Friends:
I stopped at Home Depot over lunch to buy nails. I walked past an old guy working in that aisle; he looked grumpy, so I didn’t ask him where to find the picture-hanging supplies. While I was standing at the other end of the aisle, I heard a crash and saw a display tipping over, and a couple employees righting it. When I went to leave, I saw the old guy laying on the floor, with the two employees, another old guy and a woman, a few feet away gawking at him. At first, I figured it was some kind of safety test, because they were so calm. But as I passed him, I saw that the old guy had blood pooling around his eye, and he was frothing at the mouth. His skin was grey. The other employees were still standing there, wondering if they should call 911. I said to the woman, grabbing my purse, “Do you need a cell? To call 911?” She just looked at me with this blank, confused look. The other guy said angrily, “Ma’am, we’ll be with you in a minute.” Then he said something about 911 again and went for the phone. I walked away. I was panicked and upset over seeing the old guy in obviously really bad shape. I checked out and left. Within that two minutes, a cop had already pulled up. But I’m really angry with myself. I gave up too easily and shouldn’t have walked away. I should have called 911 myself, even though the employees are supposed to know how to deal with accidents. I’m mad, because being the person who can be relied upon to react in emergencies is a huge deal to me. I don’t want to be heroic, I just want to know that if something like that happened to me, I could count on there being someone there to step up just as quickly. And I let him down. Jenni