RAYTOWN, Mo. — A Raytown man is grateful for a pair of good Samaritans who saved him from possibly saved him from overheating this week.
Wendell Caples said he sat baking in Tuesday’s sweltering heat for close to an hour. The 71-year-old was on his way home from the store when his electric scooter died near 72nd Street and Blue Ridge in Raytown.
“I was burning up,” Caples recalled. “It was hot. I was right out in the open sun and there was no wind. It was hot.”
Caples, who just a day prior had a new port put in for his dialysis, said he tried waving people down, but no one would stop. That is until a good Samaritan pulled over
“People just kept going but one,” he added.
The nameless young man knocked on Angela Hilsinger’s door to see if she would help.
[The man] said when he rode past, people were just [passing Caples] like it was nothing, like he was an ornament in the yard,” she said.
Hilsinger and the man pulled Caples to her neighbor’s driveway and into the shade.
“It seemed like that might have been about the warmest part of the day and he was sweating,” she said.
Hilsinger also happens to work as a paratransit coordinator for the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority. She made a couple calls and quickly realized Caples was one of their customers and was able to reroute two of the agency’s on-demand vehicles to the scene.
“Even if he wasn’t in the program, I probably would’ve figured out something to get this man home,” she said.
Hilsinger cared because she understands Caples struggle. Her father was a double amputee and die due to complications with diabetes in 2015.
“Caples is very proud of himself and very self-sufficient, and my dad was the same way,” she said. “He didn’t want a whole lot help, but we had to be there.”
And Caples is thankful Hilsinger and the other good Samaritan were there.
“I don’t know what I would’ve did,” he said.
“I think us two – the guy – that helped, it was just God showing us that this is what we were supposed to do,” she added. “I’m glad he was on my corner.”
Caples is also thankful to thank firefighters who helped him into the vehicle and into his home. He was recently fitted for a new scooter but it’s unclear when it will arrive.
