True. I helped a homeless man that was passed out in his wheelchair with an open wound from his forehead, and with his trousers down.
It looked like someone had hit him in the head, and I couldn't get through to him, and he smelled of alcohol. I didn't know the reason for why he was unconscious was it the head trauma or the alcohol?
After spending several minutes trying loudly to wake the man, several people joined me. This was at a particular busy place, so lots of people have walked by him.
I called for an ambulance because I couldn't wake him up, and it took them 30 minutes to arrive, and when they finally arrived I had managed to wake him up from his boozy dreams, and he resisted help (It's free in Denmark!), and the ambulance personnel was angry with me for calling an ambulance for one that didn't want help :-( But I am glad that he woke up, and was able to talk and could travel with his wheelchair.
I remember the same thing happening to me in France - an homeless man, inebriated, but not conscious, that can not be awakened, and with an open wound, in the stairways of a subway station.
Just like you, the ambulance personnel was angry at me for calling them on what was obviously a drunk bum.
I was so disgusted I left after making sure they would take care of the patient (and not just leave).
I am a MD, and unlike them I would not pretend I can make an accurate diagnosis just by look and smell.
Saying the loss of consciousness is due to alcohol just because of the smell is a wild guess - if you have a seizure while drinking some hard liquor, you may end up soaked in it, and smelling like a drunk.
The clothing of the person can be used as a Bayesian prior, and indicated that it is likely to be alcohol intoxication, but even then, the open wound could have been sustained during the fall (and indicate other potential damages, like broken bones?) or could mean something else (aggression?).
Even if we are 100% sure it's "just a drunken bum" without any other injury, acute alcohol poisoning is a medical emergency and can be fatal. When the person can not be awaked, how do you exclude that diagnosis???
Obviously some people don't want to do their job and think they are so clever they figured everything out.
The place of that person was in a hospital, to at least be under visual surveillance until some basic test are run - at least blood alcohol level.
I once summoned the police in Nagoya under similar circumstances.
A gentleman had passed out with half of his body on the sidewalk and half in a busy street, around 7 PM in a very well-trafficked portion of Nagoya. If he had been there for more than five minutes, dozens of people had already passed him, and surely one of them had... was presumably the calculation that everyone had made. I made the same calculation, got twenty feet away, and then had a strong feeling of "God requires you to do better than that", so I walked to the local koban (police popup box) and explained that someone had passed out in the street. They hadn't heard of it, and after asking a few questions which were transparently designed to elicit whether he was homeless or a productive member of society, we walked twenty minutes over to find him still in the road.
The cops succeeded in rousing him, ascertained that his normal address was a park across town, and told him to go to it rather than sleeping in the street. They also made him apologize to me, because quote "Onii-san [+] here is clearly exhausted after a long day of work but nonetheless went out of his way to summon the police because he was worried about you. You should apologize for having caused him distress."
The cops then noticed there was a bar next door and called the proprietor out. They asked if he had noticed the man collapsed outside his establishment. The proprietor said "Yeah. I had assumed he was sleeping it off." At this point one of the officers went positively volcanic. He proceeded to throw a loud tirade about the general decline of Japanese society and the particularized lack of moral fiber of the bar owner, who would not life a finger for his countryman while quote even the Brazilian endquote knew it was clearly necessary.
[+] Literally "elder brother", figuratively a roughly appropriate non-specific address for a young man.
I believe the reason why they were 30 minutes to get to me, was that it is an area with a lot of homeless people and I think they assumed that it was one of them that had passed out.
I do believe if it was a non-homeless person they would have helped more, and tried to convince the person to be helped.
I am glad that you helped, I feel very sad about all the people that are less fortunate than me that I meet on my way.
Notwithstanding the hypotheses offered in the article such as scams and supposedly "sharp divides" between tight-knit kinship communities vs. stranger divisions, the Bystander Effect[1] probably was the biggest initial culprit.
The article tries to explain this in a round about way in the first few paragraphs.
I'm from India and here too most bystanders choose to not get involved when someone on the road needs their help, for fear that they'll get entangled in a "police case". But I doubt we're anywhere near as extreme as this!
For instance had this happened in, say, the Delhi metro or Mumbai local trains, I'll bet there'd be enough good samaritans to help the person. And there'd certainly be no stampede to escape from the vicinity of the fainted man!
The comments in the article point out that this is not special to Chinese society with specific examples that happen in America. And one in the article points out that fainting people are indeed being helped. I can't tell if this is a regular occurrence or just hype.
Perhaps, like in Russia where every car is equipped with a dashcam to avoid scams, everyone should be equipped with a chestcam. ;-)
They also mention anxiety with recent terrorist attacks and Ebola, so that may be a larger factor.
>The comments in the article point out that this is not special to Chinese society with specific examples that happen in America
Of course they do. It's an iron-clad rule of the internet that if you ever mention anything that happens in a foreign country, the first comment will be about how the same thing happens in America (or else complaining that the same thing doesn't happen in America).
With social media, internet and cameras everywhere it seems the bar has been set very high for how a society responds to an emergency. If a cam records even a slight delay in a victim getting help then there will be hell to pay from the Internet. Everyone be on your toes! The Internet is watching and judging!
This reminds me of a scene from Bad Grandpa where Johnny Knoxville (dressed as an old man) gets his penis stuck in a vending machine at a gas station and cries for help. The hidden camera records many people either ignoring, laughing or taking pics with their cellphone cameras.
I misread your comment and read bus 22 first, but saw the movie and read the chinese characters bus 44 in the title screen. Thought that was weird - not sure if I am learning English or Chinese anymore these days... haha..
The Good Samaritans law, which is enacted in varying forms across Europe and North America seems to be making it's way into Chinese provinces, Shenzhen being the first this year.
In the US, unfortunately my first reaction when seeing something out of the ordinary is to wonder if I'm being setup for a YouTube prank video (or a scam, or robbed)
25 comments
[ 6.0 ms ] story [ 61.4 ms ] threadhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
It looked like someone had hit him in the head, and I couldn't get through to him, and he smelled of alcohol. I didn't know the reason for why he was unconscious was it the head trauma or the alcohol?
After spending several minutes trying loudly to wake the man, several people joined me. This was at a particular busy place, so lots of people have walked by him.
I called for an ambulance because I couldn't wake him up, and it took them 30 minutes to arrive, and when they finally arrived I had managed to wake him up from his boozy dreams, and he resisted help (It's free in Denmark!), and the ambulance personnel was angry with me for calling an ambulance for one that didn't want help :-( But I am glad that he woke up, and was able to talk and could travel with his wheelchair.
Some people are homeless by choice. Not much you can do about it... They may have a problem in their head and are out of reach.
Just like you, the ambulance personnel was angry at me for calling them on what was obviously a drunk bum.
I was so disgusted I left after making sure they would take care of the patient (and not just leave).
I am a MD, and unlike them I would not pretend I can make an accurate diagnosis just by look and smell.
Saying the loss of consciousness is due to alcohol just because of the smell is a wild guess - if you have a seizure while drinking some hard liquor, you may end up soaked in it, and smelling like a drunk.
The clothing of the person can be used as a Bayesian prior, and indicated that it is likely to be alcohol intoxication, but even then, the open wound could have been sustained during the fall (and indicate other potential damages, like broken bones?) or could mean something else (aggression?).
Even if we are 100% sure it's "just a drunken bum" without any other injury, acute alcohol poisoning is a medical emergency and can be fatal. When the person can not be awaked, how do you exclude that diagnosis???
Obviously some people don't want to do their job and think they are so clever they figured everything out.
The place of that person was in a hospital, to at least be under visual surveillance until some basic test are run - at least blood alcohol level.
A gentleman had passed out with half of his body on the sidewalk and half in a busy street, around 7 PM in a very well-trafficked portion of Nagoya. If he had been there for more than five minutes, dozens of people had already passed him, and surely one of them had... was presumably the calculation that everyone had made. I made the same calculation, got twenty feet away, and then had a strong feeling of "God requires you to do better than that", so I walked to the local koban (police popup box) and explained that someone had passed out in the street. They hadn't heard of it, and after asking a few questions which were transparently designed to elicit whether he was homeless or a productive member of society, we walked twenty minutes over to find him still in the road.
The cops succeeded in rousing him, ascertained that his normal address was a park across town, and told him to go to it rather than sleeping in the street. They also made him apologize to me, because quote "Onii-san [+] here is clearly exhausted after a long day of work but nonetheless went out of his way to summon the police because he was worried about you. You should apologize for having caused him distress."
The cops then noticed there was a bar next door and called the proprietor out. They asked if he had noticed the man collapsed outside his establishment. The proprietor said "Yeah. I had assumed he was sleeping it off." At this point one of the officers went positively volcanic. He proceeded to throw a loud tirade about the general decline of Japanese society and the particularized lack of moral fiber of the bar owner, who would not life a finger for his countryman while quote even the Brazilian endquote knew it was clearly necessary.
[+] Literally "elder brother", figuratively a roughly appropriate non-specific address for a young man.
I do believe if it was a non-homeless person they would have helped more, and tried to convince the person to be helped.
I am glad that you helped, I feel very sad about all the people that are less fortunate than me that I meet on my way.
Echoes of the Parable of the Good Samaritan .... [1]
[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2010:25-37
The article tries to explain this in a round about way in the first few paragraphs.
[1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
For instance had this happened in, say, the Delhi metro or Mumbai local trains, I'll bet there'd be enough good samaritans to help the person. And there'd certainly be no stampede to escape from the vicinity of the fainted man!
Perhaps, like in Russia where every car is equipped with a dashcam to avoid scams, everyone should be equipped with a chestcam. ;-)
They also mention anxiety with recent terrorist attacks and Ebola, so that may be a larger factor.
Of course they do. It's an iron-clad rule of the internet that if you ever mention anything that happens in a foreign country, the first comment will be about how the same thing happens in America (or else complaining that the same thing doesn't happen in America).
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK4TUP0VKLY
I misread your comment and read bus 22 first, but saw the movie and read the chinese characters bus 44 in the title screen. Thought that was weird - not sure if I am learning English or Chinese anymore these days... haha..