I want to start out this note by saying to all Parents out there, that I hope you never experience the feelings I have felt over the last 24-36 hours.
This week I have been on vacation. The family and I went up to Kentucky to see Family and just relax in a campground and we had a great time just doing nothing. We camped out and we cooked hotdogs over an open fire, plyed lasso golf and cornhole, roated marshmallows over the fire. Took a nap falling asleep to the sound of the rain on the camper roof, only to be woke up by the rumble of thunder after a bolt of lightning hit the ground in the field behind us. We saw the leaves turning colors as the temperatures dropped into the 30's at night and were 70's during the day. It was a wonderful time. We headed back this direction on Thursday so we could do some activities close to home and save a little money.
We got home late Thursday and decided we would head out to the NC Zoo on Friday morning and be there when it opened at 9 am and just spend the day enjoying ourselves. We even took a good friend of ours who we consider family and her son with us. We all left the house bright and early and by 8:30 were pulling into the zoo parking lot. We all got out went to the bathroom and then when the gates opened up, we headed in for a day of fun and excitement with the animals. We went in at the African entrance and headed for the Elephants exhibit. We went from exhibit to exhibit and even got the opportunity to feed a giraffe at the viewing deck, which was amazing. Nothing like hand feeding a full grown Giraffe leaves by hand. We saw the new baby gorilla, and a baby chimpanzee, even got to watch one of the Chimps interact with the crowd watching him. We saw Baboons, Lions, Chimps, Gorillas, Elephants, Bongos (The animal not the drums), Antelope, and Lemurs just to name a few of the animals in the African Exhibit.
About this time we decided to jump on the tram and ride over to the North American side of the Zoo and grab a bit to eat at the Nathan's Hot Dog Stand, as that is always our favorite spot to eat. When we got on the Tram we noticed a group of what look to be Autistic individuals on an outing to the zoo, which I thought was great.Since I have had and currently have family with disabilities, I think it's great when they are taken out of the clinical situations and treated like normal. When we got off the tram I took a phone call and then caught up with the others, who had gone the opposite direction of the hot dog stand lol. So we made our way back in the direction of the Hot Dog stand.
This is where the day went from being a good day, to a day we will never forget unfortunately for the wrong reasons. When we got to the Hot dog stand, Becca, our friend and her son went and sat down in the shade at a back table, while Angie and I went up to order the food. As we stood there trying to figure out the order, we heard someone to our right Holler. We turned to see a young man of 18-19 with Autism, sitting by himself and hollering. Angie made the comment that something had agitated him evidently. We turned back to the menu and suddenly heard him very loud hollering the words What What you want some, only to turn and see him up and headed toward the table Becca was sitting at.I hollered at him hoping to scare him as I took a step toward that table, which we were probably 50 feet or so away from. Before I could get the first step he had commenced to hitting Becca. In a full run I reached the table grabbing him by the head and by a bent wrist arm bar shoving it back behind his back, only to be stopped by the shouts of my wife who was yelling at me so I did not go to far, but he had hit Becca several times by then. Our friend was able to shove Becca down enough to where his blows did not make facial contact, but her neck and back took the brunt of the assault. At this time his Care taker grabbed him and took him from me apologizing and saying but he has autism. Zoo Security arrived at this time because he heard the hollering down the path.
I turned and asked the "care taker" who was in charge and he said no one, i am responsible for him. I then asked, no I kno wyou are here with a group so who is in charge, to which he replied again, no one I am responsible for him. I then asked one last time, Who is in charge of the group, to which he stated I am responsible for him. He the turned to a lady who had walked up he knew and said can you get my lunch please. Are you kidding me, you just left your repsonsibility alone to injure another person and all you can tell the people you are with is can you grab my lunch, which he did ask many times, not just once . Well about this time another lady come running up and asked what happened, and then told the person on the phone, he has hit a child.She hung up the phone and introduced herself as being the activity director for the facility they came from and that she was in charge of the group. What , not only did this "care taker" leave the young man alone, when he should have been within an arms reach of him, but he has lied to me as well. I have got to tell you, my blood was boiling and it was all I could do to contain myself and not snatch someone up and go to their head. Well she gave me the companies information, the CEO's phone number and email and her name as well and then they finally escorted the young man out to their bus so they could leave. Security took a statement and then left, leaving us to tend to Becca, who had been crying this entire time. After we got her calmed down, we grabbed a bite to eat and tried to all calm down.
Whhile we were eating Becca was telling us her head hurt and that she was sleepy, and just wanted to go home. So we called the medical personel and had them check her to make sure she was ok, which they said she appeared to be fine just to keep an eye on her. We then tried to make things as normal as we could so we ran through 2 more exhibits and then went to the gift shops ans then headed out to head home. Now by this time it was about 3:00-3:15 and all this happeed around 12:30 or so. We had been told by the lady from the company that she would call about 6 to check in on Becca and then also call us in about 24 hours to check on her as well. Here it is over 24 hours and I have not heard from her, imagine that. When we got in the truck to head home, I decided to call the Company and speak to the CEO since I had hos name and number, only to be told that they were about to close and the young lady had no idea how to get hold of him. Well, after I explained that I didn't care if he was in Tibet and secludedin a monestary, I wanted to speak to him ASAP and they really wouldn't like me if I didn't, they miraculously were able to get hold of him and I had a phone call in about 3 minutes from him.
We spoke and he informed he he knew about the situation, funny I hadnt heard from him or anyone at the company letting me know they knew about it.He also informed me that the young man who attacked Becca had a history of this type of behavior about every 6-8 months or so.Really, a history of this type of behavior, yet we take him somewheres where he can be easily agitated by others, putting himself as well as others in harms way, and we leave him with an inept caretaker. He called me back a few minutes later to tell me that the caretaker no longer worked for the company, yet in his response to an email I sent him this morning, he says the individual has been suspended. Suspended, he needs to be removed from his job for his incompetence and negligience. He then calls me back about 30 minutes later to inform me that the company is governed by county rules and for that reason a report had been filed with the county in which they do business, so the incident was bigger than him now. Ok, my question is, was the report not filed until I called him, because it appears no one at the company cared enough to reach out to my daughter and evidently still doesnt care enough to follow up and check on her like they said. I mean do they realize that if someone had left a fork or knife on the table and he had picked it up, what could have happened. What if I had not been able to get to him as quickly as I did for some reason, like being in a restroom or something. I know I should not think like that, but what if plays a big role in this. What if it had been our friends 3 yr old, what if it had been a pregnant woman. I mean it could have been so much more worse than it was., and all because of negligience.
Becca has an extremely sore back today and is sore to the touch. I have been in contact with her doctor, and she will be going to visit her , barring she gets worse for some reason and we have to take her in sooner this weekend. Emotionally she seems to be doing ok, but I worry about down the road. What happens when we go to a movie theatre, or restraunt, or amusement park and there is another group of the disabled there. Will she freak out, will she want to leave and go home right then and there out of fear it may happen again. How many other activities or areas will this affect her in? How is this going to affect all her interactions with the handicapped? I pray it doesn't but only time will tell. She was very upset yesterday, with good reason, and all she wanted to do was get away from the zoo. I am proud of her as she is not upset with the boy that hit her she says, which is exactly how Angie and I feel. We are not Angry at the young man who hit her, he has a problem that at times his anger gets the best of him. Who we are angry with is the company and the caretaker. The caretaker for his stupidity, carelessness or selfishness or what ever you want to call it. We are angry at the company for not training their employees better and making sure they are 100% capable of doing there job. I am upset at the negligence that caused this entire episode. I am angry at myself, which everyone has been on me to stop. Angry at myself for not being able to better protect my family and shelter them.
I pray that this note/blog will help me to feel better but I also hope this note/blog will help to bring awareness to the fact that if you are going to take responsibility for caring for another person with disabilities, that you take that responsibility seriously. Don't let it be just a job, let it be a passion. Do not undertake such a position if you truly do not have the passion to see others cared for, as the publics safety could rest in your hands at times. your decisions or lack of them could be the difference in someone being labled dangerous, or disabled.
Angie, Becca and myself have some things to think over and decisions to make, on how far we take this to make sure no one else has to suffer these situations becasue of negligience. We also have to decide how far we need to go to bring awareness to the needs of the disabled. I have always said don't have children if you know that in your heart you cant take care of them properly, as they do not ask to be born, that is a decision we as parents made for them. Well by the same token, Not one disabled person I know or have known, have asked to be disabled. Regardless if their disability was caused by their own actions, they did not ask to be disabled. Please remember that when taking on the responsibility of caring for them.
I hop eyou share this with everyone you know for awareness sake. I leave you with this thought about other people, and caring for others, disabled or not and it comes from Gods Holy Word. Jesus said in Matthew 7:12 "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets". God bless and take care
In Christ's Love,
Bill Roy
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