I met a man named Patrick yesterday. Within a minute after exchanging words, I was holding his hand and waiting for the Highland Park police.

Park Cities People reported the incident from the police blotter, but believe me, it does not capture the spirit of what actually occurred.

Driving home to Lakewood from Preston Center at about 1:20 p.m., I had detoured onto Beverly Dr. I was driving slowly down the street, when the cream-colored Toyota Corolla in front of me slowly drifted off to the left, smashing into a parked truck on the other side of the street.

While there was plenty going on in the neighborhood, I don't think anyone else had seen what had happened, so I pulled into a nearby driveway. As luck would have it, I didn't have my cell phone, so I ran up to the house where the accident had happened and rang the bell.

The Spanish-speaking maid and I managed to communicate that I needed to use the telephone and needed to know the address I was at. I called 911 and they asked me to wait, as someone would be there soon.

I approached the car that had wrecked. As I got there, the driver—a boyish-looking man of about 40—opened the car door and made like he was going to get out. I yelled, "Are you OK?" to which he answered "no." I told him to stay put, because he might be hurt.

As I got up to the car, I could see that he was sobbing. The first thing he said to me was, "things aren't very good for me lately." I could tell that he wasn't just referring to the accident.

Then he stuck his arm out and said, "I need you to hold my hand."

OK, I had a little flash of, "he's going to grab me and pull me into the car," but he seemed pretty bad off, so I took his hand. After a moment, he said, "my mother died." I asked him if that had happened today, and he said, "no, about three weeks ago." I continued to stand by the car, holding his hand, and he slowly calmed down as I talked to him. He told me his name was Patrick. He didn't seem to know whether or not he was hurt, so I tried successfully to get him to stay in the car.

The police came within 5 minutes. As I released Patrick's hand, he said, "thank you." He seemed to have gathered his composure for the most part. As I was talking to one of the officers, the other had apparently determined that Patrick may have had a "diabetic incident," perhaps brought on partially by stress.

Done with the police, I said goodbye to Patrick. He thanked me again, and I went on my way home.

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