Answering the call

Slingerlands 13-year-old Gabriella Schade
springs into action, rescuing her 91-year-old neighbor from a fall in the garage

SLINGERLANDS — Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” is a familiar line often played for laughs, but 13-year-old teenager Gabriella Schade, who goes by Ella, learned how serious that situation can be after rescuing her 91-year-old neighbor from a fall in her garage.

In April 2023, Ella, now a rising 8th grader at Bethlehem Central Middle School, stepped off her school bus in her Slingerlands neighborhood as she did every afternoon. When she passed the house of her neighbor, Muguette Martel, she heard banging coming from Martel’s garage. She stopped to listen and heard Martel screaming, “Help me! Help me!”

Martel, who at the time lived alone in the house she has inhabited since 1999, said she was carrying out two bags of recycling when she slipped on the step leading into her garage. With a bag in each hand, she couldn’t stop herself from falling. She described herself as having catapulted across the garage, landing between the car and the closed garage door. To make matters worse, this was the one time she didn’t have her cell phone with her.

“I was in agony,” Martel said. “I broke my femur, my knee was on one side, my ankle on the other, and I was all disjointed.” She pounded on the garage door for about 45 minutes, but due to a heart condition, she felt herself losing strength. “I was convinced I was going to die right there,” Martel said. “But then Ella came.”

Hearing Martel’s cries and the pounding, Ella immediately went to the garage, whose carport doors were locked shut. She then tried a side door that, fortunately, was unlocked. She found Martel lying on the concrete garage floor with her knee twisted in a different direction from her upper leg. “It was scary,” Ella said, but without hesitating, she called 911. She gave the dispatcher Martel’s address, explained that Martel had broken her leg, and that it was twisted and needed urgent help.

Ella said Martel was in a lot of pain and screaming, “It hurts, it hurts.” Ella tried to console Martel but couldn’t move her, as directed by the EMS dispatcher. “I felt really bad. I was just trying to tell her 911 was going to be there soon and they were coming as fast as they could,” Ella said, describing the stressful experience. EMS arrived in about three minutes, but she said, “It felt so long.” Upon arrival, one EMS responder assured her everything was okay.

“She absolutely saved my life,” Martel said. “Ella was as calm as could be, like a grown-up.”

Ella also sent a text to her grandmother, Estelle Schade, with whom she lives just down the street. Schade said she received a single text from Ella stating, “Help, I need you.” Schade became frantic when she stepped outside and couldn’t find Ella, but saw Ella’s backpack lying near the bus stop. “I hate to tell you what I thought,” Schade said. Then she saw the emergency response vehicle pull up by Martel’s house and went over.

When she got there a moment later, she found Ella with a first responder, who told Schade to tend to Ella because she had walked in on a disturbing situation in Martel’s garage. Schade praised the first responder for being so concerned about Ella’s well-being.

Schade said Martel and Ella had developed a very neighborly relationship over the years. Martel used to work at a consignment shop and would bring home gifts for Ella when she saw something she thought Ella might like. Ella often walked Martel’s dog, particularly in bad weather.

Coincidentally, Ella was getting off her school bus when Martel returned home eight weeks later, after a two-week hospital stay and a six-week stint in rehab following the April accident. Martel had to relearn to walk and now uses a walker. Ella said Martel was very excited to see her, and she went up the driveway to give her a hug. “She was a trooper,” Martel said. “I will forever be very grateful to her.”

Schade was also there and snapped a photo of the happy reunion.

“I am always proud of her. Not just for this, but for everything else she does as well,” Schade said.

When asked if she knows she is a hero, Ella said, “I didn’t realize it at the time because I was so focused on other things, but my grandma made sure that I know.”

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