About a year ago, I called for medical help when I heard a homeless person screaming about being in pain, unable to get up, etc. from the encampment near the abandoned bldg. near my home. It could have been that they were strung out, but you never know.
Just a month ago, I was driving my mom’s car to the auto shop to pick up my car, and her car died on us during a busy Friday afternoon when I was about to make a left. A young woman slowed down to see if we needed help, then parked on the other side of the street, came over, and helped a man push our car out of traffic and onto the side street. The man then offered to let us use his cell phone, but I had one with me.
Thank goodness that there are still some Samaritans around. We wrote a letter to the local papers to say thank you, but they haven’t printed it yet. Bad news makes more news, right?
Anyway, the next time I see a stuck vehicle, I will stop and see if I can render aid to keep the cycle going.
I have called the cops on what looked like a domestic abuse situation
I tried (albiet unsuccessfully) to get a wallet with $600 in it back to its original owner
My beater car broke down and several people stopped to help me move it
I was walking along, and saw an ambulance pull up to an apparently sleeping homeless guy. Someone had called them because he didn’t seem to be responding and they thought he might be unconcious
a retarded man got on a bus, and was asking the driver where to get off. When it became apparent that he couldn’t read street signs, no less than six people pushed forward to volunteer to show him his stop.
I took in a pair of out-of-town teenagers who had been abandoned and had nowhere to sleep for the night and no money for a hotel
I fell badly on a subway platform, and several people tried to help me and call me an ambulance until I explained to them that my knee spontaneously dislocates and it’s really no big deal
…and these are just the incidents I can think of off the top of my head. It’s true that city people have to tune out a lot of surrounding low-level distress in order to function, but when someone needs help urgently, they usually get it.
:smack:
Damn, you got me. I walked right into that one.
For me, I was behind a lady in line at the register at the grocery store today. She looked in her cart, then shook her head. I asked if she’d forgotten something. She mentioned a specific coffee she wanted, and since she had a full cart and I was just standing there, I went to go get it. It turns out it was the wrong one (she hadn’t described it well, and I couldn’t find it) but I tried. The cashier and the bag girl actually found her the right one after she cashed out, and she went to the service desk to pay for it.
When I lived in Boulder, my truck slid into a snowbank backwards (it was my first winter, I got better at driving up steep hills after that). I was stuck but good. I got out in my dress and boots, took one look, and got back into the truck and started to cry. There was a 4 foot bank between the street and the sidewalk, and as I was sitting there wondering what to do (no cell phones then), a young couple broke through the snowbank and helped to push me out.
I thought at the time that if I’d been back in SoCal, no one would have cared, let alone stopped and helped. Case in point- driving home one day (daylight, late afternoon rush hour), I was violently sick. I pulled over to the side of the freeway (the 55 south, south of Dyer Rd, for the locals), leaned out the passenger side door and puked, then passed out. I don’t know how long I was out, but when I came to, no one had stopped. I could have been dead.
Driving back from the grocery store this morning, I saw her on the side of the street, waiting to cross. I was going pretty quickly so I didn’t see if her leg wrapped, but I don’t think she had a cast. So, she wasn’t hurt too badly if she’s out and about today. I’m glad.
I’ve had this happen to me. I was the bystander who did nothing. I’m embarrassed to this day. And it’s not like I haven’t stopped to help people in the past. My father made big deal of when I was a kid and I try to follow his example. I have on several occasions stopped my car to help people, rendered first aid, fixed cars, helped people on the street. Heck in February I was out for a jog in the snow and I saw an older woman fall while crossing the street. I ran two block up to help her up made sure she was alright and then carried her bags and walked her to her door. I like to think I do the right thing.
But two years ago I was boarding my morning bus when one of the other passengers slipped on the ice while walking from her car. This is a woman I’ve seen on the bus for years. She struck her head quiet hard on the ground and lay there. All 15-20 of us just sort of stared at her as we shuffled onto the bus. After several seconds a young woman walking from her car saw the woman the ground and said oh my God and stooped over her to help. It was like she dispelled some sort of group think apathy. I called 911, someone else got a blanket from their car and three people stayed with her till the medics showed up. Had the young woman not woken us to our duty I think we’d have left her there.
I’ve seen this happen as well. I’m in Philly, so I don’t know if that has something to do with it or not.
#1 On the El, girl on my car starts “swaying” and doesn’t seem too steady on her feet. She gets off at my stop, drops and has a seizure. Everyone, save for me and another gentleman, walk over her to exit the stop. The man and I gather her things and we stay with her as her seizure passes. It really got to me that no one really seemed to care. The girl was a decently dressed black girl, not that it matters, but I have 2 other similar stories.
#2 Getting off a train at 30th Street Station, a woman trips on the stairs and hurts her ankle, again, people just walk around her as she is screaming in pain. I yell for security and we get her straightened out. White, middle-aged professional woman.
#3 I work at Penn, near the West end of campus. I was out for a smoke break (I didn’t have my cell phone on me) and an older black gentleman on his way to the VA hospital collapsed on the sidewalk. Again, people ignored him going down and didn’t seem to react at all. I grabbed a guy walking down the street to help prop the guy up and call 911.
The way I feel is that if I see something that calls for my attention I will help any way I can. If it was my sister, mother or grandfather in any of those situations, I would want someone to help them.
This is only partially related, but it reminds me of a news show thing I saw once.
A newswoman doing the story tried doing two separate scenarios: (1) stand next to a “broken-down” car on a busy street in her own guise, and (2) the same thing, but this time wearing one of those realistic fat suits.
Results: almost no one stopped for her when she wore the fat suit. She was a nice-looking woman, so you’d think that all the people who stopped for her when she wasn’t wearing it would be guys, but that wasn’t the case. The people who stopped were both men and women. But the “fat girl” received next to no help at all.
I think I may have posted this before, but many years ago I was at our cabin alone and decided to mow the lawn. As I was pull starting it, my foot slipped and twisted off the mower and down I went.
I saw our neighbor on his porch, eating lunch, so I called for help. Nothing.
I attempted to stand up, couldn’t as my ankle was swollen and hurt like hell. Yelled for the neighbor. Nothing, not even a side glance.
He didn’t have a radio or TV on, he was just eating his lunch, looking out over the lake. I was no more than 50’ away from him.
I ended up crawling across the dirt road, across the yard, and into the cabin. I eventually made it in to the hospital - severe sprain, here’s some crutches, don’t be dumb (from a hospital that would later know myself and TheKid by sight due to clutziness).
A few weeks later I asked the neighbor if he had heard me. Yeah, but he was on lunch.
A couple years ago, I stopped to help a diabetic woman in a store who was becoming unconscious due to low blood sugar. She was still standing, but clutching her cart and listing in a wholly abnormal way.
She wasn’t down, but to my eyes, something was terribly wrong. My husband, who was with me, had gone ahead several paces before he realized I’d stopped. He simply did not see her. Nor did anyone else who was whizzing past. Once I did stop and had people go for juice, etc., while my husband was dialing 911, people were happy to help.
This doesn’t excuse people actually stepping over a fallen person, but in some instances I think inaction can be contributed to people’s general unawareness of what’s going on around them. I’m rather attuned to people’s conditions (often stopping to peer at someone who’s just zoning out, etc.) and always on the lookout for something amiss. Or something interesting; I’m just observant. You could also argue I’m on the lookout because I’m a former EMT, but I think concern for the sick and injured led to that, not the other way 'round.
Unfortunately unless a person is clearly distressed I wouldn’t help. If you have a cell phone it’s easy enough to call 911 or 311 (non-emergency in Chicago) and say “Look, I don’t know if this is an issue, but…”
I can walk down Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago around Belmont at 8pm on Friday and already the old drunks and illegals are falling down drunk all over the street. You get used to walking around them
I can go to Palmer Square to sit on bench and see drug deals. You call 911 and the cops don’t show. It’s sad but that is how we live. If someone is not dying, at least in Chicago, they will put you last on a very long list.
Drugs deals, noise complaints an old lady that fell is meaningless to cops who know by the time they get their the problem will be over, most likely.
So I say get a cell phone and as long as you keep it powered up, it has to be able to dial 911.
I was bad once, where I walked by someone in trouble. I knew I did the wrong thing and ever since I have said to myself I would help someone if they needed assistance.
Anyone who has read some of my threads knows that I got punched in the face awhile back to help a woman who was being verbally abused by her boyfriend in public. I went about it the wrong way, but at least I don’t feel like human scum this time. I hope the third time I get it right
There was an interesting show on ABC this past season called “What Would You Do?” and basically set up any number of scenarios like this one. I think it’s more complex than the “selfish asshole” explanation.
First, you have to assume that not everyone sees everything… people can be terribly inattentive. Add it the daily daydreams about dinner, the date this weekend… you see where this is going. There’s also the irrational fear, propagated by the media, that people are dangerous, and your fellow man on the ground is probably running a scam or is going to toss you over their shoulder when you bend over to pick them up. And of course, a lot of us are absolutely useless in an emergency - we panic, get overexcited and essentially make the situation worse.
And of course socioeconomic status, race, gender, appearance, and age all factor into this.
Personally I think people are more good than bad or indifferent. To the OP, it’s possible that someone had called for help from a car. I do think that people tend to do what they can, but as I said there’s a lot of fear propagated by the media about the bad things that can happen when you try to help people. That probably sells more papers, etc. than a story about an ordinary Joe helping someone.
Just this morning on my way into work I and one other soul stopped and helped an old gent who was trying to push his truck off the road after it had broken down. We pushed the truck into a parking lot and went on our way, there was a repair shop right next to the parking lot and a gas station less than a block away.
I preface this by saying that I saw this gent trying to move the stalled vehicle almost a 1/2 mile away in the turn lane and every single car on a nearly bumper-to-bumper 4 lane street passed him by for one 1/2 of a mile.
I like to think the majority of people are basically good, but I think that number is shrinking with every passing year.
I fell at the T station once too (same station, I wonder?), though not so badly. Still, two people stopped and helped me. I was very grateful for their help, and I am determined to do the same if anyone needs help that I notice. For me, noticing would be the hard part, I’m usually in my own little world.
Good for you for helping her, Claire. I hope that the other car-drivers/pedestrians simply didn’t notice that the lady needed help, and it’s good that you did.
I think it depends on the neighborhood and the type of people living in/travelling through it.
A couple of years ago I was living in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Me and my son, three-years-old at the time, were out and about. We were driving down a main road when we noticed a little old lady who was crossing a side street stagger for a second and then fall flat on the asphalt.
As quick as I could, I braked and whipped over to the side of the road. I grabbed my son out of his car seat and ran the 30-40 odd feet back to where the woman had taken a tumble. In the few minutes between the old lady falling and me pulling over, getting my son, and sprinting to the accident, four other cars had pulled over and three people, total strangers all, were helping the old lady out.
She had hurt her head and was bleeding, and one of the men had taken off his suit jacket and used it as a makeshift pillow. A woman about my age was holding the old lady’s hand and comforting her, and a young Latino kid went down the street knocking on doors to see if anyone knew her.
