Police officers help 84-year-old man visit his ailing wife in heartwarming viral photo
When an elderly Pennsylvania man found himself in a bind, local police officers stepped up.
As Scranton, Pa., affiliate WNEP reports, the nearby Montoursville Borough Police were called to act last week when they learned that an 84-year-old local man named Roger Baker had no way of getting to an area hospital to visit his wife of 60 years.
Mrs. Baker was taken by ambulance to the hospital in Williamsport, Pa., following an unspecified medical emergency. With no friends or family available to give him a lift, her worried husband was left stranded.
That is, until the police came calling. Hearing of Baker’s plight, officers fetched him from his Montoursville home. On the way to the hospital, Baker admitted that a couple of times when his wife fell down and he couldn’t get her up, he flagged down a car and paid the driver $10 to come in and help her up rather than call 911.
Baker needed further assistance once they arrived at the hospital.
“When he got out of my patrol car at the hospital, he held on to the side of the car for about a minute,” Deputy Chief Jason Bentley told WNEP of the frail senior citizen. “I didn’t realize it was that bad, so I grabbed his hand and started walking him in.
“You can only imagine what’s going through someone’s mind at that age when they’ve been together that long, but he didn’t seem to be overly upset, like he kind of expected it and was ready and just going to see his wife,” the officer added. “He didn’t know how she was doing.”
Bentley guided Baker to the entrance, where hospital staff met him with a wheelchair. A photo of the touching moment has since gone viral, with countless people praising Bentley for “restoring [their] faith in humanity.”
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