This morning on the way to work I listened to the radio and on the news there was a story about an elderly lady in Paris, France who got trapped in her own, windowless bathroom after the inside door handle broke off. She started banging onto the walls and the pipes, calling for help, but nobody came. During the night, thinking that certainly some of her immediate neighbours must now for sure hear her, she called and banged on the walls again and again, but still, no help. For many days and nights she called for help and banged on the walls, until she was too weak to do it anymore. Finally, after 20 days, one of her neighbours called the police because he hadn’t seen the friendly, elderly lady on the stairs for quite some time. The firefighters broke open her apartment door and found the lady, who had survived on warm tap water only for the past three weeks, starving and weak but alive. And then they realized that all along, the neighbours next doors had heard all the banging for weeks, but they said they thought it was just noise made by someone doing home improvements, and they just didn’t want to be the meddling neighbours…

The most gripping thing about this story that was on the news today was the thought of how she must have felt. How afraid she must have been in her little, windowless bathroom. What did she think, day after day, when nobody came. How she must have almost gone mad in the isolation, starving, with hope dwindeling by the hour.

The story had a happy ending. But those 20 days must have been horrific. There is something we can learn from it, though. If you have an elderly relative who lives alone, check up on them to make sure they’re ok. If you notice something out of the ordinary in your neighbourhood, go and make sure everything is allright. People often are being accused of being nosy, when they are aware of what their neighbours are doing. Don’t be afraid to speak up. It might gain you the title of “snoopy”, but your never know, one day your initiative might save someone’s life.