I am a bad person
I was going to pass along my "armchair analysis" of the NFL games this weekend, but I will do that some other time. I want to pass along another story from this evening instead.
I went over to UNICorn's apartment in Manchester to watch the Bears game. He is a huge Bears fan and was having a few people over to watch the game with him. On my drive home, I nearly killed a pedestrian. I am not exaggerating. I was driving through the Buckland Hills Mall area and I noticed that some guy was randomly crossing the street off in the distance. I slowed down a little since the roads were quite icy and I couldn't figure out what the guy was doing (since he was not walking quickly or in a straight line). Once he reached the sidewalk on the other end of the street, I sped up a little. Then, the guy suddenly stumbles and falls back into the road about 20-30 feet in front of my car. I panicked and slammed my brakes and luckily came to a stop about 5 feet in front of this guy (thank you anti-lock brakes). I was also lucky that the icy roads did not cause me to skid into the car that was passing me on my left while this was going on.
I sat there for a couple seconds and watched as the pedestrian got up and stumbled back over to the sidewalk. He must have been beyond hammered since we were right by TGI Fridays and this guy could not walk a straight line to save his life. Once the guy appeared safely on the sidewalk after nearly getting run over, I honked at the guy and slowly drove away. He just kept stumbling along and didn't even respond to my horn. He had no fucking clue what was going on since he was so drunk.
I looked in my rear view mirror about 5 seconds later and noticed that the guy had just fallen down again and was lying right next the curb. He was probably in grave danger if he rolled onto the road since it was icy and dark and he was on a road that gets a lot of traffic.
I was probably in shock at this point since I don't remember anything between that moment and when I merged onto the interstate a couple minutes later. It was at this point that I start wondering if I should dial 9-1-1 to get a policeman to take the guy to the drunk-tank for the night. However, I ended up doing nothing, and I really regret it right now. I hope that guy was able to get home safely since he was in grave danger of getting hit by a car or freezing to death otherwise (it's cold tonight).
When I got home, I asked TheCrazyCanuck if I was truly a heartless bastard since I took no action. Although we both agreed that most people would have done exactly what I did and drove away, I still feel terrible. I should have called for help. I hope if I am ever in a similar situation in the future that I do the right thing. Hopefully I did not cause someone to lose their life tonight.
I went over to UNICorn's apartment in Manchester to watch the Bears game. He is a huge Bears fan and was having a few people over to watch the game with him. On my drive home, I nearly killed a pedestrian. I am not exaggerating. I was driving through the Buckland Hills Mall area and I noticed that some guy was randomly crossing the street off in the distance. I slowed down a little since the roads were quite icy and I couldn't figure out what the guy was doing (since he was not walking quickly or in a straight line). Once he reached the sidewalk on the other end of the street, I sped up a little. Then, the guy suddenly stumbles and falls back into the road about 20-30 feet in front of my car. I panicked and slammed my brakes and luckily came to a stop about 5 feet in front of this guy (thank you anti-lock brakes). I was also lucky that the icy roads did not cause me to skid into the car that was passing me on my left while this was going on.
I sat there for a couple seconds and watched as the pedestrian got up and stumbled back over to the sidewalk. He must have been beyond hammered since we were right by TGI Fridays and this guy could not walk a straight line to save his life. Once the guy appeared safely on the sidewalk after nearly getting run over, I honked at the guy and slowly drove away. He just kept stumbling along and didn't even respond to my horn. He had no fucking clue what was going on since he was so drunk.
I looked in my rear view mirror about 5 seconds later and noticed that the guy had just fallen down again and was lying right next the curb. He was probably in grave danger if he rolled onto the road since it was icy and dark and he was on a road that gets a lot of traffic.
I was probably in shock at this point since I don't remember anything between that moment and when I merged onto the interstate a couple minutes later. It was at this point that I start wondering if I should dial 9-1-1 to get a policeman to take the guy to the drunk-tank for the night. However, I ended up doing nothing, and I really regret it right now. I hope that guy was able to get home safely since he was in grave danger of getting hit by a car or freezing to death otherwise (it's cold tonight).
When I got home, I asked TheCrazyCanuck if I was truly a heartless bastard since I took no action. Although we both agreed that most people would have done exactly what I did and drove away, I still feel terrible. I should have called for help. I hope if I am ever in a similar situation in the future that I do the right thing. Hopefully I did not cause someone to lose their life tonight.
posted by GaryGinew at 9:12 PM
1 Comments:
Don't beat yourself up too much, Gar. You didn't force him down to the bar and stick a funnel to his mouth. It's not your responsibility to make sure drunk people get home safe after too much to drink.
That said, the next time a questionable situation arises where you aren't sure whether to call the cops, you'll know what to do, and how it feels not to do it. But even if you don't, that doesn't make you a bad person - just normal, like the rest of us :)
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