“I told myself, I’m gonna get there and vote. No matter if I gotta crawl there.”
A South Carolina woman who tripped on the way to a polling place on Feb. 24 and broke her hip refused to be loaded into an ambulance unless she could cast a vote in the state Republican primary for former President Donald Trump.
Valerie Johnson, who is now recovering from hip surgery at an area hospital following her fall in the parking lot on the way to a polling place at the White Knoll High School in Lexington, South Carolina, told The Epoch Times that she tripped over her own feet when she was hurrying in to vote for President Trump.
Ms. Johnson, who is in her 60s, said she was in a great deal of pain after she fell but was determined to vote.
“I told myself, I’m going to get there and vote. No matter if I got to crawl there,” she said.
Ms. Johnson said she especially wanted to go the extra yard for President Trump because of the “pain” people who are against him have put him through.
Brian Shiel, a local security guard who was volunteering at the polling place that day, said he saw Ms. Johnson fall and called 911.
“She was hurting, really hurting,” he said, adding that she had to be loaded onto a stretcher.
Mr. Shiel told The Epoch Times that he was shocked when she refused to be taken to the hospital until after she cast her vote.
“She was yelling, ‘No, no, no, I have to vote for Trump,’” he said.
Mr. Shiel said he admired Ms. Johnson’s dedication not only to President Trump but to her civic duty to vote.
“[There are] a lot of people who won’t even go out to the polls if it’s raining,” he said.
Lenice Shoemaker, director of registrations and elections in Lexington County, told The Epoch Times that she has had “very old” elderly people who can no longer walk, disabled people with such hand deformities that they could only use their knuckles, and very pregnant women participate in curbside voting, but never anyone lying on the ground surrounded by first responders.
“This would be a first for me and, I believe, for Lexington County, and maybe even South Carolina and the nation,” Ms. Shoemaker said.
