The Santa Monica Police Department is investigating the death of an 102 year-old woman who was found on Colorado Ave and 2nd St. on Tuesday afternoon.
According to SMPD, a Good Samaritan saw the woman fall out of her wheelchair on Tuesday afternoon. He put the woman back into her seat and then noticed she wasn’t breathing.
"She went off the curb right in front of me. I was in disbelief at first and nobody would come to her. I picked her and her chair up and tried to find a cool spot for her because my first thought was she was homeless. I then took her to where the nice awning was at and started looking for security police somebody. I decided to call 911 and she was still taking some breaths. Upon contacting 911 I could see her feet were blue so I lifted her head up," said Shane Latham, a nurse from Fontana.
Latham was in Santa Monica shopping on Tuesday afternoon when he saw the woman fall. He contacted the authorities for help and performed CPR on the the woman when she became unresponsive. Latham left the scene after the medics arrived.
“We were waiting to cross the street when we saw a guy pushing a wheelchair with a lady just completely slumped over in it like her head on her legs,” said Julia Stein-De Turck, a Santa Monica resident. “I don’t know if he had any relation with her. He was standing right here and he lifted her up by her shoulder and grabbed her by her hair just sort of tugged it back to see her face. He just dropped her then she landed down—no response very unresponsive.”
“It was kind of like he was just checking on her, but she was just totally limp. Then we were about to cross and he was kind of looking around. He didn’t say anything, but it was pretty odd,” said Tomás Fanning, a Santa Monica resident.
When Fanning and Stein-De Turck returned an hour later at around 3:30 p.m. police were on the scene and had covered the body.
According to SMPD, officers have spoken to multiple witnesses, including the man who first found the victim, and there is video evidence from the scene.
