitchen, Officer Van gathered the courage to explore the place a bit on her own. They hadn’t run into anyone yet, so they figured the chances of there being something like a hostage situation were pretty small. Aside from the creaking of the hardwood floors beneath their heavy-duty boots, the house was pretty quiet. There was no hum of an air conditioning machine or heater, and all the windows must have been sealed shut. The vents were dusty, and dust jumped into the air whenever they touched something new.
Officer Van was a pretty clean and tidy person and had some obsessive-compulsive tendencies when it came to germs, so she was regretting the fact that she didn’t have a mask to wear on her face just in case there were some nasty viruses floating about. Even if there wasn’t anything deadly like E. coli in the air, there was certainly plenty of bacteria that Officer Van would rather not think about if she didn’t have to.
The house had two floors, and once the ground floor was proven to be safe, Officer Van took the initiative of heading up the stairs. She took a big breath as she started going up, fixing her eyes straight ahead to avoid looking at the mess that surrounded her, shivering at what she thought was maybe the sight of mold peeking out through some of the wallpaper. Once she reached the top, she heard a very light rocking sound. Occasionally, there was this sort of wheezing, and the closer Officer Van came, the more she started to realize it was the sound of a person having trouble breathing. At least that meant that someone in the house was alive.
The sound came from a door at the end of the hall that was cracked open. The hinges made a cringey squeaking sound as she turned the handle, wishing that she was wearing gloves considering the amount of dust the handle left on her fingers. But whatever was behind that door had to be worse than just a few germs, so she pressed on.
When she saw Mrs. Samantha Hill, Officer Van screamed for Officer Miller to come help.
“Officer Miller, come help!”
Officer Miller rushed up, skipping every other stair and preparing herself for the worst. She had come across some pretty nasty things like bodies during her career, and she was worried that Officer Van had seen something she wasn’t prepared for, or even worse, that she might be in danger. With one hand on her radio ready to call for backup, Officer Miller burst into the room ready for action, and heaved a sigh of relief when she saw Mrs. Hill sleeping alone in her rocking chair.
However, Mrs. Hill didn’t look so good. She was 92 years old according to the expired driver’s license that Officer Miller pulled from Mrs. Hill’s purse after trying to wake the old lady up. She lived by herself, and obviously, no one had come to check on her for at least a week. The more Officer Miller thought about the whole situation, that was really the scariest part of the story.
The first thing Officer Miller did when she found Mrs. Hill was call the medical team. Mrs. Hill had fallen asleep over a day ago and was pretty dehydrated since her water wasn’t running. There were no water bottles to be found anywhere, and none of the food was any good. The medical team arrived pretty quickly, and thankfully, Mrs. Hill’s situation could have been much worse. She was lucky that Officer Miller arrived when she did, otherwise they might have had to call the coroner instead of the EMS squad, which had Mrs. Hill awake and hydrated back in no time.
Mrs. Hill was pretty confused and embarrassed about the whole situation and kept thanking Officer Miller. Mrs. Hill said that she was all right, but Officer Miller wouldn’t stop there.
The next thing she did after making sure Mrs. Hill was all right was hand Officer Van a few hundred in cash and tell her to head to the grocery store and stock up on all the things Mrs. Hill needed, starting with the basics like water and healthy food. She also found Mrs. Hill’s prescriptions and told her partner to refill them. Apparently, Mrs. Hill didn’t have enough money to pay for her blood pressure medications, and without them, she wound up in situations like the one they just found her in.
While Officer Van was off filling prescriptions and getting groceries, Officer Miller got to work cleaning up. The house was one of the messiest that Officer Miller had ever seen, but she was up to the task, and she did it all on her own cost and at her own time. She clocked off of work, saying that sometimes the most dutiful tasks happen when an officer is off duty. While cleaning up a house and helping an old lady is a nice thing to do, it wasn’t exactly included in her job description as a police officer, and she didn’t want taxpayers having to pay for something they weren’t supposed to.
Once the fridge was stocked and things were decently clean, Officer Miller asked Mrs. Hill about the electricity situation, figuring a fuse might have gotten pulled or something like that.
Mrs. Hill started crying when she admitted she had forgotten to send the check for her utilities. She didn’t have much money and always waited until the last day because she was saving every single penny, and at her age, it was easy to forget a tiny task like that. And when she did, it had dire consequences.
Officer Miller called the electricity and water companies and got the bill straightened away, but she didn’t let Mrs. Hill do any of the paying. Officer Miller went right ahead and opened up her own checkbook and paid for a few months down the line too. And while she was at it, she replaced a few of the broken light bulbs. Mrs. Hill’s eyesight wasn’t very good, and having dull light bulbs didn’t help.
One would think that that was enough, since Officer Miller had already certainly gone above and beyond the call of duty, but she wasn’t the type of woman to stop there. Mrs. Hill was clearly alone, and if someone didn’t check up on her on a regular basis, things weren’t going to go well. Officer Miller was happy to visit again and again, and she didn’t want to visit because of another worried call.
So, her visits to Mrs. Hill became a regular occurrence, and when she wasn’t able to make it, she sent Officer Van to check up on her. They made sure that she always had enough groceries, medication, and most importantly, company. Officer Miller knew what it was like to feel lonely since her parents had passed so early, and poor Mrs. Hill didn’t have anyone to talk to.
And she had plenty of stories to tell. She had lived through a lot and seen many things happen in the world that Officer Miller had only read about in history books. She was always happy to listen to Mrs. Hill’s stories, so often she came over for dinner and cooked. Mrs. Hill was a pretty good cook herself, but with her arthritis, cooking wasn’t that easy, so she shared some of her secret recipes with Officer Miller. Before too long, it was like the two were family.
Eventually, of course, the time for Mrs. Hill came. No one can live forever; that was a lesson that Officer Miller knew all too well. But she never thought of these sort of things as sad. It was a perfectly natural part of life, and she was happy that she was able to make Mrs. Hill’s last days joyful ones. She liked the thought that her parents were up there with Mrs. Hill, looking down on her, acting as her guardian angels as she went about doing her duty.
There were plenty of other situations in which Officer Miller helped people in need, especially the elderly, but Mrs. Hill always held a special place in her heart. Whenever she got tough calls or had to face situations she didn’t want to, she thought of everything Mrs. Hill had been through and how, no matter how her own career ended up going, she had at least changed Mrs. Hill’s life for the better. And that was the greatest thing that a cop can do.
