True Story

Sara proudly admits that she takes after her mother in many ways. Perhaps the best example is that Sara does not believe in diffusion of responsibility and always rushes to help those in trouble. When an accident happens Sara doesn’t even take a second to look to see if others are helping before she rushes to the scene herself. Sara never ignores others in need rationalizing that it’s their problem, but instead helps because she can.

Playing Frisbee with some new Russian friends on a hill over-looking the small sea, Sara noticed an elderly woman trying to push a man in a wheelchair up the uneven, grassy hill. Other people stood around the area chatting and drinking, pretending not to notice the elderly woman exhausted and leaning on the wheelchair to prevent it from rolling back down the hill. The grandmother was helpless with only enough energy to keep the chair in place.

Sara yelled to me and the two of us ran across the hill. We each grabbed a side wheelchair and started to push it up the hill. It was difficult for even the two of us to push the man up the hill, there was no way the woman would have ever been able to do it. There were large ruts in the ground and making it all worse, the front porch on their cottage was horribly uneven with large planks of wood nailed down in inconvenient places.

The woman was extremely grateful for our help and quizzed us about our names, where we were from, and where we were staying. The woman spoke no English but Sara’s Russian was impressive and she was able to answer all her questions. Back in the house the woman thanked us again offered us a drink (I think she offered vodka) but we said no worries, smiled, and waved goodbye.

I had completely forgotten this had happened until a couple days later when looking through pictures Artiem had taken with my camera and saw this picture of the man on the beach just hours before we saw his struggle up the hill.
After an experience like this there’s always a part of you that feels warm about having a done a good deed but there’s also that other part of you that wonders, why the hell didn’t anyone else help? I’m proud of Sara and inspired by her constant willingness to help strangers in such situations, I wrote this so that hopefully, you will be too.