By Steve DeVane
The Fayetteville Observer
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — When Clarence R. Blackmon Jr. called 911 Tuesday, he made it clear that he wasn’t bleeding and didn’t have any broken bones.
“I do need some emergency services here,” the 81-year-old told the dispatcher.
He was hungry with no food and no way to get any.
“I can barely walk without holding on to a chair,” he said.
Blackmon, who served in the Army from 1954 to 1956, had been away from his apartment on Duggins Way for about six months. He’d been in the hospital and a rehabilitation center, getting treatment for cancer.
Marilyn Hinson is the Fayetteville dispatcher who took Blackmon’s call. After hearing his situation, she talked to the call center manager, Lisa Reid, according to Antoine Kincade, a Fayetteville Police Department spokesman.
Reid gave Hinson money out of her own pocket and told her to go get Blackmon some food, Kincade said. She and a police officer, D. Edmonds, went to Blackmon’s house.
After making sure that Blackmon needed the food, Hinson made him a ham sandwich, Kincade said.
“You would have thought it was a steak dinner by the way he was eating it,” he said.
Blackmon said a friend brought him home from the rehab center just before lunch. They planned to stop by a grocery store so Blackmon could pay for groceries that he would have delivered later.
“For some reason or another that plan never got executed,” he said.
Late in the afternoon, Blackmon realized that all he had to eat was salad dressing. He told Hinson that he wanted a fresh cabbage, an avocado, two bananas, three drinks, ham, potato salad, beets, green beans, popcorn and tomato juice.
“If you can get me started, maybe I can get things organized,” he said. “Once I get things in here, I can manage.”
Hinson made a list, asking questions like the size of the drinks and the brand of popcorn.
“We’ll get someone out there to talk with you,” she said.
Blackmon said Hinson left him a note and told him to call her if he needed anything else.
“She was so nice about it,” she said.
Since the call has been reported in the media, Blackmon said he has been getting calls from all over the nation.
“I’m so exhausted, I can hardly talk,” he said.
And his pantry is full.
“You wouldn’t believe the outpouring from people,” he said.
Blackmon said he appreciates Hinson’s help.
“She made something happen,” he said.
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©2015 The Fayetteville Observer (Fayetteville, N.C.)