Three employees of Nester’s Sanitation Inc., Hamburg, came across a unique find on Oct. 28 while on their route; a woman who had escaped from a nursing home. Danny DeLong, John Ulrich and Romero Rodriguez were driving in the truck on Fairview Dr. between 3 and 3:30 a.m. when all they saw was a lady from the waist up.
‘We came down Fairview Dr. and all you could see was half a lady,’ said DeLong. ‘I thought she had a car accident.’
The truck stopped and the three men helped the woman out of the ditch. After checking her over with a flashlight and speaking with her, they found out that she had not been in a car accident. Just as they were getting ready to make a call to the police, a nurse with the nursing home arrived and took care of the situation.
‘We were heroes,’ said DeLong as he explained that people tend to drive very fast on that road and with it being dark out the situation could have ended very badly. ‘It was a good thing she was in the ditch and not on the road.’
One of the reasons that she was found by the truck was that it drives much slower than other vehicles on the road and that those on the truck are looking along the sides of the road for trash rather than just focusing straight ahead. According to DeLong, the woman would have been difficult to spot had someone just been driving along the road.
‘We’re the eyes and ears for the police department,’ said DeLong.
People working for companies like Nester’s are often out on the roads when very few people are and can see things that would not be caught at that time of night or morning. He believes that it is a good idea for crews to be out picking up trash earlier in the mornings because there is less traffic and it means that someone is out there keeping an eye on things.
As DeLong mentioned, it is a very good thing that they happened to be out there and that the woman ended up where she did to make a situation that could have ended very badly into one that ended well.
