Hmmm… had a pretty eventful Saturday morning (unusual considering I normally sleep right through Saturday morning!). I was walking down the high street when and elderly guy flew off the kerb a few meters down the street and landed face down. It looked like a bit of an ouchie, so since no one else had bothered to go and help him I ran down the street to give the guy a hand.

Now before I continue with this story, let me clarify something. I was near the top end of the high street by Toy world, the guy had fallen over about halfway down the street near the flower shop and there were about 15 people between me and him (a distance of at least 50 meters, plus plenty more on the other side) and not one single one of them even stopped for a second.

So… I legged it, I was with him in a couple of seconds by which point a local shop keeper had come to his door and another guy arrived just a few seconds after me. 3 people made the effort, of all the people that could have helped there were 3 of us that bothered to help another human being. Anyway the guy had done a major face splat and cut his nose up outside and in and was bleeding pretty heavily (as well as smashing his glasses on impact). Not having anything to stem the bleeding and knowing they had a full medical kit on hand, I helped the guy to his feet and took him over to my girlfriends caf? to administer first aid. Turns out, as luck would have it, that's where he was headed anyway and his wife was there.

The old guy was pretty shaken up so while Steph's mum (the manager of the Saltrock Caf?) got her rubber gloves on and started patching him up, I dashed inside and tried not to look like a panic stricken kid. “Sweet Tea!” I demanded. Steph looked at me funny. “Tsk” she tutted “that guy's a regular and only drinks coffee”. With the wind blown out of my sails a bit I relented and said; “fine then… give me some coffee to calm him down with”.

So… dosed up with caffeine and patched up by Nurse Warburton, the guy calmed down a bit and was very thankful for my assistance.

What bothered me more then anything else was that later on when talking it over with the girlfriend she told me that it's a pretty common occurance and people are always having falls on the high street due to the cobbles. I'm still shocked by the number of people that didn't help… in fact, I'm disgusted that these people didn't do their bit. People shouldn't have to stop and think about offering themselves up to help in an emergency of any kind, I didn't even think… I was in full sprint before the guy had hit the floor. (Thank god I'd been exercising this week, otherwise I might have passed out before reaching him!)

To those people that stopped, turned and looked then kept going you should be ashamed of yourselves. One day it might be you that's in need of help and you'd be the first to moan about how selfish people are nowadays if no one bothered to help you.

Categorised as: Ye Olde Blog