Quick thinking by two local boys — plus a willingness to help someone in trouble — enabled a Centreville man last week to get the medical care he needed.
Last Monday, Nov. 3, was a teacher workday, so pals Will Fulton, 8, and Jake Brodie, 10 — in third and fifth grades, respectively, at Bull Run Elementary — were out riding their bikes in Confederate Ridge, near their homes.
Around 11 a.m., while tooling along the 14500 block of Meeting Camp Road, they heard a voice calling, "Help, Help." Said Will's mom, Kim Fulton: "Everytime they went by [a particular home], they saw a head pop up and a voice said, 'Come, come.'"
But instead of investigating themselves, the boys had the presence of mind to go to Will's house and tell his mother. "It was close to Halloween, and we've talked about safety and strangers in the neighborhood," explained Fulton. "We felt proud of the boys for doing what they'd been taught to do — paying attention to detail, staying together and coming home, instead of going up to the house."
She drove the boys back to the home, where the front door was open and the voice wafted through the screen door. They discovered a man in his 50s, unable to get up, lying on his back on his hardwood, entry floor.
"He told me he'd been laying there for a full day," said Fulton. "But he couldn't tell me how he'd gotten there. If he hadn't fallen close to the door — and if it hadn't been a teacher workday and a nice day so the boys could ride their bikes — I don't know what his outcome would have been."
Her husband Bill said they later learned the man was diabetic and had recently had a stroke. His wife immediately called police, and officers from the Sully District Station responded, plus a rescue engine from Fire Station 17 and an ambulance from Fire Station 38.
The man was taken to Inova Fair Oaks Hospital to get the help he needed. "The boys did the right thing," said Bill Fulton. "They did a good job and made the right choice.