It happened this morning. Our Senior citizen is ambling along, breathing in the spring air laced with the perfume of flowering shrubs and with nothing particular on his mind, when he hears a call for help. Senior stops in his tracks and looks around to see who is in trouble.
“Oh, help me, help me!” cries a little old lady wringing her hands and pointing under a parked car. “My darling Trixie is stuck under this car! Can you help her? Oh please, please can you help her?”
Our gallant Senior moves in the direction of the low-slung 2013 Chev Corvette car. He kneels and tries to see where Trixie is but the car is close to the ground and he can see nothing.
“It’s difficult to see her,” he reports to the frantic owner, “but I’ll see what I can do. We Seniors don’t give up so easily,” he says smiling at the old lady.
“Oh, thank you kind sir,” she cries.
Senior, who is in his early eighties slowly gets onto all fours and then even further down and reaches under the car, pushing his arm in to its full length. Trixie sees the hand coming towards her and attacks it, ripping Senior’s skin with her sharp claws. Senior grabs Trixie as she tries to bite him and drags her out by the throat. He rolls over and hurls Trixie across the street into a rose bush at the entrance to a building.
Trixie’s owner rushes at Senior and bites him viciously on his hand drawing blood and causing Senior to hop and skip accompanied by some choice language for the gathering crowd. Someone calls an ambulance and in minutes the vehicle pulls up, paramedics throw Senior onto the stretcher and they roar off to the hospital.
Senior describes the sequence of events to the doctors in the ER who huddle, discuss and finally deliver their diagnosis and treatment. Senior receives a selection of injections:
Against dog borne tetanus.
Against dog borne rabies.
Against human borne tetanus.
Against human borne rabies.
Muscle relaxant.
Sedative.
When I managed to interview Senior four hours after he had been admitted to hospital I asked him what happened to Trixie and her owner.
He looked at me for some minutes before answering: “Who cares?”
Trixie and her owner are now suing Senior for gross indifference.
