Not Tonight

January 13, 2016

Tonight I saved a man's life. I didn't mean to. It just happened. I was heading home on the interstate and veering to the right to take my exit. But something stopped me.

A man stopped me.

He walked out in front of me. He raised his hands in surrender, sat down, and then lay down, arms and legs outstretched.

As soon as I realized what was happening I laid on my horn hoping he'd somehow snap back into reality and get up again. He didn't. In fact, he didn't move at all.

When I realized this was not an accident and he was not getting up, I threw my car in park, leaving only about one car length from his feet. I hit my hazard lights and called 911.

At the same time, a young man pulled past him and parked a car length beyond his head; he got out and raised his phone to his ear, no doubt, calling 911 as well.

After being put on hold, I finally reached a dispatcher who assured me that police and ambulance were on the way. She advised me to stay safely inside my car until they arrived.

She advised me to leave the man lying there waiting to die.

I didn't wait in my car. Neither did two other concerned drivers. The line of traffic had stalled briefly before resuming at break neck speed beside us. One woman stopped ahead and to the right of the young man I previously mentioned. She got out and grabbed a blanket from her trunk. She draped it over the man still splayed out on the ground. The other women parked to the left of the man. She got out and started talking to him. She seemed to have some medical training.

The four of us, strangers who shared one moment of potential horror together, waited in virtual silence for the sirens to arrive. While we waited, we had come to the conclusion that the man had some sort of psychological issues, possibly delusions. He had quietly asked to be taken to our local mental health hospital but otherwise had said nothing. His eyes rolled back into his head yet his entire body remained alarmingly still.

The police finally arrived. Finally.

I thought, "Thank god they're here. This man needs help." How foolish I was to think they would be there to offer care.

No, it seemed they were there to clear the traffic.

Once they'd determined he was likely a homeless man, possibly drunk, they frisked him, rolled him over harshly and threw handcuffs on him.

The man. Never. Moved.

He was the same man who I had watched try to kill himself only moments before.

And they handcuffed him.

I couldn't keep quiet. "Did he resist arrest?" I asked.

"No, but he smelled like alcohol. He's homeless and has mental issues so he's probably dangerous."

I bit down on my lip hard. "But did he resist? Why did you have to cuff him?" I said quietly, more to myself than to the threatening state trooper. I certainly didn't want cuffs on my own wrists.

I could kick myself now. I should have spoken up louder. I know the others around me were thinking the same thing I was: Why did you have to do that?

I caught eyes with one of the other Good Samaritans and she looked shocked too. Why would they not talk to him first? Why did they have to assume, though they had NO reason to, that he was dangerous?

The man had just decided he wanted to end his life moments before. He was already broken.

Why break him further?

The police officers dragged the man by the arms to one of their cruisers. He never twitched, never flinched, he barely breathed. But he was cuffed, because he might be dangerous.

Tonight I watched a man try to kill himself. And because I was watching the road, I didn't kill him.

But tonight I saw that same man get treated like he was less than human.

He won't die tonight.

Not tonight.

But what about tomorrow?