Man lying on grass outside

[ChekhovsMum]

So there’s a man lying flat on his back on the grass opposite from my house.
I saw him as I drove home, walking with the aid of two crutches (not elderly - I would put his age at mid-40s), then just as I pulled into my driveway he appeared to collapse to the ground, although if I had to guess, it looked like a deliberate decision, not a giving-out of his limbs, IYSWIM.
I parked, went up to him and asked if he was okay - did he want me to call anyone, get him some water etc? He said he was fine and didn’t need anything, with an attitude that suggested it was weird of me to ask.
20 minutes later, he’s still there. I can see him from the window. My guess is that he’s drunk, although he didn’t come across that way when he spoke.
I don’t really want to go back out because I’m home alone, and although it’s a residential street most people work very conventional hours around here, so there is a chance of not being seen/heard if I felt unsafe.
I can imagine this happening when I lived in London, but this is a very family-oriented residential area in a leafy town and it just seems so bizarre.
WWYD?

I saw a man lying on the pavement across the road from me once, I went over to see if he was okay, he was clearly drunk as smelt like a brewery, he was unrousable, I dialled 999, explained the situation and they refused to send an ambulance or the police! He came too eventually and couldn’t even stand, he then asked me out 😂my husband told me to come inside and leave him alone. He was out there for hours and eventually moved further up the road for another lie down. I was concerned cos I work in health care myself and didn’t know if he’d been beaten up because he was bleeding and it looked like someone had bitten part of his ear off🙄

OP, I get it. So many unkind and obtuse replies here as usual. Of course it's odd behaviour to plop yourself down on a grass road divider and lay on your back for an hour. I can't imagine many of these posters would be so glib if a man was laying on the pavement or grass verge outside their houses. People are reacting like you are contemplating calling the police on someone sunbathing in the park. Ridiculous.

Is it sort of block of flats with grass he is lying onto or on grass verge as being part of someone's front garden?

@ChekhovsMum I don't think you were precious at all. I recently saw a man walking sitting up against the wall of a house. It just didn't look right to me. I called my office(I was in the car) and asked a colleague to get our outreach team to go check on him. They did, called an ambulance, he ended up being taken by helicopter to Addenbrookes hospital.

Maybe stop looking at him.

You've asked if he's ok. He says he is

My mum's friend said that when he was really ill.

@ChekhovsMum I don't see how having him checked over medically by ambulance staff etc would do any harm at all.

You went and asked if he needed help - he said he didn’t.

You say you didn’t think he was drunk.

So you did the right thing by just leaving him to it.

Sounds like he just wanted a lie down on grass in the sun.

As soon as one person is abit nasty the rest see it as a green light.

It's not exactly the norm to lie on any piece of random grass verge. Majority of people would find that strange, after all, people tend to lie down in their gardens or a park, or even sit on a wall but they dont tend to pick a random piece of grass verge next to a road. OP, you are the one who is doing what is normal here, checking that the random man lying on the random piece of grass is OK. That's what the majority would do (including the ones on here but rather than admit that they would rather take that green light and be nasty)

I had a women lay down outside my house a few years back and no, it's not normal to pick a random piece of grass to lie flat on, regardless of the weather. She also responded she was fine. 5 minutes later she was out cold, unresponsive from a drug overdose. Thankfully no one deemed it normal for her to be lying there (me included), checked on her and called an ambulance. She would probably be dead if it had of been a street where anyone of the people commenting on this post lived.

So the person says they are fine, you don’t see anything about their condition that worries you and they don’t seem unwell, and you would STILL call an ambulance?

If he said he was fine I'd probably take him out some water then check later on to see if he was still there

If he is using crutches then maybe he just needs a rest. He has said he's fine and people should be able to have a rest without people constantly bothering them. He's not doing anything wrong.

Going by waiting times for ambulances, someone lucid and saying they are ok would be waiting till Feb 2025

bizarrely confident response given you have no idea where OP lives or what police response times are like there
by all means ring it and they MAY come out, or it might be one of the forces where they don't even respond to burglaries currently taking place....

You'd be in a permanent state of panic around where I live.

There is so ouch green space and it's all communal.

Constantly all sorts of people collapsed on grass and chilling as soon as the sun comes out.

We all manage to live quite peacefully and let them get on with it.

I think you did the right thing by asking if he's ok but unless he's still there as sunsets I'd just assume he is and chilling.

I totally get you. I would feel intimidated. Not that I should, neutrons I would.

Neutrons !???? Supposed to say "but I would"

Absolutely true.
Hypos are so dangerous-
The more people are aware of them the better.
Friend’s husband had a very bad hypo and was oblivious.
Very pale and “ Absent”.
Glucose revived him.

This thoroughly reminds me of a similar fellow on crutches who did a sit down outside my house one day. Now this wasn't completely unusual as there was an Health Centre just up the road and a handy lampost that many people took a rest by - I'd had to call for an ambulance for a collapsee before. Very nice woman, who after recovery, came to thank me (with choolates!).

So, as most normal people would, I went out and asked if he was ok and needed any help. Assuming he was an Health Centre patient and he didn't reek of drink and just said he needed to get to his sisters in the same large village; as DS was old enough to leave for half-hour, I offered the gentleman a lift.

After helping him into my car, I still had no reason to think he was drunk, drugged, problematic or anything other than a person on crutches.

He didn't know the address but knew how to get there. It was only when we were nearing the end of the village that I remembered that it was fucking Sunday and the Health Centre was closed! What lunatic do I have in my car?!

Thankfully, he then recognized his sister's road and we arrived at her house. She was very annoyed by his arrival and clearly didn't want her brother there. I apologized for bringing him but he was a stranger that collapsed outside my house. She understood and I left.

Would I do it again - of course I would.

I assume the 111 was a typo thats the NHS non emergency number, police are 101

I really laughed at this, thanks Ketzele!

The image of the gorgeous cop 'let's go fellla' & prone guy jumping up smart-ish ...,😂

Well-told!

🤣🤣 what they sorting? A man laying in the sunshine? I mean they probably will show up as it's far easier to waste their time on this than catch actual criminals.

I love people who say they expect this type of thing in London but not in my naice little town. 😂

My first thought was that he may be epileptic. There’s a guy round here who sometimes is found lying on the pavement. He’ll get up suddenly and walk home. He always wears a bike helmet (presumably to stop himself knocking himself out).

😆😆