Coronavirus: Man uses bucket truck to visit mom at Ohio assisted living facility

NEW MIDDLETOWN, Ohio — This was a high-rise surprise.

Social distancing did not stop one man from visiting his 80-year-old mother at an Ohio assisted living home. When the coronavirus prevented Charley Adams from seeing mom in person on March 22, he used his bucket truck and navigated the boom to the third floor for an impromptu visit, Mahoning Matters reported.

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Adams, 45, said Julia Adams had been going “stir-crazy” after Windsor Estates Assisted Living in New Middletown restricted access. Adams drives from Bessemer, Pennsylvania, where he owns Adams Tree Preservation, across the border to New Middletown to visit his mother, who was getting antsy about the coronavirus restrictions.

“(She) kept calling me and saying she wanted to go out to dinner,” Adams told WEWS-TV. “I kept explaining to her, ‘Mom, that’s not possible ... you can’t do that right now.’ She was getting a little bit frustrated and disappointed.”

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The facility does allow residents to visit relatives while behind windows and also allows video calls, but Charley Adams said his mother was not very tech-savvy, Mahoning Matters reported. Because he typically took his mother out to dinner at least twice a week, Adams decided to surprise her by using the boom of his truck to rise to her window.

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“I called and said, ‘I’m right outside your window,’” Adams told the website.

“She (said), ‘Oh, my awesome kid, what are you doing?’” Adams told WEWS. “(My mother) loves trucks. When I was a little boy, she used to take me to look at trucks, tractors and other equipment."

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Adams said the publicity generated by his high-rise visit has been gratifying for his mother.

“(Friends and family) are calling her. It’s been really great because all of the phone calls really cheer her up,” he told the television station. “If this little story can make somebody, even if it’s just for two seconds, smile. It means we’re doing something right."

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