Archive for May 1st, 2007

A Matter of Life and Death

Tuesday, May 1st, 2007

At first it seemed like a good story to tell my friends. Then, I got to thinking about it. The more I thought about it, the more guilt that started to build up inside me.

I was on the Blue Line yesterday coming back from a downtown job interview. It was late morning, so there were quite a few people on the train, so I grabbed the first seat I could find. The seat was one next to a black woman, who appeared to be in her late 40’s to early 50’s, and she didn’t look well. She was wearing a dark winter jacket and her shoes were off and next to her feet on the floor. SHe was slumped forward, shaking and muttering something unintelligible.

I figured she was just another homeless crack addict, riding the bus to get her next fix, and I proceeded to ignore her. I sat on the left edge of my seat so as to give her room to do her shaking and fidgeting without invading my personal space. At one point she looked at me and said, “SHe done it!” pointing to a 20-something professional woman sitting in front of me.

I ignored that, too, and continued to stare off into space. I was trying to ignore everything that was happening on the train around me, the common mindset of the city commuter.

Then it happened. I was about three stops from home when this woman started shaking violently, almost a convulsion. It went on for a couple of minutes until she collapsed head-first into my lap. At first, I just sat there in shock. The, I lifted her off of me and leaned her against the window. She didn’t appear to be breathing, but I figured at first that I just couldn’t see her breathe because of the bulkiness of her winter jacket.

She didn’t move at all before I got to my stop where I got off.

Now, I feel as though I should have done something to help her. What if she died? I could be ethically responsible for it. Not because I killed her, but because I did nothing to help her. I was more interested in myself than helping out my fellow human being.

It could also be argued that there was nothing I could have done that could have saved her. She made her own choices in life that led her to that point. It was not my responsibility. There were a lot of other people on te train who witnessed this as well, and none of them made a move to do anything. We could all be held responsible for this woman’s apparent death.

Then again, she could have just passed out. She could have fallen asleep. I’ll never know what the fate of this woman was, because I just got up and left her.