Have you ever helped a stranger and

[LyLMyssChaos]

wondered whatever happened to them?

Over the weekend, I found an elderly man unconscious in a snowbank. He had a seizure and had fallen off of his bicycle. I saw 2 different people walk past him and I stopped, calling 911. He slowly regained consciousness while I waited for the paramedics to get there. Apparently this happens to him a lot and he has a history of serious injuries from this. He refused medical treatment and he had a neighbor take him home. I have found myself wondering if he is really going to see his doctor like he said and if he is going to be ok? I wonder if this will happen again and what if nobody stops this time? It was below zero that day, and he could have frozen to death.

So have you ever helped a stranger and wondered what happened to them?

[ManteoChik]

Well, not in like a life threatening way - but in a nice gesture way.

This past summer I was out photographing a Trash The Dress session with a friend and fellow photographer. She was the bride, and we had just finished up at the beach and were heading to the car. The sun had pretty much set and we saw a bride/groom on the dune top with a guy in a tux taking pictures with a P&S camera. I'd been shooting all afternoon and had all full memory cards.

It turned out the man in the tux was their driver - and they had wanted some sunset pictures on the beach so they left their reception but couldn't find their photographer (a family member). I felt back for them and made the decision to dump the last 5 images on my card and asked them if they'd like me to take some pictures for them. I explained that it was my busy time of year but I'd be happy to e-mail them with the images as soon as I had a chance to edit....and I got their e-mail.

Finally, about 5 months later I finally got around to sending them (I couldn't remember where I put their e-mail...turns out it was in my camera bag). I e-mailed the images (with no logo at a high res) and apologized for taking so long.

I never heard back from them, and they didn't even e-mail me with a thank you.

[jmvan74]

I never heard back from them, and they didn't even e-mail me with a thank you.

That's so rude. :(

I witnessed a drunk driver crash on an off ramp of a major highway. My husband and I had both kids in the car and didn't stop, but I called 911. I had actually called the police about 10 minutes earlier to inform them of the irratic driver, I suspected of being intoxicated. We stayed a good distance behind him, hoping the cops would get to him before he hurt someone or himself. I don't think the police really took me seriously... I even gave them his liscense plate number.

The police had our phone#, but we never heard from them about the crash.

[diam124]

Several years ago I was taking the Metro (DC subway) home from work. My stop was the last stop and our car was mostly empty. When we were almost at our stop I noticed a young guy who looked like he had fallen asleep, but then I realized that he seemed to be having a mild seizure. A few people seemed to notice that something was wrong with him and I was going to call the train operator from the emergency phone, but then he seemed to snap out of it right as we pulled into the station.

I asked him if he was ok and he looked at me like I had two heads and didn't say anything. It seemed like he had no idea that he had just had a seizure. He just got up and walked out and went up the escalator. I was behind him and noticed a card pinned to his backpack that said he had epilepsy and it had an emergency phone number and said he may have no memory of having a seizure.

I was concerned that maybe he had missed his stop but he seemed to know where he was going. He left out of a different exit than I did (I took the bus home and needed to run to the bus ASAP) so I never saw where he went. I really regretted that I didn't call the emergency number on his backpack just to make sure he was ok.

[Neen]

On a snow night on the way home, I saw a car in the ditch, so I stopped to check to be sure they were ok. I scared the crap out of the poor girl when I knocked on her window!! She said she had help coming, but thanked me for stopping. I assumed she was ok, since the next day her car was gone.

A couple of weekends ago, when it was so cold, my dorky daughter called me and said she was almost out of gas and had left her gas card at home. I was a good hour and a half away from where she was and told her to just hang out at a friends till I got back to town. Well, the dork decided to try to drive home and ran out of gas about 12 miles from home. She called me and I was ticked at her! What was I supposed to do!! I was a good hour and a half away. Some man stopped and helped her and gave her just enough gas to get home (literally!) I don't think she'll ever do that again. I would like to know who the man was to thank him! She didn't get his name, but said she thanked him over and over again!

[Yolanda]

I was going to the bank on my lunch hour one day and as I was turning at the stop light, a car was just sitting in the lane. I got out and went to the drivers side and the lady was clearly having a seizure so I called 911. The lady was still in her seizure when the ambulance arrived and didn't come to until the paramedics were examining her. They took her to the hospital. The cop took my name and number, but I never heard anything. I wonder if she is doing okay and if that was her first seizure or if it is an ongoing thing.

[akacharlotte]

Actually just recently but it was not a life threatening situation. On Friday I was at the mall. I saw an elderly woman shuffling to the escalator, her hands full of shopping bags. She was struggling to get on the escalator as I walked up behind her to ride the escalator up. She was trying to hold onto the railing and hold all of her bags. I offered to help her by carrying her bags. She was very grateful and thanked me 4 or 5 times. It was really no trouble. I was going the same direction as she and my hands were empty. I returned her bags once we reached the top and she was safe on solid ground again. I wondered after I left her if anyone else would help her if she found herself in a similar situation. I've been thinking about her a lot since Friday and wondering if she made it out of the mall and home safely.

[Allegra]

I e-mailed the images at a high res...
I never heard back from them, and they didn't even e-mail me with a thank you.


Its entirely possible your images caused the email to get blocked at their email host and they never saw them. Did you try emailing them a follow up to confirm receipt?

[ManteoChik]

Its entirely possible your images caused the email to get blocked at their email host and they never saw them. Did you try emailing them a follow up to confirm receipt?

Yep...and I also e-mailed from my person e-mail so it wasn't flagged as spam.

[Dotsie]

About 8 years ago I was in line at Kmart right near my house. There was an elderly woman checking out in front of me. She had about 4 bags of stuff. She had just come from the dentist (she had blood on her mouth, she later confirmed this). It was night time and winter to boot. She had a walker. After she checked out she started tying the bags to her walker. I asked her where she lived and she replied that she lived about 2 miles away. She was going to walk :eek: I told her not to go anywhere. After I paid for my stuff I grabbed all of hers and put her and everything else in my car. I drove her home and carried in her bags. I even helped her put the stuff away. She was the sweetest woman in the world. She tried to give me money but I wouldn't take it. I often think of her when I pass her apartment building. I hope she is still around, but if she isn't I hope it wasn't a hard, lingering passing.

[phoenics]

Once I pulled over to help this man who'd had an accident. His knee looked a bit banged up, but he said that he'd already called for paramedics and was fine - he was more embarrassed than anything and my presence only seemed to make him more embarrassed so I let him convince me to go on ahead.

I don't worry overmuch about him, but there have been instances where I do wonder about people that I've helped with something.

I remember once when someone helped ME - my car spun out about 3 times on the freeway in a deluge of rain. Miraculously I didn't slide off the hill and roll... the car somehow spun down and then ended up perfectly parallel parked in between those reflective pole thingees on the onramp for the freeway. One of the cars that saw me spinning (as I spun I saw the horrified faces of the people in the cars just behind me) stopped and backed up to make sure I was okay. Wow was that scary - I thought I was so dead.

I've stopped to help children who appear lost before and wondered about their poor parents at times (usually I stick around until a parent comes)...

Sometimes I wonder about the posters here in ES who come on anonymously and eventually vanish and I wonder if they are okay and if things turned out okay for them.

[LaughAtlantis]

As an epileptic, I can tell you that it is completely natural for someone to have a seizure and not know it or refuse to acknowledge it afterward. My husband came into our bedroom late one evening after walking our dog to find me lying beside our bed, nose broken (I'd fallen into a ladder - we'd been painting earlier that day) and I flat out refused to believe that I'd seized, despite the blood and the fact of me being on the floor. "I'm resting down here!" I kept saying.

If you find someone seizing, do stay with them until they come out of it on their own. DO NOT try to shake them out of it or force anything into their mouth. This is not helpful. The best thing you can do is just make sure they are not hurting themselves while they are seizing and then be there for them when they wake up should they need help - which, you never know, they may not. Some people wake up, perfectly conscious, able to function normally. Others, like me, are completely addlepated post-seizure and really need someone to help them back on track.

Thank you to everyone who's ever stopped to help an epileptic. I met a woman who had been ROBBED while she had a seizure in the street. Can you imagine?

[deelcie]

I met a woman who had been ROBBED while she had a seizure in the street. Can you imagine?

Totally OT but my uncle dropped dead of a heart attack on a busy street in Australia and some woman took that opportunity to steal his cel phone and wallet. :(

[AttyGrl74]

In law school, I lived in a bad neighborhood, in a top-floor street-facing apartment. There was often a lot of noise, but one summer night around midnight, I heard a young woman screaming.

I looked out my living room window and directly across the street, a man dragging the woman into some bushes and jumping on top of her like he was going to rape her. I screamed out the window at him to get off and something about calling the police (frankly I have no idea what I screamed). He got up and ran off. I called the police and told them everything I knew and went down to wait with the woman who had a bloody face.

The police put me in a cruiser to look for the guy - we found him at a liquor store up the street with blood all over his shirt.

I was kind of surprised that I was never contacted as a witness, but I never heard anything about it again.

I think of that woman ALL the time and this happened a decade ago.

[jajacobsen]

I was once walking my dogs and came a cross a woman who had locked herself out of her hous eand had slept in the yard all night long. I called a locksmith AND stayed with her until they came. They would not come unless there was a person with a phone at the scene so the actual driver could call for directions. (When you call all you speak to is a dispatcher) I was very late to work but oh well.

That's the most recent thing.