December 14, 1999 ~ A Concerned Community?

Yesterday when I awoke, I walked down the hall in the morning to take my shower. I was rather startled out of my sleepy stupor when I noticed a body, prone, in the middle of the hallway, laying face down, somewhat sprawled.

I asked someone walking down the hall if the body was okay.

A glance at the body. "I don't know." The someone unconcernedly proceeded to enter the bathroom.

I asked another someone, who was standing in her doorway near the body, pulling some bathroom supplies out of a drawer, if she knew if the body was okay.

Another baffled expression and a shrug of the shoulders.

I knelt beside the body, firmly touching the shoulder and saying, "Are you okay?"

No response.

Growing slightly panicked, and not wanting to use the CPR and first aid training I took three years before, I said loudly, "Are you OKAY???"

A groan, and a sigh of relief from me. The somebody in the doorway looked on. I shook the body a little.

"I'm sleeping," it mumbled.

"Well... um... Maybe you should sleep somewhere where people won't worry about you." (Not that they had been).

I got up and walked off, somewhat perturbed. Why had no one else even cared to check to make certain she was breathing? Why was I the only one who stopped? What if she had been dying, or already dead? Is this "ignore it and it will go away" mentality becoming the norm?

Just wondering.

Also wondering: if I had asked the somebodies to call 911, would they have?

Again, just wondering.

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