JACKSON, Mich — When an 86-year-old woman missed her regular appointment at a Jackson doctor's office, alarm bells started going off for the staff.
What they did next may have saved her life.
Beverly Newton's son Mark had just gotten back from Chelsea when he got a phone call from a receptionist at the office of Dr. Allan Padbury, a periodontist in Jackson.
“We just had this feeling that something wasn’t right," said receptionist Kellie Underwood. "I think we both did know that something wasn’t right and that we just had to do something about it.”
Mark immediately went to his mother's home in Rives Township. When he saw her, it was clear she needed help.
"She was still in bed at 12:30," said Mark Newton. "She really didn’t know which end was up. I thought maybe she had a stroke.”
After calling 911 and getting his mom to wake up, he called Underwood to tell her what was happening.
“My heart just sank and I just felt so bad and I just said to him, 'Please keep us posted.' We both just felt so helpless," she said.
EMTs arrived moments later. Beverly Newton, who is diabetic, had extremely low blood sugar.
“You called 911 didn’t you?" she said to her son during an interview Monday.
He acknowledged that he had.
"Because I wasn’t coherent," Beverly continued. "I was just, you know, I wasn’t with it. And I was sopping wet. I just sweated profusely. I never had that happen before.”
"I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t have [called]," said Mark. "Kellie says 'You know, I wasn’t sure if it would be okay to call you because of privacy, you know, with all that stuff going on nowadays.' Like I told her, 'I’m just glad you did.'”
“They didn’t even know how I was walking around didn’t he? Because I was so low." said Beverly.
The EMTs gave Beverly food to get her blood sugar back up. Minutes later she started to feel much better.
“Had he stopped by even later that day, it could have been too late," said receptionist April Buckles. "I just can’t imagine stopping by to check on my mom and finding her like that in bed, so I was just relieved we were able to make a connection with everybody to make her safe.”
Beverly was more upset that she missed her appointment than anything else.
"Oh my gosh, we're just so happy that you're okay, and that your son was able to get there and the paramedics were able to get her going," Buckles said.
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