911!

Well. Last night marks the first time I have ever called 911.

Here's how it went . . . .

2:45AMish - I wake up to someone leaning over me . . I completely jumped in bed and gasped . . . then Shane says "oh. sorry baber." Me - "Oh my gosh! You scared the crap out of me!!!! What are you doing?!??!" Shane - "There's a cop car going down our neighbor's driveway." (he was looking out the window on my side of the bed) Me - "What's going on?" Shane - "I don't know." . . . so the cop car then drives back out of the driveway and we lay there not knowing what the HECK is going on, but try . . and successfully and eventually go back to sleep.

3:20AMish - We wake up to someone BANGING on our door! Me - "Oh my gosh. What should we do?!" Shane - "Just stay still. Just stay here." Me - "Oh my gosh. I don't know what to do. I'm calling 911." (At this point I was completely freaked out and shaking! Because last I knew there was a cop next door . . . so obviously something was going down. . . didn't know if it was a mass murderer, someone who was lost, a cop, someone who ran out of gas . . I was scared.) So 911 asks what my emergency was and I told them the story about how there was a cop car in our neighbor's driveway about a half hour ago and someone was banging on our door and I had no idea who it was and was scared to go look, so they patched me to the state police who then quickly said they were looking for an elderly guy who had wandered off and that they would be at our house in a minute. So literally . . like 1 minute later, the cops were there at our doorstep. They said that it was them that were knocking and they were going house to house to see if anyone has seen him. They told us that he wandered off and that he had dementia and was trying to find his way "home". I guess he was only wearing his flannel PJs and boots, so they needed to find him fast since it was so cold outside. They told us to keep our doors locked in case he tried coming in to find his "home". So they left and we went back to bed, still shaken up about everything. (We did tell the cops that we would contact them if we saw him).

3:45AMish - Still wide awake, we hear and see a helicopter outside with its spotlight looking for our neighbor. I felt so helpless. I wanted to go and help search.

4:30AMish - Finally fell back asleep

6:45AMish - Heard on WJET TV 24 that they did find our neighbor (I guess he was yelling) in a creek in the woods. He had hypothermia but was conscious. They rushed him to Hamot Hospital. You can see GoErie.com's report here.

Such a crazy night. So glad they found him and that he was still alive. Hoping and praying for his full recovery.

p.s. - Props to the 911 center and state police for such a quick response to us, and for finding our neighbor. So comforting.