Schmuck

I feel like such a schmuck this morning.  I'm used to noises outside - they happen every now and then with people coming home drunk, arguments in the street, the mentally disabled guy down the road, or more.  I presume that if I go out to check I'm going to invite trouble.  For the past hour, I lay awake unable to get back to sleep, and tried to decide what sort of person was out there.  For an hour, I could have called an ambulance and I didn't.  Because I mistook primal moans of pain for sex noises (presuming someone had left their window open).  I think the guy's going to be okay - he was still conscious when the ambulance arrived, but I feel like such a schmuck.  If it weren't for the fact that Big Boy had to get to work early, who knows what time someone would have helped.  Schmuck.

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Ms P

Don't beat yourself up - you still did the right thing before anybody else on your street did. It's easy to misinterpret noises, especially if you live on a noisy street (or have foxes in the garden etc).

And it's not like you saw someone lying there and stepped over them, is it? It's quite possible that some of your neighbours did.

Oink
That's kind of you to say. I think what I really need to do is remember that the deep pain and suffering noises can sound different - and can sound like something else altogether. If he'd even said help once I'm sure I'd have heard him but all he could do in his suffering was to make these sounds. There was a part of me that wanted to check though - a part of me that I hope to act upon in the future.
fox in the snow
You did what most of us living in noisy London streets do. I'd have put a pillow over my head and assumed the people of Leyton were being their usual irritating selves, had it been me.
Oink
That was it, Foxy. Especially since it was 4am when it started and I should have been asleep.
EmFlem

Yeah, don't sweat it, he DID get help in the end and no-one else bothered but you guys. Anyway, if he was well enough to bellow for an hour he can't have been that badly off.

You did the right thing.

kateevans
Did I miss something? What happened to him?
Oink
He was taken away in an ambulance - it only took a few minutes to arrive after we called. He was still conscious but couldn't communicate as he was presumably in shock.
kateevans
No, I mean was he mugged? Hit by a car?
Oink
Oh sorry. I suspect he was attacked - he was bleeding from his face (glassed?) and had damage to an arm that I couldn't see as he was holding it beneath his coat. He was scarcely aware of anything around him - scarcely aware that we were there.

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