Injured New London voter casts ballot at curbside while waiting for ambulance
New London — A city man who tripped and fell as he walked into the polling place at the Nathan Hale Arts Magnet School on Tuesday morning was able to cast a curbside ballot while waiting for an ambulance.
"There was blood everywhere," said Martha Marx, a city councilor and visiting nurse who witnessed the 9:30 a.m. incident.
Marx pulled off her campaign T-shirt for Democratic state House candidate Joe de la Cruz and applied it to the man's head wound while local resident Kenneth W. Edwards Jr. went to his car for a first aid kit. Someone else called 911 as the injured man, whose identity was unavailable, insisted he still wanted to vote.
"He said, 'I'm a political science professor,'" Marx said. "'I have to vote.'"
Former City Councilor Adam Sprecace, a Republican, was standing curbside with campaign signs and said he saw the commotion out of the corner of his eye. He went into the school to notify the election officials.
"He was alert the entire time and knew what he wanted to do," Sprecace said. "Everybody dropped what they were doing and helped him out and it was a good display of humanity."
Assistant Registrars Victoria Calhoun and Bill Vogel, representing the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively, brought ballots out to the man and his wife oversaw the process in accordance with state law on curbside voting.
"We put them (the ballots) in a privacy folder," Calhoun said.
As the man filled out the ballot, Edwards applied pressure to the wound.
The man left in an ambulance, happy to have cast his vote.
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