"We need urgent communication assistance

this morning," I was told. 
For once it wasn't an advocacy group but the police. They had my name as "someone who should be able to help". 
      "Can you tell me anything else now?" I asked
      "Yes, we have a victim of a crime here but we are having problems because he can't communicate. They've taken some sort of thing which helps him to talk. He has a card with your name on it."
They give me his name.
Oh.......no, I don't swear. I want to.
      "He won't even have a drink," I was told.
      "He needs a straw," I said, "Please tell him I'll be on the next train."
I left a hurried message on the table for the Senior Cat. He was out with Middle Cat. I caught the next train with no time to spare.
I arrived feeling hot - and furious. 
I don't know this man that well. He was educated at home and then at one of the fee paying schools. I know his sister rather better but I know she's away at a conference right now.   He looks up and recognises me with the sort of relief that  almost makes me terrified - and angrier than ever. I have to help this battered and bruised and abused man communicate because - I learn this - two young thugs have taken not just his ability to communicate but his dignity from him..
Yes, someone had provided him with a straw in a mug of tea that looks strong enough to stand without the mug. It's the second lot of tea.
He still looks awful.
      "D...you're diabetic too aren't you?" 
He looks "yes" at the ceiling. 
      "Do you need something to eat?"
He looks "yes" at the ceiling again.
Someone goes to find something he can eat - a problem in itself as he can't chew a biscuit.
       "Are you still working at....?" I ask. Today is the day he goes in if he is. He has professional qualifications and works for the same firm as his sister.
He indicates yes again and  I get someone to ring his place of work and tell them what has happened. 
    "Your boss is in a meeting. He'll be over as soon as he can," he is told. I know he will come too.
And then we go through the slow process of getting information from D.  The two police officers want to ask open-ended questions. Without a communication device D...can only answer "yes" or "no" by looking up at the ceiling or down at the floor. I explain this and say, "D... is perfectly capable of explaining what happened if you give him time. "
     "Just go ahead then and we'll listen."
They decide this after some discussion. It isn't the way they work at all. They are used to being able to control the questions.
So I start at what I hope is the beginning. I have to frame each question so he can answer yes or no or follow his eyes when I get one of the policemen to write three words on three separate pieces of paper.  
The two policemen ask the occasional question - frustratingly still open-ended - and they ask me, not him although I say, "Ask him". The story comes out. It seems to take forever.
D...gets himself to work one day a week in his electric wheelchair. It's a major achievement for him. On other days he works at home via his computer set up. He normally has his communication device and also an old style communication board I helped to make him many years ago  which has been updated by his sister over the years. Neither are easy for him to use but they are a good deal more dignified than not being able to indicate more than "yes" and "no".  His boss arrives a bit over an hour later. It takes almost another hour before D... puts his thumbprint on his statement and his boss takes him off - to work. No, he is NOT going to miss going to work whatever has happened and however late it is. There's an important meeting this afternoon and he (thinks) he needs to be there.
They were still searching for two boys in their early teens when I left the station.
I came home and emailed a temporary and very basic board to his boss. The message came back, "Printed, laminated...D...says email later. Thanks very much from all of us here."
And later I had an email from D... all it said was, "thanks cat love  d"
It might not seem much to the rest of the world but he managed to type that with badly bruised fingers holding the stick he uses to hit the keys. 
The rest of us could learn a lot from him.