I was going to town on the bus today. There was this big woman sitting close to the front and for whatever reason she gets up and starts ‘surfing’ the aisle. Basically she is standing in the aisle, not holding onto anything and perhaps adjusting her undergarments, I don’t know for sure.
The bus slows dramatically and the woman is tilted off-balance, I watch as she falls over, TIMBERRRR!! It was like a tree falling or something similar. She never had time to put out her hands to protect herself but luckily she landed sideways and not face-down or straight onto her back.
I have fell like that myself before, you get a dead-arm perhaps, it is sore but if you have not got your hands out to stop yourself it is definitely the best way to fall.
So the bus stops completely and people run to her aid, they try to pick her up without much luck. The woman is moaning a bit and the people ask her if they should call an ambulance. The woman says no she will be ok, and because no-one was actually able to lift her or do anything else at this point everyone sits back down.
It seems the woman is not ready to get up either though, try as she might she just can’t get topside.
So the bus doors close and we continue on our journey with a large woman lolling about and rolling in the aisle, not quite wedged in but pretty close.
It must have been pretty surreal for passengers who did not see the fall. It was kind of funny to watch their faces as they dropped their money in the slot, turned to take a seat and see this woman ‘relaxing’ in the passage-way. It was a really wierd and uneasy bus journey.
The lady was kind enough to ask if I could " Get Past?" as I cautiously approached her. I could so I jumped over her legs and went about my day.
Then when I was in the town waiting for the next bus to take me to work I spot this family crossing the road towards my direction. There was a kid with them who must have been about 10 years old and she tripped and fell over from only about two metres away from where I was sitting.
She falls on her knees and sticks out her hand but the momentum carries her over a bit. She had almost totally stopped herself but there was just that little bit of unstoppable momentum that rocked her body forward and slowly, ever so slowly submerged her face in a dark muddy puddle.
There was a splutter of bubbles and then she emerged with the dirtiest muddiest face I have ever seen. She was crying. I am sure there was no pain here, it was mainly just the shock of going from happily skipping girl to Swamp-Thing in a mere two seconds. She got wiped up and was ok.
This has all happened in front of me today. They say these things come in three’s. One was funny and one was wierd, I wonder what the next one will be like…
God people are mean these days. If the women couldn’t get up someone needed to call her a doctor even if she didn’t ask for one. What kind of people sit down and ignore her or, even worse, jump over her?
So the bus driver closed the doors and continued driving with the woman still lying on the floor?!
Gee, I think here in California the procedure for such a situation might involve the bus driver calling his/her supervisor to report it and maybe even calling for an ambulance or a paramedic to examine the woman for injuries, even if she says she’s okay. The bus company would not want to leave itself open to liability if the woman WAS injured and the driver simply kept driving.
I know, what was I thinking. I have seen Maguyver before, I am sure I could have rigged up a pully system or something. People had enquired, she said she was fine. I know it was very wierd, that was my thoughts exactly. But what could I do? If two guys can’t lift her and people have offered to phone someone for her what else could I have done?
Apart from drop a few coins on the floor to give her something to do, I was outta there 3 or 4 stops after it happened anyway.
You could have told the bus driver to stop driving.
You could have sat down on the floor with her and talked to her to make sure she was okay.
You could have called an ambulance yourself even if she said she didn’t want one. People who are hurt are often dazed and don’t know what they need. You said yourself she was trying to get up and couldn’t do it.
You could have even tried to help her get up. I don’t care how fat she was a few men should have been able to help her get off the ground. If they couldn’t then how in the world do you think she is going to manage to get herself up?
I am going to drop out of this thread for now. I am having trouble with finding non-pit words to express my emotions. I will come back if this thread gets moved.
Real nice, that you would think either of these incidents was funny. I’m glad these people could suffer through no fault of their own for your amusement. :rolleyes:
FWIW, smam, I would have done the same thing as you. If the woman fell over onto her side, she’s probably not hurt. And she’s an adult, and said she was fine. I think if I couldn’t get myself up off the floor I would be mortified if somebody sat down there and talked to me and wouldn’t stop paying attention to me.
But maybe that’s just me.
She was either in shock or really, really, embarrassed.
Either way, the bus driver should have stopped until she could get up under her own power, or an ambulance go there.
And I don’t blame Smam. It’s hard to know what’s going on in those situations until you’ve either lived through them or taken some serious first aid courses so you can tell if the person is in shock or not. I say this from bad experience.
Will you guys give smam a break already? He did nothing wrong. The woman proclaimed she was OK, and didn’t need any help. The OP lives in Scotland, where petty lawsuits aren’t as common as in the US. Try to maintain a little perspective, please.
And you know what? Provided no one gets hurt, it’s DAMN funny to watch people fall sometimes. Have you guys never seen America’s Funniest Home Videos? If it wasn’t for Bob Saget, that stuff would be pure genius.
So? I never claimed to be the epitome of a grown up. When no one gets hurt, a good fall is hilarious. Worked for Laurel and Hardy 70 years ago, and it works for me today.
I admit the situation became a tad surreal when the women kept lying there, but she was offered help, and refused. What more can a person do?
Hell yeah it’s funny sometimes! I went to school with Jonathan Taylor Thomas (I hated that self centered prick), and I and two of my friends had the pleasure of seeing him fall down a flight of stairs at school! Now, normally I cringe if I see someone fall down stairs, because I know how injured you can get from a bad fall. He wasn’t hurt, at least physically (his pride probably was!), and the way he fell was so comical that me and my friends couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
Now, as for the OP, I think people are unduly attacking him. Why should he be expected to do anything more than what others on the bus already did? It’s not like that guy who got shot at a D.C. gas station and everyone just ignored him while he bled to death right there, the people on the bus sought to help the lady and inquired as to her condition. She turned down offers for help, so why do you expect the OP to do something that she did not want people to do?
I can’t speak for anyone else. But while I agree that there probably wasn’t much to be done, I find it a little disturbing that the OP found this poor woman’s humiliating situation funny. Same for the kid who tripped. I like Laurel & Hardy too, but they were pretending, for the purpose of getting laughs. Those people were just trying to go about their day, and probably didn’t appreciate having strangers gawp and (possibly) point and laugh, whether they were hurt or not.
As for laughing at JTT, I’ll acknowledge that Monster104 and his friend didn’t care whether JTT’s humiliation was enhanced by their laughter, and probably hoped that it was. We all like to see our enemies “get theirs.” But can we cut ladies on buses and crying little kids a break?