Holly McKay: Why don’t more strangers stop to help people in need?

A WOMAN collapses at Flinders St Station during morning rush hour and only two people stop to help. When did Melbourne become a heartless city of bystanders like New York or London, Holly McKay asks.

IT SEEMS no matter what ill-fate awaits you, if you’re in a public place almost no one will stop to help you.

Last Thursday, my morning commute started like any other. I took the train, changed at Richmond and got off at Flinders St.

I had just stepped off the train and was about to make my way down the ramp with the rest of the peak-hour stampede when I heard screaming and yells for help.

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I was a good 50 metres from where the shouting was coming from, but when I could see what was going on I was shocked.

A woman was on the ground having a seizure.

But it wasn’t this that shocked me, it was the crowds of people just walking past her as she lay helpless on the ground.

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One man had stopped to help. I watched as hundreds of people looked on, and instead of stopping, many moved even faster along the corridor.

I hesitated for a couple of seconds, assessing the situation. I didn’t want to be seen as a creepy nosy-parker and have no medical training. But it was clear no one else was going to offer any assistance so I went over.

By this stage the woman was just starting to come to, and the good Samaritan who had stopped asked her if she was OK, while I helped her take her scarf off and put my coat under her head.

We reassured her that help was coming and asking if there was anything we could do.

In the meantime no one else came over. No one.

Now, I don’t know if anyone has been at Flinders Street Station at 8am in the morning but there are people everywhere, it’s crazy.

And yet, of those hundreds of people racing to get to work or an appointment, just two stopped to help someone in need. Two.

I’m not here to give myself a pat on the back, but I do want to publicly praise that one man who did not hesitate before putting someone else’s needs before his own.

And to readers who would defend the action of walking past someone in distress, because you have to be at work or school, or you don’t know first aid, or you couldn’t stop in a crowd, or you thought someone else was helping, or you didn’t see, or you have your own problems, or you had an important text to send, or a myriad of other excuses …

Just stop and think, if something like this happened to you or your mum, dad, sister, brother, son or daughter, and a kind soul stopped straightaway to help, how grateful you would be.

When I got to work last Thursday I told my colleagues what had just happened and discovered the same thing had happened to one of them — she had collapsed.

She was on her way to work in peak hour and collapsed on the train, eventually struggling off the train woozily at Melbourne Central station, but no one came to help her.

She remembers at one point being aware of things around her, and being unable to move or speak or see properly, and someone literally stepping over her body.

It startles me that this kind of thing happens.

Flinders St Station at peak hour — not an ideal place to collapse.

This was a medical emergency, not some crime where someone had a knife and intervening could have made the situation worse. This was a sick person who needed a helping hand.

Thankfully, the woman at Flinders St was fine. The medic arrived and was able to take her somewhere quiet to assess her properly.

But let’s just take a minute to remember that woman could have been you. So next time you see someone in trouble, stop for a second and offer to help, I’m sure your boss will forgive you for being five minutes later if it’s a matter of life and death.

And to the man who stopped and helped that woman, you’re a legend.

If only there were more people like you.

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