I was on the way home yesterday evening at around 6. While driving along through Camlough I saw an old lady on the side of the Road, just at the mini roundabout with her thumb out.
It seemed very odd for a pitch black December night and the thermometer on the car was reading 1.5 so I pulled over.
To my utter shock the woman was so cold she couldn’t open the car door and was talking like she had had her jaw frozen at the dentist.
I helped her into the car having to put on her seatbelt and as we drove off she struggled to tell me that the twenty to four bus had passed her by and she was there since then.
The woman who judging form her appearance was pushing eighty was standing there two hours and twenty minutes. It took 20 minutes in the car with the heat on full for her to talk properly.
Anyone from South Armagh will know the road. It is not quiet. It is bumper to bumper for the whole of rush hour. She was standing prominently at the exit to a busy set of shops. I estimate there must have been 2000 cars passed that woman.
The incident has left me quite shocked. I have no doubt given another half an hour the situation already serious would have been much worse for the lady.
Has Irish society changed that much that no-one really cared enough to pull over? Maybe is it just that everyone was so focused on getting home, thinking about their dinner, listening to drive time radio focused on their day etc that they didn’t see her.
It also left me wondering what is the bigger issue in our society, an old woman left to freeze on the side of the road because the bus didn’t pick her up or a handshake at the DOE awards?
If you want to guest blog on Slugger, why not ping Mick an email at [email protected]?
From South down but living in South Armagh. Wouldn’t be super knowledgeable on politics but have opinions none the less
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