When I looked inside a car, I saw a little boy, barefoot, crying and banging on the door. My heart stopped.
The afternoon was meant to be completely normal. I was on my way to my car after finishing my shopping when I was startled by an odd sight: a young boy strolling barefoot on the hot tarmac. He continued to bang violently on the door of a black vehicle with his small fists.
Not a single adult around him. There was no voice to take his calls. A child’s weeping, lost in the middle of an empty parking lot, was the only agonizing sound.
My bags slipped out of my hands as I froze. His little body was trembling with tremors, and his face was red. With unexpected vigor, he took hold of my arm and pointed frantically at the car’s foggy glass.
— “Where is your mother, sweetheart? Your father? I asked quietly.
He didn’t respond. His cries broke into hiccups as he merely shook his head and punched harder. I knelt next to him and tried to soothe him, but my heart was already racing.
I tried to peer inside by pressing my hands against the window. The glass was stained with dampness and shrouded in mist. I froze as I leaned closer and looked through a little opening.
— “Hi, 911?” I picked up the phone and mumbled in a shaky voice.
There was no indication that today would be much different from the others. After doing my shopping, I was making my way silently back to my car when I noticed a young child, barefoot, hammering frantically against the door of a dark sedan parked in the middle of the day.
His small fists pounded the metal with frantic vigor, his face flushed with tears. Not a soul around him. The quiet of a nearly deserted parking lot was shattered only by his weak sobbing.
For a time, my luggage slipped out of my hands as I remained still, mesmerized by the scene. The boy was shaky all over, staring at the locked window with teary eyes. His grip on me was unexpectedly strong, like he was clinging to a lifeline.
— “Your mother is where? Your father? Gently, I asked him.
Unable to talk, he only shook his head back and forth before continuing to bang on the door. There were terrible hiccups in his sobs.
I knelt down and pressed my palms on the foggy glass, attempting to calm him. My heart was pounding uncontrollably. After closer inspection, I eventually noticed a tiny clean spot. then I went cold.
A woman was sprawled over the steering wheel inside, not moving. Her face was deathly pale as her head slumped forward. She had only been awake for a few minutes, as evidenced by the strewn grocery bags on the seat next to her.
His mother was the one.
She was also not answering.
My heart pounded with adrenaline. With shaking hands, I took the youngster in my arms, took out my phone, and dialed the emergency number.
— “A kid is outside, and his mother is in a car, unconscious! We’re at the intersection of Maple and 6th Street, in the grocery parking lot!
My shirt was soaked with tears as the young boy held on to my neck. “Be strong, it will be okay, help is coming,” I told him in hushed tones.
After several minutes, the sound of sirens pierced the atmosphere. Paramedics and firefighters hurried over. They pounded on the door with their instruments until they were able to gradually pry it open. Leaning over the woman, the rescuers assessed her condition.
Time seemed to go on forever. Then one of them gave us a hard look and said:
— “Her respiration has not stopped. We have her.
The boy calmed down gradually and grasped his mother’s hand. For my part, I felt a tremendous sense of relief.
I became aware of how easily everyday life might be completely upended on that day. One moment of the unexpected, one fainting spell, and a child is left alone in the blazing sun, pleading for assistance.
Neither the vision of that woman being taken away alive on a stretcher nor the sound of his small fists hammering on the car door will ever leave me. One thing has been clear to me since then: never disregard an unexpected situation.
