She shopped with a knife sticking out of her back.

Great Debates
1

I was watching the news last night and was shown a short story concerning a 60 year old white woman who had been stabbed on the street by a stranger, did not realize it and who went shopping at a store with a steak knife sticking out of her upper right shoulder, leaking some blood. When she got home, her daughter spotted it and rushed her to the hospital. The lady stated that she thought she had only been punched. The news program showed a black and white security tape from the store she had shopped at which showed her walking around with the knife clearly sticking out.

The two news persons thought it was incredible but (here it comes, folks. Get ready.) I had a slight problem with their coverage.

They never commented that the lady, leaking some blood, had shopped the store, placed things in her shopping cart, got filmed on security, checked out, went to her transportation and went home without a single person stopping her to inquire about the knife jutting from her back.

Now, why is this? I think if I got stabbed and had a blade poking out somewhere and did not realize it, I’d like to be INFORMED OF IT by some passing stranger. I would like to think that even if the lady did not seem affected by the unusual protrubance in her back, that someone would have inquired her about it or at least ask if she knew that whatever she had back there was LEAKING!

I don’t find it too hard to walk up to a stranger in a store if I spot something that seems wrong and that they might be unaware of and solicitously point it out to them or ask if they are OK. This elderly lady walked through a store full of customers and no one pointed out the little fact that she had a knife in her back, to her.

I think she might have wanted to know.

In the 80s, the general attitude became ‘I got mine, screw you’ and yuppies taught everyone about personal greed and how to revel in selfishness. In the 90s, the attitude became ‘I got mine, I got some of yours and now what can I do to make things better for me’? Now we are in 2000. Is the attitude becoming ‘I don’t give a hoot about you so long as you don’t disturb me’? (Want to see an example? Go to the PIT and read Rainbowcsrs post about being disabled and the majority of the replies.)

But, I am still somewhat concerned that the reporting news agency, complete with tapes of the lady, never inquired as to why no one stopped her to ask if she was OK.

2

Story’s here, if anyone wants to read it.

I’m not sure what this says about the absence of the good samaritan impulse, but the truth is, she turned out to be all right. Maybe it would have been different if she were in obvious pain.

Of course, I haven’t actually seen any of the footage, so I don’t know what this looked like. The article says it was a “kitchen knife,” and just going from the evidence of the non-fatal injury, I’m guessing it was not a big honking cleaver sticking out of her.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

3

No. She was not in obvious pain, thinking she had only been punched. The knife is clearly visible in the grainy tape. (Why are so many security tapes so damn grainy?) Added to the light colored handle poking out of her upper shoulder, was a thin trickle of blood running down her clothing.

I think that might have drawn a bit of attention.

4

Why was it so important in this story to mention that the woman was white, Sentinel?

5

What, might I ask, is wrong with mentioning race? We have all colors of people in this country: White, Black, Indian, Asian, and so on.

It it necessary to see conspiracies in everything? If I had said Black woman, would you still have asked?

6

Sounds like a kind of bystander apathy to me. In social situations, people look to the people around them for cues on whether or not the situation is an emergency. It’s been shown that the more people there are in the vicinity of an ambiguous emergency, the less likely it is that someone will react to an emergency. So the people in the supermarket with her probably noticed that she had a knife sticking out of her, but also noticed that she didn’t seem too concerned about it, and that no one else seemed too concerned about it, so they just went about their business instead of pointing it out to her.

7

Brain Dead-

It was mentioned once, and it was never said to be important. Stop using race as a crutch.

R.J.D.

8

Sentinel, I wonder if this might be a case not so much of the lack of the Good Samaritan impulse in todays society, but of people not being sure how to react to a situation that was fairly bizarre, and not clearly an emergency.

As you said, the woman was not in any ditress, and just going about her normal shopping. I’m some people saw and convinced themselves that what they saw couldn’t really be a knife sticking out of her back, that it must be something else.

9

Sentinel wrote:

My guess is most security cameras are hooked up to ordinary VHS camcorders. VHS is notoriously grainy to begin with, but this is compounded when you give the authorities or the local news a COPY of the tape made by dubbing from one VHS VCR to another. Ever made a copy of a VHS tape by playing it on one VCR and recording it on a blank VHS tape on a second VCR? Then you know how incredibly grainy THAT can be.

BTW, what kind of video tape do most hand-held camcorders use? Do they tend to be graininer than standard VHS?

10

[QUOTE]
without a single person stopping her to inquire about the knife jutting from her back.

[QUOTE/]

Obviously the store she was in did not sell that particular model/brand of knife of the security staff would have taken immediate action.

11

I bet it was something like that - you gotta admit it’s a pretty surreal situation. Also, people probably assumed she knew about it. After all, getting stabbed and left with a knife stuck in one’s neck is not something one typically fails to notice. They probably figured she knew about it, and for some incomprehensible reason, was chosing to shop anyway. I could see people being unsure of what to do in such a circumstance. I bet if she had collapsed people would have come to her aid.

Somewhat relatedly, I can recall hearing about a man who had an unfortunate accident which left some object (I’ve forgotten exactly what) protruding from his head. Doctors couldn’t remove it for fear of causing serious brain damage, so the poor bloke had to ambulate around ever thereafter in that state. One assumes they cut it off near the skull. The whole thing seems a bit odd though (I wonder about infection and so forth), so I sort of suspect I’m misremembering it.

–
peas on earth

12

Bystander apathy.

That’s a concept I had not thought of. Could it be possibly that we are so used to ‘gag’ television and advertisement stunts that the strange and unusual do not arouse our curiosity?

There is a situation that I’m aware of now, where an elderly lady, once active in her community, has become unable to care for herself. She has been an active member of the Council on Aging but was banned because lately she started arriving with her clothing stained with feces and becoming so incontinent that she would over flow her depends. Her once immaculate home is a mess and she often forgets where she is, if she ate or if she called someone.

No one wants to get involved. Not even the various associations for the elderly she belongs to. Not even her daughter, who doesn’t like her much to begin with. Even her minister passed the buck to someone else. I know that someone else, who asked my advice and I gave it and she has called the State in to investigate.

We were both appalled at the mass of people who knew her, used to chat with her when she was well, met her at church and used to help her when she was having problems walking who now, that she can no longer live alone, pass the buck. No one even checks on her regularly and she still drives!

I wonder if that story concerning the knife and the lady was because no one wanted to get involved?

When I was younger, people cared about others, even strangers. Many a time I stopped to help people broken down on the road, a couple of times I fished people up who had collapsed on the roadside and took them to get help. People helped me out. Neighbors used to help neighbors. Family members ‘gave’ money to other family members or friends not caring if it was paid back or not. People gave things like old cars or boats to friends instead of selling them for junk and did not expect to get paid for them.

I once lived in a small apartment community of ‘hippies’ and when one of us got sick, all of us were concerned and helped out. Many a time I fed people who had no food in my home without expecting to be paid back and many a time when I was ill or down, they watched over me and checked to see if I was doing OK.

I wonder if we, as a whole, have started to stray from that type of concern and are become insular, inured towards the suffering of others because TV shows it to us all of the time? If this is the case, then shall we reap what we sow?

I watched a brief film clip concerning the early release of convicted killers. This old rapist, who raped a 15 year old girl and cut off her arms, leaving her to die, was released after years in jail. She survived and fought the release, but he got out, being quite elderly. Within months he killed a prostitute and was arrested again, but THAT was not what caught my attention.

This hefty young man SAW him crouched atop the bloodied body of the woman, hammering away at her and heard the woman gurgling BUT ran away and called the cops instead of rushing in to try to save her. By the time the police arrived, she was dead. The killer was an old fart, nearly 70 and the witness was around 25 and strong, but he fled.

Could the same reason he did not rush in be similar to the reason why no one asked the bleeding elderly woman about the knife?

It’s been asked before, but are we not our brothers keeper?

Years ago, I was attacked and overwhelmed but strangers came rushing in to save me.

A few years back, a lady ran down the streets of the well off part of my town with her boyfriend shooting at her and NO ONE let her in or called the cops UNTIL he ran out of ammo. (Luckily he was a piss poor shot with only a . 38 special that holds 6 rounds.) I was stunned.

If it comes our time to fall and be in need, will there be anyone there to pick us up and give us a helping hand? Have we lost our curiosity? Our empathy?

13

Sentinel and others:

Before everyone begins to think the world’s gone to hell and no one cares anymore, here is a plausible reason why nothing was said to the woman: No one noticed it.

I am one of those shoppers who usually is focused on my grocery shopping and only notice others around me just enough to navigate around them. I don’t really look at them.

You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims. -Harriet Woods-

14

Really now, lets try to be quasi-rational about this. I can think of a couple reasons why any given person might not mention this:

  1. Don’t notice it.

  2. Assume it is some sort of stupid prank.

  3. Couldn’t care less if she drops dead right there and requires me to spend three hours giving a statement.

  4. Can’t believe that she doesn’t know it, and therefore she must be crazy so I’m not going to talk to her.

I remember a sort of inside joke I had with a group of friends, though can’t exactly remember how it started. Picture the classic situation where someone has a mustard stain or something on their tie - and you want to tell them but think they have got to know its there as they’ve had it like that all day. You think to yourself “He has to know the stain is there.” Our joke was, “You think he knows his hair is on fire?”. I think this was our reaction to the Michael Jackson Pepsi commercial fiasco, trying to imagine what the stage hands must have been thinking…

“Should I tell him his hair is on fire? I mean, he must know, right?..”

I guess you had to be there.

15

One of the reasons store camera footage looks so grainy is that what you are being shown is just a small part of the frame, blown up. These cameras are often fairly wide angle, and any action taking place happens in only a small part of the frame. So the TV crew crops the image to just the interesting part, and blows it up full-frame.

16

The Film is run at a slow speed also. Doesn’t cost so much for tape.

17

I don’t know how I would react if I had seen the exact same thing happen in my own supermarket. I think I would ask the manager, so as to bring attention to the matter without getting directly involved.

But then again, I wasn’t there.

I frequently tell those that I work with or are close to that they have a fuzz in their hair or a booger in their nose, but never tell a stranger the same thing.

It’s odd if you think about it, and yes the possibility that no person actually noticed (which is highly unlikely) she had a knife sticking out of her. I am sure someone noticed but is now fearful of the backlash they may get from not saying something.

I saw the video tape and it’s just weird…if it were me, I would hope I know that there is something amiss when it comes to my body!

I don’t know the whole thing is weird and on behalf of the news media (major and minor news reporting companies) I hope this is a true story. It actually might create a sense of “love thy neighbor” again.

18

I think this story is an insightful allegory about modern life.

Aren’t we all really just walking around with knives sticking out of our backs? Don’t most of us go through life without realizing we have a knife in our back, even if the knife is obviously visible to everyone we pass on the street?

And doesn’t everyone else ignore the knives sticking out of our backs, pretending everything is normal?

Aren’t we all 60-year-old white women, deep down inside?

19

What’s wrong with it is that it had absolutely no bearing on the story, yet you felt the need to mention it. Given the not-so-subtle prejudice I’ve seen from you in the past, I felt the need to point out that you were doing it yet again. At least you didn’t capitalize it this time. You’re learning.

I certainly would have. The crux of the story is that someone didn’t help a 60-year-old woman with a steak knife sticking out of her back. I would like to think that has nothing to do with the color of that woman’s skin.

20

Race helps give a mental image of the person, much as height, shape, and sex.

O/T:

A story from a convenience store in Summerville, SC a few years ago:

In the wee hours of the morning, a totally nude woman came into a convenience store, and wandered around for a few minutes, not purchasing anything before leaving.

When the attendant recovered, he noticed that several cases of beer were missing!

He called the police, but was unable to give any description of the woman–including the color of her hair!

There was no surveillance camera, unfortunately.