When Britney Edgington drove by an elderly woman crossing this street, the senior’s appearance struck her as rather unusual. Then, after speaking to her, Edgington received an unexpected reply, one that in fact led the passerby to immediately come to the woman’s aid. Edgington encountered the Wanderer near Pocatello, Idaho, where she lives with her husband, Timothy, and six children. And when she’s not with her family, Edgington works as a certified nursing assistant performing in-home care in the local area. Now, on December 22, 2017, a series of events led to Enghington making an alarming discovery.
At about 07:30 a.m. That day, she had stopped at a convenience store to pick up a beverage, and after that, the medical professional had crossed the parking lot and headed home down a route that led her onto a street in the neighboring city of Chubbuck. It was on this street that Edgington spotted something odd 99-year-old Elsa Baker out in the cold, dressed without any concession to the weather. The mom would later tell the Idaho State Journal, I saw a little lady on the side of the street not wearing a coat, gloves, hat or any winter clothing, Edgington continued. She was pushing her Walker on the sidewalk, but was getting ready to cross the street and was hitting the ice with her Walker. She was pushing on it and she couldn’t move anywhere.
And perhaps concerned by Baker’s lack of winter attire and struggled to move by herself as passerby decided to intervene. So, after pulling up near Baker, agington rolled down one of her car windows and asked the other woman where she was heading. Baker replied that her destination was pocketello, a response that initially baffled the driver. Edgenton explained to Baker that she was actually already in Pocatello, yet the senior responded by saying that she was trying to get into town.
Adding further worry, though, Baker couldn’t recall her ultimate destination. Indeed, she wasn’t even able to recall the name of the street on which she was presently traveling. Edgington added to the Idaho State Journal, Baker was confused. She was shaking so bad that her teeth were chattering when she couldn’t remember where she lived and could only give me her name and date of birth. And I found out she was almost 100 years old. I was like, oh my gosh, that’s when I put her in my car and call the police. Then, after Baker had entered her van, Edgington covered her in three blankets. She also turned up the heating in the vehicle to hide an attempt to warm the elderly woman up.
When first responders appeared at the scene, it was discovered that Baker was still alarmingly cold. According to the Mayo Clinic, the normal temperature of the human body is 98, six degrees Fahrenheit. Hypothermia starts to set in when that level plummets to under 95. And despite Hensington’s efforts to stop Baker from freezing, the 99 yearold’s temperature had dropped to a frighteningly low 94 degrees Fahrenheit. Pogatello Fire Department’s Travis Smith would later tell the Idaho State Journal how others can identify suspected victims of hypothermia.
He revealed, a person will begin to shiver, and they probably won’t have a lot of motor coordination. And that’s when you really need to get someone into a dry and warm area, then try to get some warming fluids into them, Smith added. In the wintertime, there’s cool and oftentimes moist air and moderate to high winds. In Idaho, if we don’t have some type of barrier from the elements, then our warm heat is stripped away from our body much faster. For this reason, Smith urges people to call 911 if they spot any seniors out during winter without suitable clothing to keep them warm. As Smith also explained to the newspaper, we want to intervene because we can bring things to the table that ordinary citizens cannot. Somebody may be combative and may not want medical attention because the hypothermia has induced an altered mental status, but those should be clues that the person needs more significant medical care. The bottom line is that emergency services are better equipped to attend to those who need serious medical attention. For example, in cases of hypothermia, Smith noted, Overall, we’d want to be notified early on in the process because we have things like a big box that we can crank the heat up on before we leave the station.
We also have heat pads and warming IV fluids that we can use to warm patients both externally and internally. But there are still actions that the wider public can take to help those at risk of hypothermia. Indeed, Edgington’s own quick thinking could have just saved a life. As the mom told the Idaho State Journal, Baker’s skin was bright red and looked like she’d been out there for a while. Emergency responders told me that if I wouldn’t have stopped, she could have easily died. The nursing assistant went on, It’s weird because I normally don’t stop at the gas station, but when I saw Baker, I thought of my grandma and my mom, and I hope someone would stop if it were one of them. So Baker was lucky that Edgington had strayed so far from her usual routine and route home that day.
Fortunately, two law enforcement officers were eventually able to find out Baker’s address, and Edgington subsequently took the nonagenarian there and returned her to Granson Rob Maori. It turned out, though, that Baker had gotten locked out of her home, which may have been why she’d begun to wander. Apparently, Mowry later revealed his grandmother had started off on her journey, believing that she was accompanied by another individual.
She’d also been intending to pay a nearby friend a visit. Thankfully, however, Baker hadn’t strayed very far from home only about 200 yards away from the house, Maori added. Fortunately, Moreover, Baker’s tale ends happily. You see, after Edgington’s intervention and medical attention from the emergency services she was able to return to her family relatively healthy and safe at last with Mower going on to reveal that his grandma seemed to be doing fine. Now, sadly though, this is not the case for every victim of hypothermia. So if you suspect that someone out in the cold weather needs help, act quickly and call 911. Then as the Mayo Clinic suggests, while you wait for emergency help to arrive, gently move the person inside if possible, and carefully remove his or her wet clothing replacing it with warm dry coats or blankets. As Edgington has demonstrated, those actions could very well spell the difference between life and death.
