One very unhappy person

Today my first aid training came into use.  Nothing heroic.  Just had to calm someone down while waiting for an ambulance.  And this stranger I was trying, rather unsuccessfully to calm down, has left me thinking about the inequality in the world.  So the following is an account of events that have left me so baffled...

Whilst walking home from a coffee shop a few blocks away I saw a guy fall flat on his face at a bus stop.  I was about 250 m away and the other side of the road.  I was half expecting one of the dozen people closer to guy than I was to come to his aid.  But no one did.

By the time I got to the bus stop the guy had sit up and then fallen again.  He fell again and stayed down.  Fortunately he continued to breath, as when I checked for breathing I almost fell over due to fumes.  He was drunk.

I didn't have my phone one me, so I called another passer by if he had a phone.  Which fortunately he stopped and made the call to 000 (that's the emergency number in Australia).  An ambulance and as it turned out an unmarked police car where on their way.

So over the next five or so minutes this guy regain sufficient faculties to try and stand.  Fortunately he listened to some advice and stayed seated on a park bench near-by.  During this period he told us (the passer-by with the phone and I) much, but this was all that was understandable:

1. He didn't want an ambulance, he wanted the Noongar Patrol.


2. Aboriginal people do not know where they fit anymore.


3. He had been drinking his whole life.


4. He wanted to dry out, but couldn't.


5. [After we offered suggestion of alcoholic support group] He didn't need help from us expletives beginning with A & C.


6. He wanted to kill us both.


7. He wanted to kill himself.

The ambulance and police arrive.  The ambulance officer knew this guy, he was a "regular".  Unfortunately this guy was abusive to all these people trying to help him.  Only verbally as he couldn't muster the co-ordination to actually swing his arm.  He must have been a regular to the emergency room and abusive to them also as one ambulance officer said to another that the hospital wouldn't take this guy anymore.

This situation has left me thinking how screwed up things are.  How screwed up this poor guy is.  At the same time he wants help, but can't accept the help put in front of him.

And I can see where he would be coming from.  The same set of institutions (law makers, police, etc) that once considered this guy less than human (which I'll qualify next sentence) are the ones who arrive lights blazing to provide aid.  The less than human explanation - before my time, back in 1969, a referendum was held to establish that aboriginals were to have all the same rights as everyone else in our society.  Prior to this they were covered by the Flora and Fauna Act.  And this guy was old enough that he was probably a child during the 1960's.

Somewhere in there he uses alcohol to free himself (I assumed) and he becomes another statistic.

I am lousy at knowing what to do with social problems like this.  Give me an engineering safety issue, an industrial risk management matter or even an energy supply problem and I can have a good stab at a solution based on science and engineering knowledge and experience in the field.  But social problems like this baffle me.

I am certainty glad that there are people in the ambulance and police services who are willing to take this on and to treat every cry for help seriously - particularly when there is no end in sight.