Today morning I witnessed something that shows total lack of concern on part of people here..

I was standing on a platform of Oerlikon station, a train was comnig in towards another station on the far side, and as it approached, the train driver was blowing the whistle like crazy, thats when I noticed a woman crossing the lines (looked autistic) trying to get up on the platform . No one on that platform seemed to bother, thankfully one person came and pulled the woman(with difficulty as he was alone) just in the nick of time.

I wonder why no one came to help that man, and no one even seemed bothered.

I for one was really apalled by the lack of concern of people here.

its like that all over the world mate, i have experienced ignorance in spain, canada and places. I assume people are just wrapped up in their little worlds and too embarressed to be seen helping anyone.

I think it is called bystander apathy. Appalling really, but not surprising unfortunately. A lot of people (the majority?) won't get involved because of fear of embarresment, fear of attack or just can't be arsedness.

Ah well.. I guess I should be thankful that 1 person helped, and no one got to witness a horrible scene ..

That's really terrible. Sometimes people still do amazing selfless things for others though.

story

"A quick-thinking commuter saved a teenager who fell on the subway tracks by pushing him down into a furrow between the rails, allowing an approaching train to pass right over them, police said."

I have been so many places and most people are in there own worlds and do not or choose not too know what is going on around them. With all the cell phones, Ipods, etc.. people are unconnected to what is going on around them. I have walked down the street many times (I tested this in Geneva when I lived there)and chose not to move when someone was walking toward me to see if they would, they did not and slammed into me. This showed me how unaware people can be.

another thing is, when there is a group of people each person is thinking "somone else will do it". Its a common group mentality. That is why there was the Kitty incident (I actually for the life of me can't remember the lady's name. Happened in the 60's if I remember correctly, and she was screaming for help when an ex attacked her. Everyone heard her, but did nothing because they thought someone else would help her).

None the less, if there was only one person on that platform, they would have acted sooner. But, because there was a group, each person thought someone else would act first till someone finally realised no one was going to do anything and if they did, that lady would be smushed to smitherines.

that or else everyone is to involved in their own little worlds :P

"no one was going to do anything and if they did, that lady would be smushed to smitherines"

correction, it should be "if they didn't..."

http://www.essr.ucsb.edu/recsports/h...tWentWrong.pdf

How very true.

Have been half way round the world, and I agree that "public apathy" is seen in varying degrees everywhere.
But IMHO, Switzerland tops the list of "public apathers".
And I'm not saying this only after reading this post, its an observation accumulated over the last 3 odd years here.
Something to do with "Oh we are Swiss, we dont poke our noses into others business and dont expect them to do that either".
Even my Swiss friends agree that people here have a bit too cold shoulder to situations.

Isn't there a good samaritan law enforced here? although it's a slightly different situation, I thought a person was legally obliged to provide assistance in case of an accident?

Not sure how everything functions and what the law is in Switzerland, but in North America many people will not get involved because they fear legal action if an accident does happen and they were "involved" in helping etc.,..

This is very true & happens all over the world. When I took a first aid course (a long time ago, so please don't start choking when I'm around), I was taught to not just yell "call for help" but to point to someone specific and instruct that person to call for ambulance/fire/police or whatever specific help is needed. If you just yell "call for help" no one will do it as they will think "someone else is doing it".

People need to be told to get involved. If you find yourself in the situation described, you must ask someone specific to help you pull the person to safety. Point to someone and say "you, man in red hat, help me pull this woman to safety".

I had once a bike accident in Geneva, the bike slipped on a wet metallic plate by the tramway tracks, I virtually surfed the bike, that is I jumped on it to minimize the fall, but anyway I broke my finger and one rib, the bike fork was also broken.

There was plenty of people on the street, nobody did nothing to help, nor even come to ask if I was right or anything... just total indifference.

As I am a grown up boy I picked myself up, dust myself off and walked my bike, knee-bleeding to the next clinic... on my way there... same thing. no reaction out of nobody....

It is illegal to not help a person who is in mortal danger, and to not help a person you injured if it is reasonable under the given circumstances (StGB Art. 128)

Exceptions are for example if the bystander risks injury when helping, or if the injured tried to mug him seconds before...

However convictions for failure to render assistance are probably rare. But the important thing is there won't be convictions for helpers if something bad happens to the victim despite/because of the help. That's what they're saying in driving school anyway.

I don't know if people in Switzerland are less helpful than elsewhere. The consumerism journal Beobachter recently made a test with an actor and an actress who simulated a conflict in public. The result was that people didn't react because of verbal conflict, and rarely when the actress asked them to. However most reacted to imminent violence.

I personally think responsivity would be higher in a scenario where the victim had an accident and there was no threat of an agressor (so pedestrians would be influenced by the bystander effect but not affected by another risk).

The journal Beobachter also awards a yearly price for civil courage, so if you know some German and want to read about some people who didn't look the other way, go to prixcourage.ch.

Last year I was sitting on a bench near Zurich Hauptbahnhof when five punks came along and one of them punched his "friend" in the stomach which made him fall on the ground in pain. He was laying there for about two minutes while his mates were making fun of him. Afterwards he stood up and they moved on.

I still have a bad feeling for just sitting there and not doing anything to help him.

What would've been the best thing to do in this situation? What would you have done im my situation?

====================

Last year I was at the Oktober Fest in Munich with a friend of mine. I foolishly drunk too fast too much beer :P
At one point I had to rush out and puke, which wasn't a pleasant thing I can tell you After that I was all dizzy without any sense of direction. Someone gave me a bucket of water to clean my shirt (urgh which made it wet of course.

Later I grabbed my mobile and tried to call my friend, but he couldn't hear me due to the noise and didn't want to come out of the tent because once you're out, you're not getting in again. After a while someone came by to help me so I thought he might have a better chance to inform my friend and so I gave him my phone and asked him to call my mate.

I'm not sure what happened then, but the next thing I know was that I was drinking some water and the "helper" and my phone was gone. Later again someone advised me to walk to the ambulance for help and gave me some loose direction where I could find it. I then embarked to get to the ambulance which took me over two houres straying around the whole entertainment park. By the time I reached the ambulance it was dark already and it was getting cold.

When the doctors saw me they immediately carried me into their facility and dropped two infusions into my veins. After sleeping for a couple of houres and shaking alot because I was freezing a doctor told me that I was extremly lucky. He said I was having some severe hypothermia and had I wandered for another half an hour there would've been a good chance for having a heart failure (my body temperature was 26 degrees at that time).

...So you see, some people do help, others are just using you and the great majority simply doesn't care a sh-t

By the way: On that day there were thousands of German, Swiss, Austrian, Italian, British, Aussies, Dutch ect. people at the Oktober Fest. The only ones who helped me were the germans - aahh... right, the one who nicked my phone was german too!!

Maybe I wouldn't have intervened as long as the other punks were around. But I'm convinced I wouldn't have left the scene before the punched one stood up again.

The Oktoberfest is a bit an extreme situation and it isn't that simple to sort out the emergencies in a mass of partying people and "normal" drunks I guess, hope you won't have to experience this a second time!

Posts 10 and 12 from this thread refer.

dave

That's a pretty terrible story... I would have to agree about the ipod mobile phone epidemic making people so closed to real, face-to-face life. It creates a never ending circle of people being distant and socially unaware.

It makes me wonder though... I have read other threads on here saying that the swiss are only too happy to stick their noses in to other people's business, when it comes to reprimanding them about a personal choice (like smoking a cigarette) etc.

Can anyone spell h. y. p. o. c. r. i. t. i. c. a. l. ?

So let me get this right: you yourself (added for emphasis) got so drunk you couldn't function correctly, and you either lost or someone stole your phone. At what point should our sympathy kick-in ?

dave