Weird situation: would you have stayed?

In My Humble Opinion
141

See above - only 22 out of 87 actually unambiguously said they would leave before help arrived. Probably another 10 or so said they would leave after a certain amount more of abuse, which still isn’t even a majority. And when you consider that a bunch of them are probably doing a variation on Internet Tough Guy (“Yeah, fuck her, hope she gets eaten by a bear!!!”) or trying to offer support to the op who is a pretty prolific and I’d suppose well-liked poster around here, it’s less disturbing to me at least.

Sure, it’s still a lot of bad samaritans, but that’s where the concept of good ones comes from, isn’t it?

142

The place was rural enough that the state police had to be called. I’m guessing that 911 would not have listed it as a life-threatening emergency, and that they’d have come in the same 20 - 30 minute window that the OP got calling the non-emergeny line; so I think we can drop worrying about whether 911 should have been called.

The OP tried to list folks who could get there quicker, but she wasn’t having that.

I’m not sure whether I’d have stayed. I’ve had “stay until they’re actually in the door”/“stay until help arrives” dinned into me since I was little. So I’d be strongly predisposed to stay. But the description is reminding me of someone I was once in an elevator with for a very long single floor trip. I had made the mistake of trying to tell her that, although she had pushed the button for an upper floor, the elevator was going down. I got two words out before the screaming started. I didn’t say another word, not even after we’d both gotten off in the basement.

So at a certain level of crazy, I think I’d at least have waited somewhere else. It’s hard to read whether someone is being crazy or scared or just being unpleasant at second hand.

143

Imagine if you were trapped somewhere for an hour or more, yelliing for help. Do you think you’d appear particularly sane at the end of that?

144

If it’s so rural that it takes the state troopers 30 minutes to show up, I’m guessing AAA isn’t going to be much quicker.

145

I too am surprised at people’s responses.

I’d call the cops and stick around until they showed up. If someone’s in trouble they’re in trouble. You help them because helping someone in trouble is the right thing to do, not because they ask you nicely.

If she spends 30 minutes screaming abuse at me, that’s all the more reason to stick around. She’s clearly too panicked or crazy to be safely left alone.

146

Kinda depends on where the AAA garage is doesnt it?

147

I think I would have called 911 and stuck around until help arrived. I would have tried to ignore her abuse, figuring that her having thought (after yelling for help for so long) that she might be stuck there all night, she had just completely lost it.

I think the situation could have been more serious than posters have allowed; I would have worried about the possibility of compartment syndrome.

148

Look, guys, panic makes you do the crazy.

My mom’s got claustrophobia, and I’ve only seen it kick in once or twice in my entire life, but she went from sweet, reasonable, loving woman to RIP IT OUT OF THE WALL KILL KILL KILL in the space of two seconds when she was trapped in a bathroom stall. When she was traveling in Europe and took a subway that stayed underground a little too long, three of her travel mates dropped everything and attended her with the same drop-dead focus of a open heart surgical team, because she’d turned white, then green, then started leaking tears, and then went into a flop sweat. Other passengers swore she was having a heart attack.

I have clobbered some poor innocent when my panic button got hit just right. I’ve also gone completely aphasic and just made a bunch of screamy vowel sounds. A friend of mine nearly tore my face off when I put my hand just where her neck met her shoulders. I’ve seen students faint, scream, and try to go on a Viking bloodlust berserker rage. I’ve also seen people I had gauged as “calm under fire” go completely to pieces.

You just don’t know until you’ve been there.

So, you have a woman who accidentally locks her keys in her car. Bet she felt really stupid on that one. Then she got her arm stuck. Now she’s thinking about all the ribbing she’s going to get when she explains why she’s late. So, she starts calling for help. (“Hey, anybody there? I could use a hand!”)

And calling. (“Heh. Seriously. I’m stuck. I need some help. Anybody?”)

And calling. (“Uh . . . kind of freaking out here. SOMEBODY? PLEASE?”)

And calling. (“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, ISN’T THERE ANYONE OUT THERE?!”)

And calling. (“HELP! PLEASE HELP! ANYONE? HELP ME!”)

She’s tried pulling her arm out, but she is well and truly stuck, and now her arm is starting to swell. She’s in the middle of nowhere. It’s night. Hey, maybe the coyotes are howling. Her parents or boyfriend or kids or coworkers or whoever the hell she was going to meet are wondering where she is, and she’s got no way to let them know what’s going on. She could literally disappear off the face of the planet, and no one would know.

And someone comes out of the building.

“COULDN’T YOU HEAR ME SCREAMING?!”

“Uh, no. What’s wrong? You’re stuck?”

“YES, I’M FUCKING STUCK. CALL 911!”

“Well, that might cost you some money, and it could take awhile. How about I call Triple A?”

“NO, YOU FUCKING IDIOT, CALL 911!”

“Wow, you’re a real bitch, aren’t you? Fine, I’ll call 911, but then I’m outta here.”

Maybe in the rest of her life, she is a stone cold cunt who enjoys scrapbooking her kitten drowning days. If you have documentation on that, I can totally see calling 911 and leaving. Otherwise, you stay, and you treat the crazy person with as much kindness as you can, even if that means going back inside and watching her from the window to make sure she doesn’t get eaten by coyotes.

Because I can guarantee that what would have been a funny, slightly embarrassing story for her has now morphed into a “Oh, my God, I was terrified, I couldn’t figure out what to do, I’d been screaming for half an hour, I was seriously losing it, and this guy came out, AND NOT ONLY DID HE ARGUE WITH ME ABOUT CALLING 911, BUT WHEN HE FINALLY CALLED, HE JUST TURNED AROUND AND LEFT ME THERE!”

There are times, morally and ethically, when we are obligated to take shit from another human being. This was one of them, and you blew it.

149

I would have done exactly what you did. Fuck that bitch.

150

This is what happens when city folk visit country folk.

They lock their cars.

My inlaws lock their car in our driveway every freakin’ time. It is really annoying.

I would have helped and been wary of some alternative plan going on, especially with her verbal tirade and stopping in a rural area to use the bathroom. Who the fark does that? In crisis situations people brains become pea size, to whatever the core of their real personality is IMHO, her’s obviously becomes very abusive.

I’m thinking meth ( if she was fat, it wasn’t meth.) or robbery. Because TV crime shows tell me this.
The rape/purty mouth jokes are only that, people. Lighten up, francis. sheesh.

151

I’ve now read the thread, so I’d like to add that I’d probably rape that bitch, too.

:rolleyes:

I’d bet peanuthead meant it as a pee joke. You don’t unzip your fly to have sex, you drop your pants. Yeesh, people.

152

This is the best post I’ve read in awhile. phouka, you nailed it.

153

This is what to do the next time.

  1. Say, “I don’t need abuse like this.”
  2. Place a hatchet or a hacksaw on the roof of her car next to her free hand.
  3. Say, “Good luck.”
  4. Leave.

Just one guy’s opinion.

154

Reading stuff like this just makes me sad. You seem to think there is something out there floating in the ether called a “moral obligation” or an “ethical oblgiation,” and that thing is independent of your own personal thoughts about what a person should and shouldn’t do. But there’s not. There’s only your opinion.

By saying “you blew a moral/ethical obligation,” all you are saying is “I, phouka, disapprove of your actions.” That’s it.

155

Gotta check back in here and make a statement.
First of all:
To all you sensitive prudes with no sense of humor who think you have some god given right to go through life without being offended (boo hoo): Take the stick out of your ass and lighten up. It was a joke. A fifty year old joke at that. In fact another poster laid it out exactly as I heard it 45 years ago. It involved a male truck driver if that makes you feel any better. The OP reminded me of that old joke and I posted the punchline thinking that almost everyone has heard it by now.

Secondly:
As far as the OPs situation goes, here’s what I would have done. First I would have called 911 as the lady asked. Or maybe given her my cellphone for her to call. Then, regardless of her hysteria about what she perceived to be an emergency and I perceived to be her embarrassing predicament, I would have had a good chuckle and gone back to the office and got a coat hanger and attempted to either open the door or snag the keys. It shouldn’t have been too hard with the window open a few inches. I would have kept trying till I got it open or the authorities arrived.

Then I would have unzi—:stuck_out_tongue:

156

Because he could have rectified her predicament much more quickly per one of those suggestions.

Yes, since the cops said it would take 30 to 45 minutes for them to get there.

157

This is a stupid defense. Note, I am not saying you are stupid; I am saying your joke defense is stupid. If I were you I would have just stuck with, “Well, I thought it was funny”.

Personally I thought it was kind of a gross joke considering we’re talking about an actual person and not a hypothetical situation. Your mileage can and will vary. (That said it takes a lot more than this to offend me with a joke. Although it helps if the joke actually makes me laugh, which this one did not.)

158

Don’t worry Peanut, it made ME laugh hard. And everyone knows I’m the epitome of class and sophistication.

159

For those who would have left, I suggest a slightly different scenario, with edits underlined:

When I walked out of the building, there was a woman standing by a car screaming, “HELP”. I walked over and saw that her arm was caught in her car. She had pulled into my lot to make a phone call, then got out to see if she could use my bathroom. She locked her keys in the car. Driver’s side window seemed down far enough so that she could squeeze her hand in and get her keys. She got in to her elbow and could get no further. She wound up with her elbow swelling so that she could not move any way.

As I approached her, she began yelling at me. “COULDN’T YOU HEAR ME SCREAMING!!??” Um, no, I couldn’t. No matter what I said/asked/offered she came back very scared, crying and begging for help. I suggested I could call AAA. She wailed that she didn’t have AAA, and wanted me to call the cops. I suggested alternatives and she got more and more panicked.

So I said I’d call the police. I went back into my building and called PA State Police. The area where my business is located has no township/local police. I called the non emergency number, identified myself and explained the situation. The dispatch guy said they would respond, but it would be 30 to 45 minutes.

When I relayed this to her just kept on crying and freaking out. She said she had to use the bathroom and couldn’t wait 30 minutes. At this point, her whining and bitching had totally gotten to me. I can’t stand it when people freak out and It had been a long day. I said, “whatever” and got in my car and went home. She was screaming the whole time, “GET BACK HERE. WHY ARE YOU LEAVING ME?”.

In this scenario, we have fulfilled exactly the same requirement of calling for assistance. It’s just our motivation for leaving that has changed. If we were leaving because of irritation at her panic or because we didn’t want to be further inconvenienced, would this in any way change your opinion of the OP?

If so, I posit that the right thing to do would still be to stay until help arrived.

Phouka’s post was dead-on.

160

I hope that the woman googles “Womans arm stuck in car window” because she will find this website, and will perhaps be somewhat comforted in reading that many of the people here responded to the original question of “would you have stayed” with a YES!!!