So I haul off the freeway at Dunlap Road, a major east-west thoroughfare that passes through some of the most…interesting…parts of town. Street-wise, as I hit the off-ramp I maneuver to put my car in the outside left-turn lane, so that the panhandler at the off-ramp’s signal can’t easily walk up to my door and holler at me.
About three or four blocks off the freeway, at a bus stop near 25th Avenue, I see a guy — a BIG, athletic-looking guy — who looks like he’s having a major seizure. He’s jerking his torso back and forth and flailing his arms in the air. At first I think another local crazy and then, even less kindly, ya gotta be more careful with that dope, brother. Then realize, as he falls to the pavement, that he could be having a grand mal epileptic seizure.
I’m in the middle lane and so can’t pull over to stop even if I were inclined to do so — which I am not, for reasons I’ll explain in a minute. Traffic is just flat-out fierce, so I can’t reasonably grope around for my purse, dig out the seldom-used flip-phone, figure out how to use it without crashing a fellow homicidal driver, and dial 911.
A-n-d… Just a week or two ago, the neighborhood association sent out a safety alert. One of the neighbors, tooling down Main Drag East due south of Dunlap, had some guy jump out in front of her car. When she stopped, thinking she had hit him, he mugged her. The police advised that this is a common scam to get people to get out of their cars so they can be robbed.
We are now told never to unlock our doors if it appears that we have hit a pedestrian. Of course, it’s illegal to leave the scene of such an accident. (If it is an accident…) So you should stop your car, lock your doors, stay inside the vehicle, and call 911. Wait until the police arrive before getting out of the car.
With that little bit of intelligence in mind, you may be sure that I was not about to stop and render aid to a flakey-looking large man who’s waving his arms around, jerking frantically, and flopping down on the sidewalk.
As soon as I got to a place where I could call safely, I did call the police, who relayed the message to the fire department, who said they’d send a meat wagon.
But lordie! How un-Christian is that? What the hell has the world come to when you dare not stop to help someone who appears to be in dire trouble?
Am I too, too crazy paranoid? What would you do? Would you stop your car beside an eight-lane thoroughfare in a sketchy part of town to try to help a guy thrashing around as though he were having a seizure? Really?
You did exactly what I would have done. You should not feel bad. I have no medical training and so could not have done anything but call 911 anyway. You just did it in a way that keeps you safe too. That’s smart thinking 😉 You still helped him by calling for help. Unless you have medical training, all you could do is call anyway. Now if I had been a nurse, I’m not sure what I would do.
In So Cal a couple of years ago a young girl was abducted, raped and an attempt at strangling her was made. It was the middle of the night but she managed to escape. She had to knock on several doors before she could arouse somebody or get them to open up. It was not clear if people simply didn’t answer their doors or didn’t hear her. However, there was a hue and cry about callousness and you overheard people saying they were horrified that someone might not open their door in the middle of the night to a child.
I wasn’t at all horrified about that. Given time to think about it I would have seriously wondered if it wasn’t some sort of set up to gain entry into the home. And many people I spoke to felt the same way. What does one do when horrific circumstances are presented in this way? If I had had to make a snap decision under those circumstances, I think I almost certainly would have opened my door and pulled the child into safety. But one prays that one is not put to that sort of test.
You did exactly the right thing.
What a terrible story…poor little girl!
On the other hand, I’m with you. I don’t open my door to strangers, period. When religious canvassers, census takers, solicitors, whatever show up at the door, they get no answer.
Around here, home invaders have been known to come to the vic’s door with some story of great distress, begging for help. Soon as the occupants unlock the front door, the perps are in. In my neighborhood, a couple who fell for that one was beaten up, terrorized, and forced to huddle in a bathtub while their home was ransacked.
However, if a child showed up outside and was crying and carrying on, I certainly would call the police. No, I wouldn’t open the door because of the possibility that the kid could be a decoy. But I wouldn’t ignore her.
If all she did was knock (not lean on a doorbell, which she might not have have been tall enough to reach), the sound might not have been enough to wake people sleeping upstairs or in a house’s back rooms. I doubt if I would hear someone knocking on the front door at two in the morning.
If it appeared that someone was actively chasing the child? Well, my friends…that’s why you have a pistol and a shotgun.