Restaurant staff grew concerned when daily diner didn't show up for a few days—their next act saved the customer's life
A person might find human connection and well-wishers in the most unpredictable places. A 78-year-old man would frequent the Shrimp Basket in Pensacola, Florida, at dot time every single day. Little did he know that he would find such connections there. He was so regular that all staff members at the place had started to know him. All of them knew about the time he would come in and what he was going to order. So when he failed to turn up for his usual gumbo for a few days, the gumbo cook, Donell Stallworth, decided to check on him. The man was surprised by what he found, per WEAR Channel 3 News.
Stallworth shared that his customers at Shrimp Basket meant a lot to him. So he liked to form a connection with them. The cook noted that the particular old man used to show up at the place exactly at 11 in the morning. The man, who was not named for privacy reasons, had come into the restaurant without fail for the last 10 years for gumbo. So when he didn't turn up for a few days, his presence was sorely missed. "He's like a grandpa," Casey Corbin, a general manager at the restaurant, remarked. The old man meant so much to her that she threw a party for him at the restaurant to celebrate his 78th birthday.
The team at the restaurant also tried to reach out to the customer over the phone as the days passed. After a week had gone by, Stallworth decided that he was going to visit the man's house personally and check on him. "I was like, I am going to go by his house. Just left work, went to his house and just knocked on the door like two times. He didn't answer," the cook recounted. "The third time I knocked on it and didn't hear anything. I kind of stayed up for a minute and I knocked again and I heard him like, 'Help' and 'Who is it?'" The cook identified himself and the old man asked him to come inside the house.
Stallworth found the man lying on the ground with broken ribs. He had been stuck there for days on end. The man had fallen down and gotten various injuries that made it impossible for him to stand up. "He was in tears, like, 'I don’t even know how long I’ve been here,'" Stallworth went on. "He was in pain. Seeing him like that was one thing, but not being able to help him because I couldn't move him was another thing." The cook called paramedics to help the man out of his painful predicament. He started checking on the old man every few days after that. The customer was doing fine and recovering well after the fall. "I want to put that smile back on his face. Probably gonna take him some gumbo," Stallworth expressed.
REAN Foundation, a healthcare platform, shared that elderly people living alone need a trusted network to help them during medical emergencies. Senior care technology can also come in very handy in such cases. People appreciated the cook and his thoughtful gesture for the old man in the comments section of the video. @dyoung2739 wrote, "May the employees of this restaurant, especially Mr Stallworth, continue to be blessed." @lindahill7572 commented, "What a great man to care for his customers. We all need to care for each other in these times!" @LoCoLorHay remarked, "What an awesome guy to care for his customers."