In an Emergency, Maybe We Don’t Want Our Privacy?
(Photo: Margit Detweiler/TueNight) Two weeks ago on a Sunday night, riding the subway home in New York, I saw a man have a seizure on the 2 train. I was in the carriage with him. I helped, a little. Others helped even more. He had slumped sideways, shaking with massive jerks, making audible thuds as his skull smacked the seat. One of the women sitting nearest him saw the moment of our terror, even disengagement. “We need to lift him.” In a rattling train, with his limbs flailing, we moved him from a seat onto the carriage floor. Then we helped to sit and comfort him for the 25 minutes it took for paramedics to reach him. He said his name was Junior, and beyond that was completely anonymous. He had bitten his tongue. * * * Ever hear the one about the man who watched people stepping over a dead guy who just lay there on the sidewalk? Or the woman who fell down a storm grate and waited for help as walkers passed …
