life, the universe, and donna

I got to play pseudo-paramedic again tonight. Well, that was the intention, although it played out a little differently, with no medical fun. But … from some of the paramedic blogs I read, I get the impression that paramedics do this a lot. So I’m going with it.

So I’m driving home from work (rare, I almost always take transit, but wanted to go to Burnaby on my lunch break… so, needed car) and when I get to Victoria & Hastings, there’s a lot of honking. I peer through the line of cars, and see a guy lying on the ground, obviously trying to pull himself back off the street.

I became slightly inflamed that the reaction of my fellow drivers to someones obvious plight is not to help, but instead to honk. Nice, Vancouver.

So, I deke into the gas station across the road, park, and jog over to see what’s going on. Ah. Now I understand why nobody was stopping. Because this wasn’t some soccer mom or well dressed businessman, it was a native guy, obviously pretty drunk — slurring his words, having major difficulty walking, and reeking of cheap cologne and heavy booze.

Because you know, drunk people don’t deserve help, no matter what.

And you know, even if you’re a compassionless jerk who thinks that alcoholism is a self inflicted problem, and if you’re drunk, you’re your own problem and the kindness of strangers doesn’t apply, you couldn’t really tell he was drunk from far away. I didn’t know until I got close enough for the reek of booze to hit me. Maybe I’m just naive, but I could think of a hundred other reasons for why he was lying on the ground trying to pull himself off the road. Like, perhaps he fell down and needed help. Oh wait. That IS what happened.

I helped the guy to stand, but it was pretty obvious that he wasn’t going anywhere under his own power — not only was he reaaaally shaky, but he’d hurt his leg a bit when he fell. I took a look, and it was nothing major. Probably a nasty bruise tomorrow at worst, but nothing needing medical attention. Still, made it even harder for him to walk, and really he didn’t need anything making it MORE difficult.

I asked him where he was going, and he pointed across the street to a set of apartment buildings, about half a block away. I offer him a hand, and we shuffle off, him holding my arm, and me keeping a firm grip on his windbreaker so I can stop him if he starts to take a header. But hell, he outweighed me by about 70lbs at least, if he decided to go over, there wasn’t much I could do but go over with him… but at the very least, I helped him steady himself a bit. Luckily, no further headers occurred.

Got him to his apartment building, figured he could take it from there. Drunk or not, I’m not really into going up to some strange man’s apartment by myself. (No, really…) At the very least, he could get himself inside where it was warm, and if he hung around in the hallway for a bit until he could walk better, no harm done. He thanked me profusely (well, a bit slurred, but profusely nevertheless) and I headed back to my car… feeling good about myself (altruism feels nice!) and at the same time, pissed off at the rest of the world for having a severe lack of compassion. Seriously, there were about 7 or 8 cars being blocked by him, and let’s not go into how many whizzed by on Hastings … and the only response ANYONE gave was to honk?

Sometimes, people piss me off. A lot.