LETTER: A heartening encounter late at night in a hospital parking lot

To Ozaukee Press:

Sunday night I was at the Aurora emergency room at about 11:30 because my partner had fallen at work and broke her arm. We could not leave our dog at home because she has extreme separation issues and we could not wait for one of her pills to work, so we took her with us.

I dropped my partner off in the emergency room and went to wait in the car with the dog. At about 1 a.m. I went to start the car and the battery was dead. I called AAA and was told there would be a 20-minute wait for the next available operator. When I finally talked to a operator I was told it would be a 1-hour and 20-minute wait.

I told the operator my partner was being discharged from the emergency room with  a broken arm and was in extreme pain, and I asked her if they could expedite the service, at which time she told me she could not.

I went back to the car to try again to start the car. There was a Black kid about 18 to 20 sitting in his car and I asked him if he would give me a jump. Before I even got the jumper cables out of the trunk, he had pulled his car in front of mine. My car started with the jump, and I told him I could not thank him enough at such a urgent time.

I didn’t get his name, but when I was at the discharge window he came by and the two Aurora workers gave him a round of applause—two heros giving a young Black man who was a hero to me credit for what he did. As for the AAA, they should change their name to FFF.                                                                                                                                                                                   

Robert J. Grycowski                                                                                                                                                                             

Town of Cedarburg