No one ever wants to get an unexpected phone call from a state trooper in a state they don’t reside – but that’s exactly what happened to Vanessa Gillis. When the Florida resident answered the phone for a Utah Highway Patrol trooper, the news he gave about her Mom had her wishing she could be there with her in that very moment.
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Vanessa’s 76-year-old Mom, Egeia Gillis, has dementia. She also lives alone, and her spells have been happening more often recently. Still, when Vanessa was told just last month that her Mom, who lives in Middleton, Idaho, had unexpectedly wandered six hours away from home in Utah, she was shocked.
“My mom had been driving on a flat tire until she ran out of gas on the highway and she had forgotten how to use her phone,” Vanessa said. “She basically had a dementia moment and she got lost, going home.”
Thankfully, Trooper Adam Walker was there to help at just the right time – he found her when she was stranded on the side of the road.
“I’ve actually had several incidents like this with elderly people,” Adam said. “It is a tough thing.”
Once Adam discovered Egeia was in need of help, he took her to the hospital. From there, he took her to a hotel where she’d stay safe until family could travel to Utah and take her home. To top it all off, Adam paid for her night at the hotel.
In a time of intense stress, fear, and anxiety, Adam was able to reassure Vanessa that her Mom was being taken care of, something she will never forget.
“You just feel like you want to fly out there and hug them and tell them what a difference they made in one person’s life,” Vanessa said.
Instead, Vanessa sent a handwritten letter to the Utah Highway Patrol to express her gratitude. She made the letter out to Sgt. Nelson and, in it, detailed what all Adam did for her Mom.
“I wanted you to know how much it meant to me and my family,” Vanessa wrote.
In Vanessa and her family’s eyes, Adam is a hero. Though, he certainly doesn’t view himself that way.
“I’m just a trooper on the road,” he insists. “I would never consider myself that, no.”
Still, Vanessa could never agree.
“They saved my mom,” she said.
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