I apologize in advance if this post comes off a little disheveled.
Yesterday / this morning I accompanied a woman not too much older than me to the hospital after seeing her bleeding clear thru her jeans in front of my local bodega. She refused an ambulance, so I flagged down a cab, rode with her, paid for the cab and then sat in the Emergency Room with her as the nurses treated her as if she had a paper cut. After much hassle and showing both my I.D. and health insurance card, she was seen to, they explained half of what was was going on, and then I was shut out.
In the car she said no one had asked her if she needed help, and before I was asked to leave she thanked me.
And now here I am wondering if she is okay, pondering if I can find a way to get in contact with her and trying my best to ignore the fact that with as many people as there were coming in and out of the bodega, why didn’t anyone help her?
Yes, it’s the city, yes we have to become numb to certain things, but for fucks sake she was bleeding and clutching her body in pain, WHY DIDN’T ANYONE HELP HER? A simple are you okay? Do you need help?
I’m trying my best to understand this. And trying so so so hard to not allow this to consume me, but it’s driving me insane. It’s making me so upset.
How could one honestly ignore this? How can they sleep at night?
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Joho says
03/22/2013 at 12:18 AMAaaahhh Yetti!!!
I know EXACTLY how you feel. When I was a freshman in hs, I was taking to train to school one day and i say this elderly mad get on the train and he clearly looked disorientated; trying to sit in seats where ppl where sitting, rambling etc. Now as a NYer i thought that he was drunk. When I got home and I was watching the news lo and behold there was a picture of this same man being reported as missing; his family had not seen him in 24 hrs and it was being reported that he was senile, with acute Alzheimer’s. Immediately I told my mom what happened and she called the police. Luckily by that time the family had already found him. Now I know as a 13yr old girl at the time that I could not have been the first and only person to realize that this individual was not well and could need help. I think as part of the “city” culture, people always assume that someone else will handle the situation (whatever that may be). I applaud you for doing that gracious act because lord know how long that woman was wandering the street, and lord knows if anyone would have helped her. Now we can’t be the only 2 ppl in the city with kind hearts, as there are many coalitions who speak about helping the downtrodden. So don’t lose faith in all of humanity (just only that subsection of individuals who continue to lead selfish lives lol).
Anwar says
03/22/2013 at 9:28 AMPerhaps in this case God used you as the instrument of humanity. Somebody did help….you. some things are no accident. You were placed there for a reason.