to believe that the majority of people are selfish!

[Notyetamummy]

Sorry to rant. I am really

Today has been the THIRD time in the last year that I have had to give first aid in a public place to strangers and could really have done with help but NO-ONE out of all of the passing people stopped!

1)Pretty bad car crash (Last year) infront of us on a busy dual carriage way in rush hour. Luckily I had two other medical students in the car with me as there were three patients. In theory that's one medical student per patient, but we also needed to call the emergency services and two of the passengers were badly hurt. We really could have used another pair of hands to help keep one patient really still to prevent damage to her c-spine. ALL of the other cars squeezed past us as the crash was blocking most of the dual carriage way and carried on!

(after a farely long stay in hospital for two of the patients all three survived and are now well)

2)Also last year - a homeless man was struggling to hold up his friend (also homeless)who appeared to be drifting in and out of conciousness. Eventually the ill-looking man collapsed and his friend could not hold him up anymore. They were in the process of crossing a road and when the traffic lights went green all of the cars just beeped at them. Me and DH helped to pull the unconcious man onto the pavement where I checked his vital signs etc. and DH called an ambulance - NO ONE HELPED and I can't beleive that the cars just beeped at them.

3)Today, driving home from visiting my parents and a 3yo steps out infront of a car. I stop to help, the car had been going slowly but the child had a head injury. I had one hysterical driver and one hysterical mother, a 3yo with a head injury and I had to call 999. Again NO0ONE stopped - people just drove past!

WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE!

3yo went off in an ambulance. I beleive that she will be OK, she was alert and did not lose conciousness - just screamed alot. The car was not travelling fast.

I have her mother's number and will call her tomorrow to see how things went at the hospital - want to give her some time before I call - I imagine that this has been a terrifying, very emotional day for her.

Opps - i before e except after c - just ignore that beleive believe.

I think an awful lot of people just don't have a clue of what they should/could do to help.

A young woman collapsed in fornt of me in the queue in a very busy McD's a few years ago. I'd just completed a first aid course and knew what to do, as did a man close by. But the rest of the crowd just seemed stunned, if concerned. I think they simply didn't know the best course of action.

wow you have been very unlucky, i wpould like to say that I would always help and did help an elderly lady who fell over in the bus station and smashed her face broke her knee.

but I do remember when I was about 8 to 9 mnths pregnant i witnessed a car hitting a moterbike, the biker flew about 15 ft in the air and landed at my feet on the pavement quite litteraly and to my own shock I just walked around him and ran around the corner and i got about half way down the road and thought christ what have i just done so I dialled 999 and then froze on the spot and could not talk for about 3 mins.

to my embarasment they sent out two ambulances one for me...but I had recovered well by then. I was totaly shocked I did not stop to help this man and can only imagine any other witnesses may have thought ehat i did was shocking.

i hope you are o.k and not to mention the others involved today.

Why would they stop? Especially on the motorway? They squeeze past as if they didn't they would be stuck on that motorway for HOURS.
It's not as if they were squeezing past a crashed car with no-one in attendance.

The homeless guys, probably think that they were just drunk or drugged up and thought they might get knifed.

Again with the child, if they stopped they would block up the whole road and probably cause another accident. They could see someone in attendance.

It would be a different story in a less busy place as then people would HAVE to get involved.
It's just the mentality of "That person knows what they are doing, there are others around, just let them get on with it"

I don't think people are being nasty or insensitive on purpose. It's just the pace of modern life

Even if you don't know what to ect surely you would see if there was anything you could do not sit there behind the wheel beeping?

Since when do homeless people start kinfing people? I thought it was more gang cultures that were carrying the knives? God knows who nowadays, However I wouldn't sit there beeping I would sit patiently tbh!

Glad the 3 yr old is ok!

I have only been involved in one case where first aid was needed - I was leaving my office and an elderly man had fallen and couldn't get up. It was December and really cold. I stopped the car and there was already a young guy there trying to help the man, and I grabbed a load of spare coats from my car to try and keep him warm (good excuse for never clearing my car out!) until the ambulance arrived. A few other people walked past, some stopped to see if anymore help was needed and then walked on, some didn't stop at all but as there was already 2 of us there I didn't really think that more people not stopping was an issue.

At the time I was actually quite surprised that the young guy had stopped, he was maybe 18-20, hoody wearing, (judgementally I know) but the kind of person you might not expect to stop - guess it was a lesson to me not to judge people by their exterior!!

Lots of people helped mydaughter when she was in an accident, getting towels and so on.

Last year we saw an old man crawling along the road in the snow, he'd fallen, and my bf ddrove him to the police station after it bbecame obvious he was confused, and stayed with him to make sure he was ok.

II do think a lot of people are very selfish tthough, and live in their own little bubble.

notyetamummy, yes, it shook me up for a while. But I've been very grumpy on this thread and really, people aren't that bad. Sometimes clueless, mind.

When I stopped to help a man who, it turned out, had been stabbed, hundreds of people walked past ignoring him. (Leicester Square, early evening.) But when I asked for help, some people did. They just needed to be told what to do. And not to be the first person to react, I think. He was obviously homeless so I imagine loads of people are just in the habit of ignoring people who look like him and hadn't realised that he was really hurt.

One positive thing - the friend I was meeting admitted she probably wouldn't have helped him (she turned up late when I was already busy) but because she got dragged into it anyway, it'd changed the way she'd act in future.

Alot of people couldn't give a fig but then how many people does it take to call an ambulance ad wait for the emergency services?

How many cars should stop? 2, 5, 10? Everyone on the road who drives past?

Perhaps consider that once you stopped, people see that someone is helping and that's why they carry on. TBH it would be counter productive if lots of people stopped as it would slow up the ambulance etc. What good are a mob of people milling about watching?

Hmm. i think you've been a bit unlucky.

I've seen a few accidents now, and while some people are unbelievably horrid, lots aren't.

Mind you, your post has made me think it might be time to take a course in First Aid. Last accident I was involved in, I just sat there, patting someone's back. I think it might be time to be a little more useful.

Bloody hell, that is depressing. I hope you have just been unlucky. When there was an accident outside our house DH went running over to see if he could help despite others being on the scene. He only stepped back when it was clear that there were plenty of people doing what they could and an ambulance had been called. The only reasonable explination I can think of is that people could see someone had already stopped and didn't want to get in the way??!

Secretlemonadedrinker, I have to say I fail to see the relevance of your post. Have you put it on the wrong thread??! Why would anyone be helping you on the school run and what has that got to do with stopping to help people in the event of an accident?!

I understand why it would not be good for everyone to stop, but with incident 1 at least 5 cars infront of us squeezed past the accident without stopping.

Lots of people are not needed to help but you can always ask. I would not have turned down help in these 3 incidents and with the little girl there was plenty of room for someone to pull over.

Sorry everyone, I see the reasoning as to why people may not have helped but I still can't help being

Although it is really cheering me up hearing other peoples stories about when people have helped strangers. Thanks everyone.

I once saw a man collapse due to being drunk and helped him back to his feet-not an easy task given his size and that he was pissed. Once he was on his way, someone came up to me and said, 'I was watching you from over the road and thought I'd better tell you that you shouldn't have helped him up as he may have broken his neck'. It took all I had not to yell, 'well why the fck didn't you come over and help rather than standing watching you dumb-fck'.

Well to be honest I would not have stopped in the first instance because there were already three people there and I would have thought I might just get in the way.

I would have no way of knowing that you needed help really and I would think that if everyone stopped then that would cause more problems than it solves and would cause a massive pile up of crs and make more chaos. I would have called the emergency services after going past though. If someone had already called then no real harm done but I would always call anyway.

If someone was indicating they needed help I would definitely stop. So if someone had waved me down I would try and stop safely and get out to help. Also if I saw someone needing help and no-one was already there I would stop to help.

In 2 I would not have stopped to help if you had already got the man clear of the road and there were two of you there already. If I had been there while he was falling in the road then I would have helped to get him out of the road and out of harms way.

I'm curious, once the man was out of the road and an ambulance called, what help did you need, you and your dh were both there?

In 3, again if you were dealing with it on your own I almost certainly have stopped to help but if 2-3 people were aready there I wouldn't

In 1 - atleast 5 cars had already gone past and not stopped when NOONE was in attendance.

For future reference if you see three people with three patients they may well need help. One patient was losing alot of blood and if we had to do CPR (which luckily we didn't) it is very difficult to continue doing it on your own. It's better to have two per patient. Even if you have no medical training.

I suppose I didn't need any more help with no. 2 once we'd got him off the road. I was just surprised that noone had gone to help already and that all of the cars were beeping at him.

There were three adults at no.3 - me, the mum & the driver but really it was like having three patients as the mum and driver were so distraught. I could handle the first aid aspect for the little girl but could have used another calm adult to help talk to and calm down the ladies.

I understand that people feel like they might get in the way but I think it is better to risk getting in the way (just by asking if help was needed) than not to bother and risk the couple of people that were aleady there loosing the patient as they don't have enough hands. If the help wasn't needed it would only have taken us 30seconds to say "Don't worry, we've got it."

Incident 1 was really scary, we truly thought that we were going to loose one of our patients. The cars had to slow right down to squeeze past so it wouldn't have been difficult or got in the way to have someone in the passenger seat to call out and ask if we needed help.

Sorry, I'll calm down now