I sat dumbstruck yesterday as I watched a disturbing report yesterday chronicling the last moments of Esmin Green's. The 49-year-old New York woman died after writhing in pain on a cold psychiatric emergency room floor less than 10 feet from other patients and after both a security guard and a doctor stopped by and left. As the truly shocking surveillance tape footage played over and over, my eyes were riveted on the other patients sitting indifferently as Esmin toppled from her chair and flailed around in obvious distress before she grew still. The other patients glanced over a few times but no one came to her aid. No one!
I shouldn’t say no one helped. About an hour after her ordeal began, a nurse did come and gently kick Esmin on the leg a few times in what appeared to be an attempt to rouse her. She was already dead.
Though I usually try to interject note of humor into my posts, there is nothing funny about this situation. I wanted to blog about it because I was surprised by my reaction. I expected to be outraged and I absolutely was. I expected to rail against the negligence of the medical facility that let a woman die so close to life-saving help and I did that for a while. Also as expected, I ranted against the people who sat idle and didn’t even move to help Esmin off the floor for a good 15 minutes.
When all my ranting petered out and I sat down to write, I couldn’t write about that side of the story. Quite unexpectedly, I was filled with a surprising feeling - hope. My hope stemmed from the realization that besides the egregiously inexcusable behavior of all involved in the Esmin Green incident, those people and that staff do not serve as an indictment of our entire human race.
Despite all of the bad news and human atrocities that we hear every day and despite the fact that the foundation of this blog is based on pointing out the ignorant behaviors of my fellow man, I know for a fact that there are millions of truly good people in this world, tens of thousands in this country, thousands in my city and hundreds right here in my neighborhood.
Call me idealistic, but I believe the good actually outnumber the bad. That any of my friends or I would not have sat there and watched Esmin die. For every person that closes their eyes and ears to someone else's suffering, there is at least one willing to help.
Now, maybe this optimistic attitude comes from working from home and watching too much Oprah. (I am a proud student of her online New Earth workshop). Maybe it’s all the feel-good reports of celebrity and community altruism that populate the media in this day of Oprah’s Big Give and Extreme Home Makeovers. (I can’t watch either of those without a giant box of Puffs.) Whatever the reason, I’m not ready to give up on us yet.
I am in no way saying that we should not speak out against what happened to Esmin Green or any of the other cases where people stand idly by and watch others in need. One of my favorite blogs, What About Our Daughters, does a fabulous job of routinely sheding light on such atrocities directed toward women.
We must continue to rant about it, blog about it, report on it, and discuss it in our barbershops, beauty shops, on our jobs, in our churches and amongst our friends until such behavior is not only unacceptable but unheard of. However, we also must keep in mind - if for no other reason than to remain sane - that for every idiot in the emergency room with Esmin that day, there are thousands who would have helped.
