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| Two good men come to the rescue of 16 nursing home patients when they needed help the most. That's Maurice Rowland (left) and Miguel Alvarez. Image: Courtesy of StoryCorps via NPR.org |
GUEST BLOG—By
StoryCorps via NPR.org--When an assisted living home in California shut
down last fall, many of its residents were left behind, with nowhere to go.
The staff at
the Valley Springs Manor left when they stopped getting paid — except for cook
Maurice Rowland and Miguel Alvarez, the janitor.
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"There
was about 16 residents left behind, and we had a conversation in the kitchen,
'What are we going to do?' " Rowland says.
"If we
left, they wouldn't have nobody," the 34-year-old Alvarez says.
Their roles
quickly transformed for the elderly residents, who needed round-the-clock care.
"I
would only go home for one hour, take a shower, get dressed, then be there for
24-hour days," says Alvarez.
Rowland, 35,
remembers passing out medications during those long days. He says he didn't
want to leave the residents — some coping with dementia — to fend for
themselves.
"I just
couldn't see myself going home — next thing you know, they're in the kitchen
trying to cook their own food and burn the place down," Rowland says.
"Even though they wasn't our family, they were kind of like our family for
this short period of time."
For Alvarez,
the situation brought back memories from his childhood.
"My
parents, when they were younger, they left me abandoned," he says.
"Knowing how they are going to feel, I didn't want them to go through
that."
Alvarez and
Rowland spent several days caring for the elderly residents of Valley Springs
Manor until the fire department and sheriff took over.
The incident
led to legislation in California known as the Residential Care for the Elderly
Reform Act of 2014.
"If I
would've left, I think that would have been on my conscience for a very long
time," says Rowland.
Source: http://storycorps.org/
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