May 29th, Rochester NY:
Tonight while biking, I came across a man lying on the sidewalk, unconscious and not responsive, but breathing.
I don’t know how long he’d been lying there with his bike underneath him like a kind of pillow (obviously not a comfortable one).
My phone was dead. The battery goes pretty fast these days. I had to wave down three cars before I could get someone to stop and listen. Being turned away like that, I mean eye contact as you’re calling for help, then a shake of the head and gunning the engine / turning their head on discomfort and pretending they can’t hear you through their open windows — when you’re desperate, desperate for help, and not sure if that person is the link between saving someone’s life or not — is terrifying... devastating. How many more people would get scared and drive off? How long would it be before someone would respond? I was getting frantic fast, but I’m also generally an impatient person.
The unconscious man was black, and I wonder how much that played a part in how quickly people drove away when they saw the scene, or whether it was because of how out-of-a-horror film I looked with my face stuck in terror. Maybe they were in a hurry? Or thought they’d be in harm’s way if they took the chance.
A man did stop, got out of his car and handed me his phone. He appeared to be Hispanic. He didn’t sound surprised when I told him others fled when they saw us. He left before the first responders came, had somewhere to get to, he said. He’d served his role, I suppose. I stayed as the firefighters tried to rouse the man on the ground, and monitored as the paramedics strapped him to a gurney and loaded him into an ambulance. I wanted to be sure he was treated humanely.
Once the sirens were blaring around us, people started appearing out of the woodwork smoking cigarettes and watching — there for the spectacle but not for support, and not when we’d needed them.
And I wonder now how the guy is doing now, how he’s being treated, and whether my actions ultimately made things worse or better for him. Out of immediate danger, maybe, but perhaps into another hell? Or maybe not. I really don’t know.
Tonight while biking, I came across a man lying on the sidewalk, unconscious and not responsive, but breathing.
I don’t know how long he’d been lying there with his bike underneath him like a kind of pillow (obviously not a comfortable one).
My phone was dead. The battery goes pretty fast these days. I had to wave down three cars before I could get someone to stop and listen. Being turned away like that, I mean eye contact as you’re calling for help, then a shake of the head and gunning the engine / turning their head on discomfort and pretending they can’t hear you through their open windows — when you’re desperate, desperate for help, and not sure if that person is the link between saving someone’s life or not — is terrifying... devastating. How many more people would get scared and drive off? How long would it be before someone would respond? I was getting frantic fast, but I’m also generally an impatient person.
The unconscious man was black, and I wonder how much that played a part in how quickly people drove away when they saw the scene, or whether it was because of how out-of-a-horror film I looked with my face stuck in terror. Maybe they were in a hurry? Or thought they’d be in harm’s way if they took the chance.
A man did stop, got out of his car and handed me his phone. He appeared to be Hispanic. He didn’t sound surprised when I told him others fled when they saw us. He left before the first responders came, had somewhere to get to, he said. He’d served his role, I suppose. I stayed as the firefighters tried to rouse the man on the ground, and monitored as the paramedics strapped him to a gurney and loaded him into an ambulance. I wanted to be sure he was treated humanely.
Once the sirens were blaring around us, people started appearing out of the woodwork smoking cigarettes and watching — there for the spectacle but not for support, and not when we’d needed them.
And I wonder now how the guy is doing now, how he’s being treated, and whether my actions ultimately made things worse or better for him. Out of immediate danger, maybe, but perhaps into another hell? Or maybe not. I really don’t know.