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?

That's really bad! My DH is always the first person to help others, with ANYTHING. He lifts cases off the luggage carousel for old people, he carries pushchairs up stairs for mums, he breaks up fights, all sorts. I'm the same. I once saw a girl getting pulled around by a man on the high street, so I pulled my car over, got out and asked her if she wanted a lift somewhere. She told me to fuck off!!

That's appalling.

I still feel grateful to the man who stood up to give me his seat on the tube 24 years ago, when my DS was in my belly doing a dance on my bladder. The man didn't notice that I was pregnant at first, then was so apologetic when he noticed and leapt up for me.

Little did he know that he also saved me from having an accident. Think I just made it to the nearest loo!

Thanks for the low BP tips, hadn’t thought of that one and will bear it in mind if there are any repeat incidents as it does run in the family.

I find the current crop of teenagers polite and helpful too, unfortunately there were none there.

Everyone’s experiences are so mixed it seems to be the luck of the draw. I think I’d always be someone who stepped in to help (we all think the best of ourselves don’t we) but I know for sure I will be now.

If she was being helped already by other women, I can see why none of the men wanted to physically help a teenage girl - better a fellow female did and your daughter did not come round with random men in her personal space.

As for not giving up a seat, I'm not sure why that was - when I was heavily pregnant last time I never had to ask for a seat, I was always offered one; and interestingly it would always be a man who offered, no woman ever did, I remember thinking at the time that I would have expected it to be the other way round.

Hope your daughter makes a speedy recovery!

I once offered my seat to a heavily pregnant woman on the tube. She pointed out to me that I was heavily pregnant too. I'd actually momentarily forgotten that! (pregnancy brain!)

But commuter trips are like the Hunger Games.

To be fair, this is classic human group behaviour. If lots of other people aren't taking action, that makes people think they're OK by going along with the majority. This happens all the time, it's why people ignore someone unconscious in the street, it's because everyone else does.

The other people may have seen that a female passenger assisted her and therefore thought the situation was under control. Did she actually ask for a seat, or did the woman who helped her ask on her behalf?

Men generally have been conditioned that women, especially young women, should be left alone. They won't get involved in case they get accused of being patronising/mansplaining or acting like the "big hero" by offering to help a "damsel in distress".

Ironically, the sort of bloke who would have intervened in this situation is the sort of bloke who'd think nothing of trying to chat a girl/woman up in the street or shout catcalls. The ones who mind their own business in one situation will mind their own business in the other, because they don't want to risk being in the wrong by getting involved.

Inaction is safer, if the person really needs help they can always ask.

I’ve only experienced this once.

It was at the station of a posh Surrey town and the way out was via an underpass under the tracks. I had DS who was about 4 months old in a heavy rear facing pushchair. I really struggled to carry it down the steps, all the time being ignored by very important men in suits carrying brief cases.

I got to the other side and was just wondering how I was going to get back up ( still being ignored by the men in suits) when a group of scruffy young men arrived, pierced, tattooed, the lot. With a cheery “need help love?” DS was whisked to the top of the steps for me.

It certainly taught me a thing or two about judging by appearances. DS, now a man in a suit himself, was brought up to be like those young men.

I think this all comes from the fact it's often no longer taught to children to give up their seats if needed. There's very much a culture these days of "my child has as much right to their own seat as an 80 year old". You see it on other threads like this. My child aged 2 won't sit on my lap and he's tired so no he's not giving up his seat for an 80 year old. That extends and suddenly they're 12 and still "need their own seat as apparently they're too unstable to stand and might get injured if the train stops suddenly" even at 12+. Next thing they're 17+ and on their own having never been told to stand so they don't as they've been told they're entitled to their seat. So now we have a generation of adults not standing for those less able.

I often stand on public transport even by the side of a sitting child on a seat with a mother on another. I once was offered a place by an Italian man which I refused but he insisted. I am an older woman and I only see younger ones sitting.

That's awful. DH once had to get the conductor involved when no one would stand up for me (yes I was pregnant, but in particular I was feeling incredibly faint and had sat down on the floor). Also all men. The conductor was amazing and got incredibly angry at the guy who was sitting in the "priority seat" and refused to get up.

Years ago I fainted while standing on a crowded train and plenty of people helped (I was a fainter in my teens/early 20s), I was given a seat, someone else called a member of staff and they let me sit in first class as it was cooler there 😆 I was so embarrassed. Shame people are so self-involved now, hope she’s ok now.

Heavily pregnant on a scorching hot day in London I get on my train and head to my reserved seat that I paid extra for (it’s a 3 hour journey) to find a man in his 50s refusing to move because he’s got a season ticket and he couldn’t reserve a seat and that’s not fair. God, people suck sometimes!

This can't be universal though. My DS 18 would leap to his feet for anyone and tbh most of his friedns would too. It could get quite funny when he was around 10 and would leap to his feet to offer an "older" man a seat - one looked about 30 and was highly amused!

I was with you until your second to last paragraph. What a godawful thing to write. So a man who actually is helpful is only doing it because in reality they’re a sleaze? Jesus

“Inaction is safer, if the person really needs help they can always ask.” The unconscious person can ask for help? Right

Utter bollocks

When pregnant, I found that as a rule, the one group that was unlikely to give me a seat were adult white men.

Teenagers, men of different ethnicities, women were all regularly happy to offer (not always, but you know what I mean).

I did very similar after a rough night as a twenty something, fainting on a train I regularly used. Noone even checked on me! Commuters are lost in their own little worlds. It encouraged me to take a first aid qualification and to not be a useless bystander. Crowds can be very heartless.

Care to respond with a more reasoned argument?

I’ve been commuting in and out of London for 25 years. I’ve seen lots of medical incidents. Every single time the person has been looked after by someone else, there has never been any problem with bystanders being inconsiderate. I stepped in once but the woman next to me was a nurse so she took over.

When DD was a teenager, she started fainting unexpectedly- it was usually just before she developed an illness of some kind. The first time it happened, she didn’t actually faint, just everything went black - I’ll never forget her screaming “Mummy, I’ve gone blind!” Making sure she ate some carbs in the morning & didn’t go too long without eating something helped a lot & she eventually seemed to ‘grow out’ of it in her early 20s.

I once saw a guy with crutches get on my train - I was on the inside seat next to the window but got up to give him my seat and a guy next to him tried to sit down there instead! Blatant as fuck.

I commute and I'm always amazed at the number of men who will really aggressively push past to be first onto a train... and off a train, which is just bizarre. I had a guy stand on my foot in the race to be off before me, a folding bike bash into me and another time one guy crashed into my arm in a sling. And god forbid your ticket doesn't go through the gate quickly too... What's the rush? You'll get home ten seconds earlier dude.

Lots of anger out there.

I hope your daughter feels ok. I sometimes think the behaviour of some men in offering seat/help boils down to a childish act of revenge for being told to treat women as equals. "Well you asked for it...". kind of thing

Why bring race into it? They are not offering BECAUSE they are white but because they are the sort of person who does not offer.
Racist comment. at best.

Awful behaviour regardless of whether she was due to get off the train.

This is one of the reasons why I went on maternity leave earlier than I wanted to .... commuting into London from Surrey, pregnant with twins (enormous!). I had to stand 9/10.

I wondered how long it would take the apologists for the human race to add a post.

Noone ever wants to get involved in helping anyone. God forbid they might have to go out of their way to do anything for anyone.

Poor girl. I have been known to faint too and it's awful. Nothing surprises me on trains now. I once saw an elderly couple, she had a broken arm and he was frail too, standing while there were very able bodied people, children included, sat down. Nobody offered them a seat. Same with an obviously blind lady.