The other day had a strange interruption to my normal work day at the local primary school. A child had decided to run off and hide somewhere. Soon, a few of the non-teaching staff – including me – were outside looking for him.
We hoped the boy had not left the school grounds but I decided to check the nearby oval and the skateboarders’ ‘bowl’ on the edge of the council grounds.
Skateboard ‘bowls’ – I call them giant ‘pits’ – are deep holes in the ground with steep, smooth, concreted sides. The sudden drop allows skateboarders to build up speed so they can then emerge at the top on the opposite steep wall.
This particular day was cold, drizzly, windy and miserable.
I began approaching the oval and could see the top of the bowl next to it. There was a head of a person bopping up and down inside the bowl. There were also three dogs wandering around the top of the bowl.
As I got closer it became apparent who it wasn’t: not the child, but rather a woman probably in her late twenties (I hate guessing anyone’s age). She was speaking to me. I could not quite make out what she was saying because of the wind – and because I’m old and my hearing is not brilliant. I thought she said, ‘…mind my dogs they’ll go for you,’ so I turned to leave. But she then called more desperately. ‘Please help me, I fell in and I can’t get out. The dogs WON’T go for you.’ I realised then that she was actually in tears.
I moved more quickly. The dogs did bark and run towards me but they just wanted to be patted. As I got to the lip of the bowl, I could see how steep and deep it was. The lady’s head was lower than the top of the bowl. She was stuck: every time she tried to manoeuvre her way up the side wall, she slid back in.
I lay flat on the top of the wet concrete bordering the lip, and stretched out my hand. As the woman tried to reach for me, she needed to prop herself up the smooth wall. To no avail: she kept slipping back down.
She had been trying to get out for about fifteen minutes already. In her efforts she had taken off her shoes and socks to get more grip. She had tossed them to the top so they would be there when she got out, but unfortunately that crucial part of the plan (getting out) did not happen. Her feet were cold, wet, and freezing. She had also taken off her woollen jacket to try to dry the side of the bowl and to use it for grip. That had not worked either. The jacket was now wet, filthy and crumpled at the bottom of the pit. The woman was standing there in a tee-shirt and bare feet on a day when I would have put money on it snowing somewhere close by.
As I lay there with my hand outstretched, she did a small run up and managed to grab my hand. We were in the “shaking hands with a friend” position. It felt insecure. As I tried to pull her up her feet kept skidding on the slippery wall and she kept falling flat against it. Finally, she let go and began crying again.
‘I’ll get help – there are council workers over there,’ I said. ‘I’ll get someone.’
Within a few minutes I returned with a man half my age and twice my strength. He crouched down and reached in. She gripped his hand. I held onto him as he heaved with all his strength. He was able to pull her up, and soon she was on top and out of the bowl. She was clearly very relieved and very cold. She burst into tears once more as she hugged the younger man (he had done the hard work), and then her dogs (grateful they had not run off). She thanked us for our help, and I returned to the school.
I’ve never imagined a skateboard bowl could cause so much trauma or actually be a trap to catch unsuspecting human prey. But clearly, they are not designed to be entered into with some sort of wheels to get you back out again.
And so my day took a turn that was most unexpected: it is the day when I was almost a knight in shining armour.
P.S. – The boy was hiding inside the school grounds: he was safe, and he was much warmer than the poor woman who fell in the bowl.