What to Know
- Lifelong traveler Berenice Benson, 85, lives in an Australian nursing home and still dreams of visiting New York City and meeting a cop
- Staffers have been working to make her dream come true and got an answer this week: Det. Howard Shank was in Sydney and could drive down
- "This is the best day of my life," the thrilled woman proclaimed
Berenice Benson, an 85-year-old woman with dementia in an Australian nursing home, has always dreamed of visiting New York City and meeting an NYPD officer.
An intrepid traveler through Europe for much of her life, Benson has never gotten to see the one city she's dreamed of visiting: New York. She's so enamored with the idea that the elevator at the nursing home is covered in photos of the famous skyline.
"I'd love to meet a real New York policeman," she regularly tells staff at her nursing home in Sydney, reports Canberra Times. "Just the idea of strolling through the streets of New York and asking a policeman for directions to the nearest coffee shop."
Benson got a shock when, on Thursday, a fully uniformed NYPD Det. Howard Shank walked out of the elevator and straight up to her.
"I don't know about coffee, but can show you where all the best donuts are," he joked as he surprised her at lunch.
Photos taken by a Canberra Times photographer captured the shock and thrill on Benson's face as she saw Shank. She said she felt about 20 years old again as she hugged the detective and put on his police hat.
"I never married and I never had children but this excitement, this has been the best day of my life," she said.
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The surprise, more than two years in the making, was arranged by Jo Sumner, an administrator at the nursing home who had been searching for a way to make Benson's New York dream a reality, the Canberra Times reports. Sumner asked a close friend and Australian federal officer, Stephen Daniel, to get in touch with the NYPD, and within days, she got an answer: an NYPD detective happened to be in Sydney and could drive down to the capital city of Canberra that very week.
"I lost my father to Alzheimer's, so being here, [it's] a bit emotional but I've seen a lot and done a lot and this is one of the better moments in my career," Shank said as he held Benson's hand.
Sumner was in tears as she watched the detective and Benson take a stroll around the nursing home.
"Just the look on her face when she turned around and saw him behind her," she said.
Benson's younger brother John said, "After all this time, she's always wanted it, but she can't really travel anymore... it's marvelous."
Shank gave Benson a gift of a special NYPD scarf "all the way from the streets of Manhattan" and made her promise to look him if she did finally get to New York.
"I"ll show you around and take you out for a steak dinner," said the 33-year NYPD veteran.
Benson thanked the detective and told him to refer any "cross" senior officers her way if she'd made him late for important police work, the Canberra Times reports.
