Three Gateway High School Students and their teacher shared what happened this past Monday that turned out to be anything but ordinary.
Paul Clanry was sitting in a classroom playing checkers when he says he had seen an elderly man falling down by the train tracks on Gateway Drive.
“And I told the boys if we can go help him out and they said ‘Let’s go'”
Clanry, Daveson Hartman, and Clinton Ring ran out of their classroom to help the fallen gentleman. On their way outside, they raced past their teacher Matt Erlandson and quickly filled him in.
“They ran by my room and said ‘Hey, Mr. E, we’re gonna go save this guy that fell by the train tracks.’ And I was like…’Okay'”
Erlandson says it took a moment to process what his students told him. He originally thought they were joking with him, but when he looked out of a window, he saw a man using a street sign while trying to stand up. By the time he got outside, Erlandson says the three students already had the pedestrian on his feet.
According to Ring, the man says he fell because he “took too big of a step” and fell three times trying to get back up. Ring says they took the pedestrian two blocks to a bench at a bus stop.
As the trio assisted the gentleman to his destination, Erlandson took a picture and shared it on social media. The response has been overwhelmingly positive.
When asked why they decided to help the elderly man, Clanry said, “I feel like it’s the right thing to do, helping out others.”
Erlandson had no problem with the students hurrying outside to help the fallen gentleman.
“I’m so proud of these guys for acting. Sometimes you need to act without permission, especially in an emergency situation. I know if something happened at this school, these guys would jump in and do whatever they needed to do to help out. And that’s the kind of people we need in society.”
