I know I posted this story before, so I’ll just give the Rdr’s Dgst version.
I was walking down the street one Saturday night when a girl fell over and into a snow bank in the street. My natural inclination was just to extend my hand and help her up. After I did, I asked the obligatory “Are you OK?” She never gave me an answer I could understand, as the tears she was crying smelled about 80 proof. It became clear that not only was she not going to make it home safe, but if I let go of her she would just fall down again. I was scared that she wouldn’t survive the night on her own. But I wasn’t really in a position to help her. I figured the best I could do was call 911, but at the time I didn’t own a cell phone.
No worries, the street wasn’t exactly empty that night. It was jam packed with students out to paint the town red. I asked every single passer-by if they had a cell phone. Each and every one of them laughed like they were watching a screwball comedy. And each and every one kept on walking. Even when emphatically asking for help, I received none.
(Outcome of story – I FINALLY found someone sympathetic who called 911. I then sat with the girl for 45 minutes while she verbally abused me in rather colorful ways. The last I saw of her, she was threatening the EMT who was strapping her into a gurney.)
On the flipside of all of this, one night I was getting off of a bus, and some rude woman pushed right past me and everyone else to get off first. I thought that she was awfully rude and selfish, so my hateful eyes followed her. She got off the bus, walked behind the bus shelter, and laid down on the pavement. Mind you, this was after dark on a cold February night in a seedy part of town.
I rushed over to see if she was OK, but my path was impeded by about 10 other people who were doing exactly the same thing. We all sat with her until the ambulance arrived.
Altruism is dead. The other day I was sitting outside a café and I watched an old lady trying to get up after she slipped off her Zimmer frame onto the sidewalk, for about 10 minutes. About forty people must have walked past her, and not one person helped.
Never did find out if she managed to get up or not.
I still cannot believe…and am still angry…about this.
I was in 4th grade…so about 9,10? I was hit by a car. I was walking across the street and a car left turned and hit me. I fell to the street and heard the guy get out of the car, look at me…get back in the car back up and leave.
I layed there…
Cars went around me. I probably layed there a few minutes. Several cars went around me.
I finally got up…in much pain and realized nothing major was broken. I hobbled over to the curb and sat down and was probably there 15 minutes or so.
No one stopped.
No police came…so no-one called the police who didn’t stop. I walked home and when I looked at myself I was one massive bruise on one side.
I just CANNOT imagine me doing something like this if I saw a kid laying in the road. Un-fuckin-believable.
This was not in some big city…but is a town of 20000, semi-rural and in a place where people prided themselves on being ‘nice’ and ‘friendly’.
It was this incident that started me on the path that people are generally selfish assholes and if the human race was to go extinct it wouldn’t be much of a loss.
Good on you, Claire Beauchamp. Whether or not anybody else was being selfish, you did do the right thing and help somebody.
As far as Kitty Genovese goes, I thought later analysis showed that while a large number of people heard parts the attack, few or none heard enough to realize what was going on and that it was something serious.
Yesterday, I was towing my little sailboat to the lake, when some of the old bungee cords let go, leaving the canvas cover to flap wildly in the wind. I pulled off the road to replace the broken parts. In about a minute’s time, an Indiana State Policeman had stopped to ask if I had some trouble. He said he wanted to make sure I wasn’t stranded.
In my opinion, this is a symptom of cities in general. If you live in a smaller town, people do stop to help. Whenever I’ve had problems in small towns, people do stop.
Three examples:
I was with my friend in a small town in Missouri, and his car broke down. Within 10 minutes, about 6 people stopped to ask if we needed help
I was in a rural town in Illinois, and my parent’s van stopped working. Someone came by and fixed the car (!) and didn’t even charge for it.
I was lost in the middle of bumblefuck and some guy at a gas station told me he would show me the way to where I wanted to go, and he drove 20 miles out of his way to take me directly to the highway (I never would have found it on my own).
This sort of thing never, ever happens in the city. People are too suspicious. People don’t want to get involved. People go to cities to live in anonymity.
Well, that’s not true. As I said, people have stopped to help me in this same city, more than once. And I’ve had many other acts of kindness and helpfulness bestowed on me, people going out of their way to help.
I think the meme of “small town people are helpful, big-city people aren’t” is a stereotype.
I’ve got an uncle who lives in the small town where I grew up. He has an internal defibrillator. One sunny afternoon while at a popular park walking track getting his doctor recommended gentle exercise, his defibrillator went off and he collapsed. At first he couldn’t talk, he could only lie on the ground near the track and watch as people walked past him, chatting away. Eventually he managed to get his cell phone out of his pocket, but he couldn’t get reception as the walking track is in a bit of a dip in the park. He asked a man passing by to please dial 911 for him. The man looked, shrugged his shoulders, said, “Sorry.” and kept on walking.
It took him almost an hour to be able to work his way up off the walking track back to his car to call an ambulance. People at the hospital were so shocked at the other park patrons’ indifference that it made the local news.
I was (un)involved in something like that once. I was walking down a crowded street when an elderly man in a fairly nice car rearended a beater. (Lightly tapped is more like it.) The driver and passenger of the beater stayed in their car for a few minutes, then the passenger, a young woman, got out while holding her neck. The driver, her boyfriend I presume, got out and yelled “She’s got whiplash! Someone call 911!” He seemed pretty upset that not a soul did a thing. My own apathy is something I’m not proud of, but I felt a little funny calling the cops for what seemed like a shady situation.
I’ve often thought about this, living in San Francisco. I go to the public library fairly often, and most of the time, there’ll be at least one homeless person lying on the sidewalk outside. It’s gotten to the point that if someone who looks homeless is lying on the sidewalk, I don’t pay much attention, because there are a lot of people who just don’t have anywhere else to be. I sometimes feel guilty, because there probably are people mixed in who need some immediate help, but I can’t really tell.
So I think a lot of it has to do with how common a sight it is. I’ve stopped to help people in more identifiable distress, but it’s something that still depresses me from time to time.
IIRC, the “bystander apathy” was blown incredibly out of proportion by the New York Times, so for years everyone has been thinking that 38 witnesses actually watched the entire attack from start to finish. It has become legendary as a result.
The news report had said 38 people witnessed the attacked and did nothing. But actually only a dozen people were vaguely aware of something (many though it was a regular argument and were unaware of any violence) and the police had been called right away.
And what the hell were you doing that you couldn’t help her yourself?
I’m more optimistic. I have been on both the receiving and giving end (one day an older lady tripped and fell over a curb, and both my son and I rushed to her aid, instinct really, someone hurt and I go into Mommy mode) and I think most people didn’t notice her.
