"The opposite of a hero is not a villain - it is a 'bystander' - an individual who does nothing during adverse situations."
A man lay dying in a hallway.
Despite the many people stepping over him in order to get to the bar, his plight was unseen. His slumped body appeared like any other drunk – expected and easily dismissed – and therefor invisible.
I was working behind the bar, not 10 metres from where he lay, but the hallway created a blind spot where I could not see. Precious moments ticked by as he moved towards the point of no return, where death became inevitable and any intervention pointless. Yet people still stepped around him and help was not forthcoming.
Finally a man come over to the bar, “just to let you know, there is someone passed out in the hallway”, he said as I handed him his drink.
By the time we got to him his body was pale and unresponsive, glassy eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling and his face was waxy and contorted in pain. I vividly remember hearing him take a gurgling breath as I squeezed his cold hand and spoke to him.
It was to be his last breath. Ever.
We commenced CPR and called an ambulance.
Upon arrival they quickly took over, allowing us to step away so we could attempt to manage the many bystanders, and those still wanting to use the bar.
People were clearly annoyed that their night had been disturbed by the commotion and I soon found myself stifling an outraged scream at their entitled attitude. It seemed insane that people were wanting to continue their night of partying whilst a man lay dying nearby.
I announced the bar was closed and started ushering people out of the club.
By now the paramedics had attached a defibrillator to the mans chest, whilst continuing to perform CPR.
“Evaluating heart rhythm”, the defibrillator reported and the paramedics moved their hands from the mans chest. A moment later “Delivering shock”.
A few moments passed. No response. Expert hands returned to performing CPR whilst the unit prepared to deliver another shock.
This cycle continued for about half an hour, but they were ultimately unsuccessful. The paramedics were unable to revive him and so he was pronounced dead at 3am.
The sun was high in the sky when I finally returned home.
Not that I could’ve slept anyway. My mind was still ablaze as I attempted to process the events of the previous night.
“How long was the body in the hall before somebody noticed?” The policewoman had asked, nodding towards the body as it was moved into the ambulance.
“No longer a person, but a body,” I’d thought. “I don’t know,’ I replied, to her obvious disatisfaction, her pen scribbling my answer in a pad.
I felt guilty of course, tired and emotionally about to break. She noticed and her expression softened. The pen stopped and hovered over the paper.
A pause.
“You did everything right,” she said kindly.
But now I was home and alone with my thoughts. I couldn’t help but replay the entire event in my mind, over and over. Trying to understand.
How is it that so many people walked past him as he lay there dying? I asked myself.
I pictured him stumbling towards the front of the club, hand clutching at his chest as a terrifiying and unknown pain spread throughout his body. In agony, he stumbles and crashes heavily to the floor. He reaches his hand towards the people brushing past him and in a moment of absolute horror, realises that they can’t even see him.
The same horror that was frozen on his face when we found him.
Again and again the event replayed itself in my mind and the understandable feelings of shock, confusion and sadness, started to turn to anger.
Why did no-one stop to help?
Why did no-one stop to help?
This was the question to which I would often return, long after the shock and sadness of the event had faded away. It would be a long time before I had an answer, which as it turned out, came quite by accident.
The bystander effect is a social psychological phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present. The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help.
Several factors contribute to the bystander effect, these include ambiguity, group cohesiveness, and the diffusion of responsibility, which together reinforces a shared denial of a situations severity.
In other words, we don’t act as we’re not sure what’s going on, we don’t want to behave differently to others, we assume that others are better qualified to act and since those others are not acting, then perhaps we don’t need to either.
All these factors where at play that night, including the added complication of alcohol.
These are all powerful social influences that impact us all, and I absolutely include myself. In time I came to realise that given similar circumstances, if I had been in the crowd, it’s possible that I may have been one of the people who stepped past the man as he lay dying.
It’s an extremely uncomfortable thought. Horrifying actually. We all like to assume that when faced with a difficult situation that we would “do the right thing’ but the research shows that this is not a safe assumption.
And so the question becomes, how do you ensure that you act when action is required. How do you resist the social influences that cause us to become bystanders?
How to act with courage when circumstances demand it
Practice Humility.
Practice humility by accepting the possibility that given similar circumstances, that you may also have failed to give help. Then, having confronted that unpleasant thought, resolve to take the actions required to ensure that you do act courageously when required.
Practice small acts of courage. Daily.
Heroism is less about exceptional individuals swooping in to save the day than it is about everyday people acting on instincts that have been developed over a lifetime. This could mean speaking up against casual homophobia and sexism in the workplace, it could be a small act of kindness towards a stranger, it could mean asking someone if they are alright. Practice these courageous behaviours so that they become part of your identity.
Skill-up.
One of the reasons we don’t act is because we don’t know what to do. Yet skills like CPR are simple to learn and practice. Many workplaces will even pay for you to obtain this life saving skill. Identify useful skills and then learn them.
