Absolutely outraged! Train drama

[Halfull]

So my 16 year old daughter was on the train going to college, busy service so standing. She fainted (as in full on dramatic woke up on the floor fainted), we don’t really know why. A nice lady nearby stopped her hitting the floor and helped her. However, she says all the men on the train stayed in their seats and so she sat on the floor the rest of the way into the city. Not one man offered her a seat although one of them did comment that he hoped her journey home was quieter so she could sit down! She said there weren’t any women sitting down anyway and they all just… sat there.

In the general sense of human decency, what the actual hell?

My DD has a chronic condition that makes standing on trains difficult and often painful. She has a TfL badge asking people to offer her a seat. No one ever does.
She is quite shy and finds it hard to speak to strangers, but on days when she is really bad she will force herself to ask for a seat. No-one has ever got up for her. Some people are very rude to her. It is often men, but women too.
She is 19 - I think people just don't understand that younger people can have disabilities.

Poor DD. I hope she is OK.
I often find the most helpful people are women or teenagers/ young adults ( male and female)
I tell my dc's that if they need help and are not able to find any or are panicking, to find a woman who looks friendly.

@Janefx40

can I ask... are you very pretty/attractive.

Used to commute and every morning a blind gentleman would get on the train and everyone in seats would suddenly be looking out the window and not see him, therefore not have to offer him a seat. Err, he was blind?! Cracked me up every day 😀

To be honest when I moved to London I was all enthusiastic about offering my seat, but almost every time I offered the person just said no thanks I'm only going a couple of stops. Even people with baby on board badges, I can't really remember any taking me up on a seat.
People with young children were always likely to say yes though.
After a while it got embarrassing so I switched to just ignoring and relying on people to ask if they needed one.
Obviously fainting is more extreme, but the bystander effect might happen.

Hope your daughter is on the mend though!

Heather37231 · Today 10:27

I don’t think people commenting about standard seat-offering experience related to pregnancy etc are really helping.
**
This was a completely different situation, with different factors influencing people’s behaviour.”

Huh? I don’t understand at all why anyone wouldn’t offer their seat to someone else clearly in need in whatever circumstance. Wouldn’t you? What has “situation” got to do with it? If another person needs your seat more than you do, you give it up, surely?

Hope your daughter is feeling better, OP.

I hope she recovers soon OP what an awful thing to happen and yes someone should have offered her a seat. I know DP would have and I hope I can manage to bring DS up to do the same. As parents I think we have responsibility to break this chain of indifference and hope our children grow up to feel some empathy for others.

That said when I was pregnant with DS and was stuck on a very hot and crowded train 3 men offered me their seats almost simultaneously but that was 11 years ago sadly I think behaviour is getting worse

@Walking2024now24days not especially no! I'm hopefully not repellent but I definitely don't turn heads!

My heavily pregnant colleague at work fainted in London at a train station - she said people just walked over or around her. It's disgusting. No excuse.

OP, has your dd got low BP? Just saying, because in my early 20s I fainted like that a few times, apparently down to low BP, but it’s never happened since.

Appalling that none of the men offered a seat.

Though I have to say that just the other day I saw 2 young blokes on a crowded London tube train, voluntarily give their seats to an older couple - maybe late 60s/early70s but didn’t appear doddery.

They seemed very surprised as well as very grateful.

I'm starting young with my boys, they give up seats and hold doors open for women (and men) I'm determined to bring up decent men unentitled men. The oldest always walks the girls home before he comes home aswell.

Actually I will go as far as to say that on several occasions I have had such lovely helpful behaviour from teenage lads that I would love to be able to tell their mums how proud they should be 😊

I'm sorry she had such a nasty experience. I hope she is feeling a bit better now. If I'd been the lady who helped her, I would have made one of the people sitting give up their seat or expressed my displeasure at their behaviour in loud and unequivocal terms but I appreciate not everyone would be confident enough to do this.

See my earlier post:

disgraceful behaviour.

however I have found that if people are asked directly they will give up their seat for those in need.

I havd low blood pressure and can't hold on with my hand above my shoulder or have anything in my armpit (holding a newspaper or handbag under the arm for example)
is that what triggered your dd's fainting?

@Heather37231 yes I take your point - I suppose I just always feel the need to point out that there are still good people out there because sometimes these threads can get a bit "the world's gone to hell in a handcart" and I suppose I want to spread a bit of hope (especially as I've had a good experience).

But yes that doesn't change this OPs situation. Glad you DD is recovering OP x

I am also teaching my DC that we give up our seats for people who need them more. I am astounded at the number of older children whose parents insist they sit down on the bus while elderly people/people with crutches are standing.

That's awful. I hope she feels better soon. My teen DCs would have been straight out of their seats to offer them.

If it had been me I would have kept her on the floor. When someone faints you are supposed to keep them on the ground for a while gradually allowing them to sit up before attempting to stand up. I'd have stayed with her though.

I have fainted several times on public transport. I have usually been offered help. I once fainted as I was getting off the tube at Bank - the worst station for “minding the gap”! A lovely gentleman caught me and helped me onto a seat. When I lived up North I was given a seat and fussed over by lots of ladies when I fainted in my early 20’s on a commuter train. I was, however, ignored by the man next to me when I fainted on a plane to Singapore. DH was with me and struggling to pick me up. The guy next us just sat there and blanked us both!

In my late teens I fainted on the dance floor of a very busy club. A guy picked me up and carried me off with my friends running after us as they thought he was kidnapping me! He wasn’t, he was just taking me to a seat near the exit so I could get some fresh air.

So, in my experience, someone usually will help. But as a fainter it’s something that does worry when I start to feel dizzy and I am on my own.

The last time I offered my seat to a pregnant woman on the bus, she had to squeeze past half a dozen other rows of seats to get to the seat I was offering. I do not believe that nobody in any of those seats had noticed her.

Had similar experience. Men just stared while I was on the floor, not one of them even spoke to me.

I hope she's on mend

It's been like that for decades. I remember many years ago a woman fainting in summer on the tube and people didn't react much. I hit the alarm button and then covered the woman's thighs/underwear with her dress as it was hot and she was wearing a thigh length dress and people were just gawking at her.

I myself once had to crouch down in the middle of the tube to stem nausea and people just stared at me sitting at their feet.

In my experience on trains and the tube people are in a world of their own. If your DD needed a seat then she needs to ask for one if no one offers.

It is sad though that no one nearby got up.

When there is a kerfuffle with someone having a medical incident on a train then, as long as the person is being helped (which OP’s daughter was) most people avert their eyes out of discretion/courtesy- surely it’s a good thing that they were not all rubbernecking?