A random act of kindness at a Mount Douglas washroom might have saved Mary Gresham’s life – and now she’s hoping to find and thank the mystery Good Samaritan who came to her rescue.
Gresham, of Saanich, was driving along Cedar Hill Road May 24 with her husband of 63 years, Ray Gresham, when her health began to rapidly decline without warning.
“I said to my husband, ‘I don’t feel good,’” she told Black Press Media in an interview on Tuesday (May 31).
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Gresham made an emergency stop at Mount Douglas Park, where she parked the car and was helped into a nearby washroom by her husband. Once inside, her condition was still worsening and she started to feel nauseous. Her legs began to weaken and, equipped with just her cane, she feared fainting.
“I was very, very ill. But I didn’t let myself (fall). I held on.”
She heard someone in a stall next to her and called to the stranger for help. A woman, who she described as younger with black hair, quickly emerged to the rescue.
The woman helped Gresham up, called her an ambulance and escorted her outside to wait for paramedics. She then helped Gresham’s husband, who uses a walker, get back into their car.
But the kindness of the Good Samaritan didn’t end there.
Gresham said the woman drove her husband, who cannot operate a vehicle himself, back to their home and then got her son to pick her up.
The “angel in disguise” was gone without a trace – and too soon for the Greshams to even be able to catch her name.
Gresham was safely admitted to the Royal Jubilee Hospital and her recovery is ongoing.
Now, she is hoping to reconnect with the woman and her son to say thank you.
Gresham doesn’t have too many details to go on in finding the woman, except that she believes she lives in Saanich and just happened to choose Mount Douglas as the park for a walk that day.
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“I really appreciate it. I wouldn’t have known what to do (without her).”
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