Woman credited with saving neighbor’s life
Published 8:00 pm Monday, March 26, 2007
By By KATHIE HEMPEL / Niles Daily Star
NILES – It was damp and cold March 5 as the sun set. Thelma Fred's voice was nearly strained to the point of a whisper from screaming.
Barb Davis was out getting the mail and feeding the birds and deer.
"I thought I heard a young child perhaps playing with a dog. Then I thought it sounded more like the faint voice of a woman," she said.
Davis left her 135 Greengables home in Niles and followed the sound to the back of the house at 208.
There she found 93-year-old Fred shivering on the concrete step at her back porch, hidden from view of the road.
"I had nearly given up. I accepted the fact I might die," Fred said.
She had been out chipping ice off her steps when she fell at about 4:30 p.m. that Monday afternoon. By the time Davis reached her, Fred had been trying to call for help, unable to move, for an estimated hour and a half.
The woman, who weighs less than 100 pounds, counts herself very fortunate to have survived. Her family, too, are grateful to the woman who took the time to check and discovered her.
Daughters Brenda Shearman and Joanne Martin and granddaughter Pam Martin with great-granddaughter Genesis, gathered with Fred at her home. They were waiting with a very humble Davis for Sheriff Paul Bailey's arrival.
Sheriff Bailey agreed with the family about Davis' heroism. He wanted to congratulate and formally recognize the woman for saving Fred's life.
"We still have our mother because of you. You are our angel," Joanne Martin said.
"What makes me happy is seeing she's here and looking so very well. To me she's the hero," Davis said.
The family could not agree more. Fred had surgery the evening following her fall to repair her left hip – broken in four places. By the next day, she was sitting up in a chair.
Doctors thought perhaps Fred might spend a few weeks in a nursing home. However neither she nor her family agreed. She underwent intensive therapy and was home in less than two weeks, baking banana bread and cookies.
"Evidently, she was the cheerleader of the physical therapy room. She worried about some of the 'old people' and kept encouraging everyone there," said granddaughter Pam, an emergency room technician.
Shearman urged Davis to tell the gathering about her morning routine.
"I ask God every morning to let me help someone each day. It's why I find all this hero stuff so difficult. Give God the glory, not me," she said.
In many ways the story does seem miraculous considering the fact that Davis is slightly hard of hearing, the weakness of Fred's voice and the distance involved. She still wonders if she handled things properly.
"Coming into a strange house and not knowing where things were, I just grabbed a couple of afghans. I thought afterward, they really were not warm enough," Davis said.
Another thing that worried her long after the fact was her compliance with Fred's request that her daughter be called first before 911.
"She insisted she wanted her daughter called first saying she just lived down the block. When a mother needs her daughter…" Davis' voice trailed off.
The family assured their 'guardian angel' she had done everything perfectly. The SMCAS crew had said Fred's temperature was remarkably fine for as long as she had laid in the cold.
"It was all that screaming I did," Fred said.
The family laughed with great relief. The crisis was past.
"She's always set such an example for us. We are a family that takes care of one another. You (Davis) are now part of our family," Fred's granddaughter said.
Davis was quiet and looked near tears.
"I guess one reason that I have such a problem with all the fuss, is my brother, Terry Craft. He ran into a burning building once and saved two little girls and their intoxicated father. Now that's a hero," Davis said of her now deceased brother.
It has been said that heroes are those people who never understand they are.