To be surprised nobody helped me?

No i was not going to approach the person.

I was a Nanny at the time with a 1 year old, 3 year old and two just 7 year olds.
I was not going to risk the children either seeing a dead person or being attacked / shouted at.

I rang the police. They done their job which was a welfare check. Thankfully the person was ok

Self preservation.

For a moment I would consider if it was some kind of scam or trick that was going to have me robbed/stabbed/other horrible thing. You could offend them by offering help and end up punched, stabbed, they might accuse you of stealing their wallet... con artists are everywhere.

I would absolutely never accompany anyone to another location.

Exactly this. My Dh had to stop the car to let me out to be violently sick in a country lane one day. Two horse riders stopped to empathise and give me polos, but were very wary and muttering about ’Too much to drink last night’ when I didn’t drink at the time. I was genuinely unwell. I think I would probably have ignored similar!

The operator's priority is checking the person who was laid out, whereas your priority was to yourself and your children @CanNotBeArsedAtAll . I would have done the same in your shoes.

I know of two people who came across bodies of people who looked as though they'd been dead a while. The emergency operators in both cases insisted they start CPR until the ambulance arrived. One refused, but the other reluctantly did as asked - even though they told the operator that it was a body and was cold. The autopsy report stated the person had died around two days before. They were devastated afterwards, couldn't face the funeral and later moved away - it was their NDN who they had been really helpful keeping an eye on them and helping out. My heart went out to them. Several of us at the funeral would liked to have thanked them. Due to this happening, if I am ever in a similar situation, I am not going to be pressurised into doing something I am not happy about. And I understand the reasoning behind emergency operators pushing people to do this, but they aren't there and I'll use my common sense.

That's a great idea. She could have got two of the under 7s to kick a shoe each, and the other two to shout at them. Then there'd have been five of them (including PP) to fight them off if they turned abusive or even violent (like at least a couple of the PPs on this thread have described).

Not unreasonable. I stopped for someone once, she was drunk. I’d still stop again.

Could you not have kicked their shoe and shouted at them? I assume the operator was angry that they were called out and used police resource for someone presumably asleep or drunk.

There was one time i saw someone laying flat out on some grass. I was on the bus with 4 children under 7.
We got off the bus but didnt approach him.
I rang 999 and the operator wanted me to go over and see if the person was breathing.
I explained i had 4 small children with me and i wasnt able to do that, incase the person was dead or if the person suddenly attacked me.
The operator wasnt happy with me at all. Actually she was rather pissed off.

The police arrived within about 3 minutes and the person was fine. But very shouty upon being woken up

I have a condition where my joints frequently disconnect/ subluxate and it makes me fall over , it’s horrible and the more I do it the more I creat I weak spot and keep doing it. Mostly people just give me filthy looks. It’s worse when it happens and I’m with my poor kids.
one time it happened whilst walking my dog and I lost contact of her lead and she ran off. Fortunately a lovely couple saw and helped me up and rescued my recalcitrant canine but it’s mortifying when people think I’m off my head .
at least I’d be enjoying myself this way. Falling due to crappy health is no fun

And one was rush hour out in the open and the other had people not able to move away.

Or you’re just overgeneralising from a sample size of two experiences?

Or pregnant.

This has reminded me, a couple of years ago I was walking home and saw an older gentleman acting very much as you described, but I didn’t say anything. I think shyness, coupled with the assumption that if he needed help he would ask for it… I still feel bad, and resolved to stop and help if I ever see something like that again.

I once collapsed on the metro in central Paris and dozens of people came to my aid. But I think actually collapsing is more dramatic and definitely requires help, as opposed to being sick and walking funny.

I think people are scared if they see someone who looks to be in an 'able bodied' type of age group suddenly needing help, due to horror stories that you hear where they fake SOS to lure you in so they can do something bad to you. If it's an elderly person, I feel that's a situation you would feel safe to help in and wouldn't give it a second thought. It's just my opinion. If I would have seen you I would have called 999, I would have let others know who were nearby for my own safety and waited until the ambulance came.

It’s sad that no one helped you, but I have never stopped to help a collapsing, vomiting person in the dark. Scared, I guess. But your post made me think about what I would do next time so thank you.

I would say because you didn’t call out for help, or weren’t lying there motionless, they most likely thought you had had too much to drink. In a day and age when you can’t trust any strangers, people are always cautious out of fear.
I hope you feel much better now and I hope you went to the doctor as soon as you were able. Sounds very worrying. If this ever happens again make sure you call out or use your phone. There is an emergency function for situations like this.

Yep, I learnt about this case in my psych degree and it's not even bloody true! the story was completely manipulated so they could create the bystander apathy theory: www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-09-10/urban-legend-kitty-genovese-38-people

I think you need to read a bit more about that story - it was mostly untrue sensationalism to make a point about bystander apathy! It’s still working!🙄

I don't think I was out for long, fortunately. I still can't fathom how not a single person stopped, even just to stop the children running into the road.

Ok well then you didn't take that comment in the context of the rest of my post. And totally got the wrong end of the stick.

@BillieWiper I was responding to this comment you made
The only thing someone could really do would be call an ambulance and you could've done that yourself.

So sorry OP, glad you are ok. It doesn't surprise me though. I was knocked over by a guy on a London tube platform early morning rushing to get on. Literally flat on my face. He jumped on the tube, no one stopped to help me up. Tripped over something in the street outside another London station once, fell and broke my arm and two rugby fans actually laughed as they walked past me. Iv helped lots of people over the years, but maybe if I thought they were drunk i wouldn't as drunk people can be unpredictable and violent.

I helped someone once. She actually WAS a drunk, but I didn't know that at the time. She didn't smell of booze and I immediately thought diabetic confusion or something. So I helped her. Turned out she was drunk and I couldn't help too much but at least I tried. So many people asked why I helped but I just couldn't leave her, what if she was having a medical episode? My conscious couldn't cope.

I would assume you were on drugs and stay away. It's really bad now that I think of it but it's normally those who are on drugs whi are bent over and in a pickle in the street. It's a sad reality of society today. Im glad you are better.

Over the summer a friend of mine became really unwell on a hot day with heatstroke/food poisoning while we were out, and she had to lay down on a bench in a busy square in London whilst being really sick. I was doing my best to look after her whilst also looking after our kids - two 4 year olds, an 18 month and a 4 month old. I was quite surprised that nobody stopped to ask if we were ok because we were all clearly in a sticky situation. As with all the replies here, it seems very common for people just to keep walking. I try to remedy this by always asking people (as long as it seems safe - usually other women) if they are ok and offer whatever help I can. Then at least in some small way I’m helping make things better, and maybe other people around will be encouraged to do the same in the future.