I may have saved a life yesterday

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Yesterday on my ride, I spotted far ahead a person sprawled on the sidewalk. At first I thought it was a homeless person taking a nap but a moment later I registered the wheelchair against the curb and the direction he was laying in suggested he had tipped the chair backward and fell out. I stopped to check on him, pulse was weak but he was breathing though unresponsive to being yelled at and touched. He was (normal) pale but not sheetwhite or turning colors. Pupils were small but not pinpoint(I think) and unresponsive to light.

By now, others had stopped to help. I told one of them to call 911 and we relayed information to the operator. (It was easier to do that due to the noise of passing traffic) Fire dept. arrived a few minutes later and took over. I did hear one of them mention Narcan as they assessed. We had moved back so I couldn’t see what was done (beyond an oxygen mask) but a couple of minutes later he suddenly tried to sit up then seemed to lose consciousness again.

We were all asked what had been done, we were thanked for stopping to help and that we could leave if we wanted.

What pissed me off: Just before I spotted the man, I was passed by an ambulance (lights and siren) likely heading to the local hospital. Didn’t call it in. Probably several dozen cars(or more) passed where he lay. No calls.
As soon as I stopped and started rendering aid, people stopped.

2

The fact that you noticed him doesn’t mean others should have too. Most drivers are focused on the road ahead and not expecting to see someone on the ground on a sidewalk. Thank you for noticing, and more importantly stopping to help.

3

The road is a major throughfare, two lanes each direction plus a very wide bike lane. If I could see him from a quarter mile away, surely one other person could.
I’m not even sure if the ones who stopped after I did would have stopped on their own.

4

Cars move fast. Most people, even if they did notice anything, were a couple of blocks away before their brains even registered “Wait, what was that?”. At which point stopping to help is a lot more difficult, even if it did occur to them.

Still, you done good.

5

You yourself came very close to discounting his need as being homeless/an addict etc.

Cars move fast and people are, rightly, focussed on the moving vehicles around them before the sidewalk events.

6

It’s not uncommon to see the homeless sleeping on the sidewalk.
I was initially too far to see that he was in an unnatural posture.

7

Good for you! He and his family will be grateful. Well done.

8

I don’t know if he has a family. He looked to be late 50s-early 60s.

9

I once walked past an alley (not a dark one, a bright, all-through one on a sunny morning), and I didn’t notice that there was a guy lying in it. But my dog did. I would have walked right past, but she pulled me toward him.

He came to when she started sniffing him, and he sat up, so at that point I asked him if he needed anything, and he said no, he’d had to much at [bar a half-block away], so I guess he’d spent the night there. He sure wasn’t dressed like a homeless person, though.

He got up and started walking off, and since he looked like he had a place to go, and was well over 21, I didn’t call the police. He spoke to me like he was cold sober, and it was about 10am on a Sunday, in a state with, at the time, no Sunday sales. I was pretty young, and he was bigger than me, so I asked once more if he needed anything, and he said no, and that was it.

I just hoped for the best.

If that happened now, I’d probably call 911 as soon as he was out of earshot, but nevermind that.

The point is, I would never even have known about him if my dog had not noticed him. I was not the only person out that morning. To be perfectly honest, I almost pulled my dog away, because I was a little worried he was a corpse, and I really didn’t want to have to report a dead body to the police. But I knew I should if he was. So I checked.

You really can’t assume what everybody else saw, nor what they perceived. Maybe some people thought they just saw a pile of clothes. Or maybe someone just saw a documentary on a serial killer who found victims by pretending to need medical help, and wasn’t going to stop for that reason.

You’re not in anyone else’s head.

10

Adult sons, adult daughters, wife, cousins; people who care about him.

11

People frequently assume someone else has made the call. Many are afraid to get involved or afraid of the person himself. You did good.

12

Yes, this!

13

Thanks, all. I hope this fills my lifetime quota of life-threatening emergencies.

14

Good job.

I hope your quota for emergency lifesaving and DOING something is full too.

You did good.

15

Well done!

16

Probably not, but that’s human nature for you. Being the first to stop to render aid is hard. There is a reason for the parable of the Good Samaritan.

You done good.

Many, many years ago, on a canoe trip with my mother’s church, a kid threw a stick into the river for his dog to fetch. The river was high due to the rain the night before. His dog was getting swept away. He ran in after the dog, and he started to get swept away. I had just completed lifeguard training, so I did what I was trained to do, and pulled both to shore (he had already gotten ahold of his dog’s collar). My mother began fussing at me because I was obviously trying to show off for some girls. She finally relented when his parents thanked me for “saving his life.”

Getting involved,even if it’s an emergency, is hard.

17

Even calling without stopping would have been enough. What really bothers me is that the ambulance could have called it in.
That’s part of their job.

18

Ambulances have to watch for other drivers more than most drivers do. And they’re trying to reach their destination with all due deliberate speed. I’d assume that if they did call, they didn’t see him.

19

Is it? The driver in the front seat might have had the chance to see the fallen man, but it’s his job to drive. Making phone calls while driving is too much distraction even for ordinary drivers, and ambulance drivers are doing much more difficult driving. And I would expect everyone else in the ambulance crew to be in the windowless back, helping the patient they already have there: If they’re not in back, what are they even doing on the crew?

20

Radio, not a cell phone.