A friend of mine forwarded this story to me today. Last week, a 78-year-old man crossing the street in Hartford, Connecticut, was hit by a car that was traveling in the wrong lane. The car did not stop. Neither did anyone else. The entire event was caught on a surveillance video. For those unfamiliar with Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), this video serves as a re-enactment. The only difference is that there is no Good Samaritan in this story.
As the man lay conscious and bleeding on the pavement, no one stopped. Cars continued to roll by. Some slowed, but eventually went on their way. One car approaching in the lane in which he lay stopped for several seconds, then did a u-turn and went down another street. A guy on a motorcycle circled around to take a look, then headed on his way. Pedestrians on the sidewalk didn’t even approach the guy for the first half a minute, and even later they only got within five feet. The most anyone could be bothered to do was to call 911, which only four people out of the twenty-five to thirty people around him did. Eventually, a police car that happened to be driving by stopped to help him.
Now, some might argue that no one around had any first aid training. They didn’t help him because they didn’t want to make the situation worse. That may be the case, but that should not have prevented them from providing the simple comfort of human presence. Just having someone there talking with him would have calmed him down and it would have helped to know that someone cared. But apparently no one did care. Not only did no one come to be at his side, but no one even bothered to stop traffic so he wouldn’t get hit again. Cars full of priests just kept driving by, while the Levites on the sidewalk stood and watched.
I grew up in the South, but I have lived in New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Midwest. Of all of these, I am not surprised that this happened in New England. Yes, there are a lot of good things to say about New England and there are some good people here. But in the seven years I have lived in Connecticut and Massachusetts I have seen more disregard for one’s neighbor than I have in all my time in the other regions combined. The surprising thing is that I am not surprised by this video.
For comparison sake, let me tell you what happened when I lived in Iowa in 2003. One day in January as I was driving down the street, the car in front of me struck a pedestrian. The fact that a car struck a pedestrian is the only similarity between the story in Iowa and the story in Connecticut. In Iowa, the car that struck the pedestrian stopped. So did a bunch of other cars. Within fifteen seconds, there were six of us around him. Someone who had a cell phone called 911, while the rest of us took our coats off to cover the man and support his head. Even though it was ten degrees below zero, not a single individual held back his or her coat. And while some of us went to stop traffic to keep the man from getting hit again, others stayed and talked with the man so he would know that someone cared and was with him.
The basic problem in Hartford boiled down to this: everyone expected everyone else to do something, so no one did anything. Unlike the scribe in the parable they didn’t even bother to ask, “And who is my neighbor?” When you can see a fellow human being lying bleeding in the street and keep driving by, you as an individual are seriously lacking in character. And when everyone present does that, your culture is in deep trouble.
On June 12th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
I recently had an experience similar to yours, here in Hawaii. My car was struck by another vehicle, totaling both. My mother and I were ok, just shook up though. People on both sides of the highway stopped, took care of directing traffic around us, called 911, checked on us and talked to us. Helped get the car door open, etc. I was shocked to see that video clip. Wouldn’t want to live there.