Team Samaritan and the Bicycle Messenger

As I said in my first post, "Team Samaritan" has become a catchphrase that my husband Tony and I use when we've done something to help out another person. We generally use it in the following way:

Tony (calling me on the phone): Hey buddha belly, what's up? (I'm staying true to our marriage here, it can be a scary place.)

Me: That's rude. Not much, what are you doing?

Tony: Nothing, just wanted to let you know that I was Team Samaritan today. Blah Blah Blah.

The main thing I want to point out though is that generally we are helping people in pretty small ways. Sometimes "giving up my seat on the train" small. But, you know, sometimes the things that you do that are "small" to you are bigger to other people.

Regardless, the point is that we have made a conscious decision to get involved when we see people who may need some help. We have made the decision in advance that although there may be other people around who could lend assistance, we are taking responsibility for situations that we might otherwise not want to bother getting mixed up in. Caution: I am not advocating putting yourself in the way of any danger. I'm talking about situations that occur everyday where you could do something small, something ordinary, something maybe even good manners might dictate you should do, but that you and I, and many other normal people, might not automatically do.

Case in point: A few months ago I was walking from the subway station (aka the "T" - I worked in Boston) to my office and saw a bicycle messenger on the ground in the middle of the street. He had just been clipped by a car. Whichever car hit him drove off without stopping.

Now I know a lot of snarky comments could be made about bicycle messengers and their generally kamikaze style of riding - I've been nearly taken out by a few - but this guy was clearly in need of help. He was dazed and confused. And a little bloody.

(Sidenote: I hate blood. Looking at blood, hell thinking about blood, makes me feel woozy. When I was a teenager, I drove my mother to the doctor's so she could have stitches removed from her arm. There actually wasn't any blood but just watching the skin drag along the stitch had me literally seeing stars. The doctor made my mother get up from her seat, IN THE MIDDLE OF HAVING HER STITCHES TAKEN OUT, so I could sit down and avoid passing out. Not one of my finer moments. But it did make me realize that becoming a doctor was not an option.)

Anyways, a random lady ran out into the street and starting helping the bicyclist to the sidewalk. I wanted to write the guy off as being helped. She looked like a nice lady. Surely she would do what was required. And, come on, he was bleeding.

But once you make the decision to get involved when you can reasonably help someone you have to, you know, actually get involved. So I crossed the street, gave the guy my water bottle and some tissues (yeah, I don't know why I gave him tissues either, he was too disoriented to do anything with them. I guess I just wanted to give him something and he definitely wouldn't have had use for my work shoes or a spare tampon so tissues it was.)

Then I ran back down the street to grab the policeman I had just passed. The policeman assessed the situation which, unfortunately, didn't require a lot of assessing since nobody had gotten the license plate number of the car that hit the bicyclist. Then he called 911 so the bicyclist could get checked out, against his wishes, at the hospital.

The nice lady offered to stay with the bicyclist and the policeman to wait for the ambulance. So my "work" there was done. And I could finally get away from all the blood.

(Okay, he only had a few lightly bleeding scratches but, seriously, I can't deal.)