Have you ever asked yourself, would it really matter if I was here?
You might admit you’ve had some form of an exasperated moment on the job, where you just don’t see what impact you have—particularly while slogging through paperwork.
We muddle through as we can, working on a deadline, rushing to get to the bottom of the to-do list, but few get quite the “It’s a Wonderful Life” validation as Steve Anderson, NAVFAC Atlantic security manager had this year.
As a part of his many duties, Steve routinely approves overseas travel requests for employees which requires exhaustive paperwork. Running through his checklist on one such recent request, he found some missing information and dialed the applicant’s phone number hoping to quickly knock out the task and be on to the next.
Instead, he dialed one number off, and an elderly woman several states away picks up.
“I typically never do that, but for some I reversed two of the numbers and called the wrong person,” says Steve. “I'm really good at writing the number down before I dial it. Painstakingly making sure I get it right.”
What could have been easily dismissed as crossed wires between strangers, Steve sensed something bigger was at play than his to-do list. Rather than re-dialing to get to his intended party, he’s talking with Belle Cherry. She’s alone, afraid, and in need of medical attention and Steve will soon prove to be what she calls her guardian angel.
Perhaps most stunning of all: none of this would have happened if not for the help Steve received after his near-fatal heart attack a year prior. Without his colleagues' swift actions, Steve wouldn't have been there for Belle.
Luck, fate, whatever you call it, a day of paperwork became much more.
“I got the right wrong number,” says Steve.
The first time he calls, he can hear it in her voice. Her voice is weak and troubled.
“She tells me, ‘I'm not who you called, but I need help because I fell and I'm injured and I can only use one arm,’ recalls Steve.
Thinking like a son who cares for a father with medical issues, he’s immediately worried Belle has suffered a stroke. Steve asks many questions about her condition, trying to calm her nerves.
“When I first started talking to her, she didn't really want to give up any information because she doesn't know who I am,” says Steve. “I’m just some random person who called her by mistake, but you know I went with what she was willing to share.”
At first, it was just her son’s phone number. Without her glasses and her unable to dial out with her dominant arm injured, it was the first number she could recite from memory.
Steve calls her son, Allan, on another line. He gets only voicemail. Meanwhile, he keeps losing Belle. Steve calls several times before she can pick up again, having trouble with the answer button. He tells her he couldn’t get through to her son. In turn, she starts giving him the phone numbers of other people she knows.
“She was remembering the numbers which made me feel better that she was cognizant and alert,” he says. More confident her injuries were physical, Steve offered to call anyone she wanted but urged her to share her full name and address so 911 could be called.
Television dramas aside, triangulating cell phones isn’t always accurate and it’s best to have a physical address to dispatch first responders. He was worried that without full names and addresses, law enforcement would doubt any call he’d make proactively.
So, two times he made phone calls to strangers on her behalf. Two times, no answer.
Throughout the ordeal, Steve can’t help but think of his own medical emergency almost a year to the date earlier. His heart attack had taught him many lessons, chief among them the value of community. In the moment, he was determined Belle would feel the same.
“On the fourth time I called her, I told her I'm not getting anyone. You sound like you're getting weaker. I'm really concerned that if you pass out or something, I'm not going to be able to help you. You got to trust me.”
Finally, she agreed.
On another line, he calls the police in her hometown and at first, he’s routed to the non-emergency dispatch. He tells his story and at first, it’s clear they’re not believing him. A guy in Virginia doing paperwork accidentally call a lady who’s fallen in Pennsylvania? He’s called her several times over, rather than just go about his day?
Dispatch eventually passed Steve to the desk sergeant. He pleads his case again.
“While he was talking to me, he was running the data or having someone run the data and it turned that the name that she gave me matched the name of the person that owned that house in their city records and the phone matched her,” says Steve. “So, he said, ‘Well, we believe you. We've already dispatched someone while we were talking to you, so they're on their way.”
The relief flood in. Nearly an hour had gone by, talking to Belle, earning her trust, trying to make connections. The desk sergeant had many questions.
“I think he thought it was so hard to believe that a person would take as much time as it took me,” he says.
Those who work with him know that tenacity and that no matter how long it takes, he will hit his mark.
"I am not surprised at all that Steve went out of his way to help a complete stranger,” says Capt. Ben Miller, Vice Commander, NAVFAC Atlantic. “It’s his refusal to give up on anyone, regardless of the situation that makes him an extraordinary hero who always does the right thing when others would have walked away.”
“If I see someone in need, I'm going to help them,” says Steve. “I think it was even stronger since my heart attack because so many people helped me that day.”
Thanks to the swift actions of his co-workers, who quickly summoned help, and the paramedics who rushed him into surgery, Steve would later learn a mere 30 minutes was the difference between tragedy and a new lease on life.
“If I hadn't had gotten help, I wouldn't have been able to help her. I think it was part of me, giving back, you know. There was no question in my mind when it first happened that I was going to help the person as long as it took.”
To Belle, and her family, Steve so obviously matters.
“If it wasn’t for him being so diligent, following through, staying on the line with her, calling me back several times, I don’t know how long she would have been lying there,” says Allan Cherry.
Since that day, Belle has recovered from her injuries and Steve continues to check in on her. Steve and Allan have chatted on the phone several times and plan to meet in person in the future.
The lesson in dialing the wrong number?
“Everything's interconnected,” says Steve. “You know, in my mind, there's no way that wasn't divine intervention because there's so many digits in a phone number. I could have easily dialed another combination.”