On the afternoon of March 9, 84-year-old Hendrina Welter was walking to the thrift store where she works when she started to feel dizzy. She blacked out and fell face first on the ground near the corner of Beacon Avenue and Third Street.
Welter said she blacked out for no more than 30 seconds, but when she regained consciousness, a woman was comforting her.
“She said, ‘Sit down, we have called the ambulance.'” Welter would now like to thank the woman, but does not know the identity of the Good Samaritan, without even a physical description.
“She was behind me, holding me up,” said Welter, who guesses the woman’s age to be in her 40s. “I never saw her face. She asked me where I was going and I told her that I was on may way to work. She actually went to the thrift store and told them what happened, which I really appreciated.”
As the women were waiting for the ambulance, the woman further comforted her. “She had her arms around my shoulder,” she said. “I was sitting on the sidewalk by then and I was trying to get back up. But I started to fall backwards again and she said, ‘Don’t get back up, we have called the ambulance.'”
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Welter estimates the woman spent about 10 minutes with her while ambulance crews were caring for her before carrying her to hospital.
“They put me on a stretcher and wheeled me [into the ambulance],” said Welter. “I was with it, but still kind of dizzy.”
When asked whether anybody else on the scene could identify the woman, Welter said no.
“It’s a big mystery,” she said. “I would like thank her, yet I don’t know how, because I don’t know her name, I don’t even know her face. I just know that she stayed with me until the ambulance put me on a stretcher and wheeled me away.”
Welter’s colleagues at the thrift store have also been unable to help.
Welter said she does not need the woman to come forward. “I would just like to thank her,” she said.
Nearly a month after the incident, Welter is feeling better after she spent three days in the hospital, where she underwent a series of tests during which doctors discovered a minor heart problem now being treated with pills. Looking back, Welter said she did not know what she would have done if the woman had not been there with her.
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