To think if you see someone on the floor you help?

[FrenchRuby]

Me and dh were walking back from a night out last night. Half way down a busy road we saw a guy (about 19/20 years old) laying on the floor. There were about 3 or 4 people who were in front of us and they all walked past!!
He was obviously really drunk, we managed to get him up and sat him on a bench, he sobered up a bit and told us his name and where he lived, so we gave him a drink (a coke, not an alcoholic one haha!) phoned a taxi for him and waited with him until it got there.
I was really sad that people had just left him there, he could have been injured or something. Would you have helped or would you have left him there?

Many years ago when working in a pub, a customer collapsed and had a fit in the doorway. While we were looking after him and waiting for an ambulance people casually stepped over him.

A couple of years ago I was shopping on my local high street. A woman who was obviously cognitively and physically impaired (she was using a walking frame) got stuck while she was crossing the road. She was screaming 'my legs won't work' not only did people walk by, but people in cars were beeping their horns and one bloke shouted 'get out the road you stupid bitch' Me and a little old man got her onto the pavement. I had to quell the urge to punch the driver who'd shouted at her.

Before I'd got to her a little crowd had gathered to watch and not one person made an effort to help her.

Some people are utter bastards.

Would like to say as horrible as people think I am for saying this its really important to assess the situation before rushing in blindly to help. Obviously of you see someone get injured in front of you by all means rush in. but if you are in a deserted area on your own or there are just two of you and something seems off stay safe and phone the police. My friend works for emergency services and they're constantly getting memo's about scams where lone people are lured into situations of helping people only to be attacked etc.

Another of my friends live in Spain and they say crime like this is on the increase lately so much so that there are adverts on the radio about it.

There are a few scams where a young woman will try and flag cars down appearing distressed (apparently obvious hire cars / foreign plate cars in particular) and it's a scam to rob you.

Obviously if its safe I would always help someone but I think if you feel nervous for any reason trust your instinct and phone for the police / ambulance from a safe distance you are still helping but keeping yourself safe too. The emergency serviced are taught to deal with things like this on a daily basis. (

Drunk people (yes we've all most likely been drunk so not judging) can be people who are usually lovely but become nasty when they've had a drink so personally I'd phone for help and observe them from a safe distance if I didn't feel safe approaching them.

Ambulances and police officers have an 8 minute response time so even if you were going to approach the person I would phone an ambulance / police myself before I started to approach them. You know you are going to have back up within 10mins and if you phone an ambulance you have someone on the phone with you the whole time who can give you medical advice to help the person and if the person starts to get nasty you have someone on the phone who knows your exact location to alert the police.

Definitely.

My Dad fell over in town on a Saturday and couldn't get up. He said quite a few people just walked past him. He said he felt an idiot because they looked at him as if he was drunk. He wasn't. He'd broken one of his fingers. Makes me feel very sad. He's dead and gone now.

I am always ready to help old men falling over now...

I stopped to help an elderly man who fell off the bus stop seat and got hooted and abused by the other motorists. Ended up giving him CPR with the only other woman who stopped even though it was rush hour in Ealing. He died but I felt better for trying to help as you never know the circumstances that lead to someone lying on the floor.

If I can't tell whether a person is drunk or not, I call the ambulance and stay nearby, watching, but won't approach after having been nearly killed by a drunk I helped before. I won't ignore them, and I will try and get help, and make sure nothing happens to them, but I won't approach unless it looks like I really, really need to (have had to do CPR twice on collapsed strangers, one was drunk, the other had collapsed- turns out she had a brain haemorrhage) but unless it's obvious they aren't drunk, I will try and get help safely, and so on.

My 14yr old DS was kicked in the head by a random person and left lying in the street. 9pm on a busy high street, his wallet and keys scattered on the pavement. Not one single person stopped or helped him to get up.

He managed to get up and walk home by himself.

This is how the world is now.

I've called an ambulance for a man who had collapsed and was incoherent on the street in the middle of the afternoon. I don't know whether he was drunk/diabetic/had a head injury, whatever, not my job to diagnose - but my job to get help.

He was lying on the pavement round outside a business with big plate glass windows and not one of the buggers had looked out for him! Didn't have my mobile on me, so went into the company and ordered them to keep an eye on him while I nipped over to my office across the street to phone (no idea why I didn't demand to use their phone, actually, but whatever).

Stopped a help a homeless guy a few years ago - looked like an old-fashioned tramp, clearly a rough sleeper. He told me he was diabetic (probably a drinker too which doesn't help but hey ho) and people just step over him when he's ill.

Stopped to help another homeless guy, this one younger and smarter - he'd been stabbed and people were just walking past him. They could see he was injured, they were staring at him but just walking past. Feckers.

It would be good to see some kind of TV advert campaign about this.

The reason I would never leave anyone is this

My sister who is 23 and suffers from depression and alcohol issues got blind drunk one night and somehow ended up lying on the street no one helped her but luckily the police picked her up. They told her the next day that there are sick people who go around looking for girls like her and she is lucky to be alive, she also had no shoes and jacket on and could easily have frozen to death.

She has a 6 year old who's dad already died from an OD and a family who love her despite her problems, it would literally have killed my gran if someone had killed her or she had frozen to death.

It was her own stupid fault but thats not a reason to leave someone in danger.

I was once walking along a busy street in London, there was a man lying sprawled on the pavement.
He looked homeless and had probably been drinking, but I couldn't believe literally tens of people walked past him while I was walking up to him.
I didn't want to approach him, I could see he was breathing, so I called an ambulance and stood nearby until they arrived. While I waited a lot more people walked by

I wouldnt stop if I were alone sadly. I would call 999 for help from a safe place though.

A friend of mine once collapsed in the street after a night out. She had been drinking but the reason for the collapse was actually that she had an asthma attack and had left her inhaler back at the office.

While a friend ran to get it, I was trying to wake her and see if she was in fact still breathing, people were stepping over us and laughing about the drunk girl .

I was too busy checking for her breathing to shout at them and tell them different.

I also phoned an ambulance for somebody who was lying in the middle of the road. Turned out he was a patient from the local mental hospital who had walked out that afternoon. He appeared drunk because of his medication.