I promise that this isn’t going to be an enraged rant. (Just wanted to get that out of the way.)
Now.
Many of you who follow me on facebook know this past Saturday I was at my local gym (Initials of which are PF – you figure it out!) and I had an accident. The gym was packed because it was a Saturday morning and folks who don’t get a chance to come during the weekdays were all there. I was walking on the treadmill at a slow pace of 3.0 mph when my foot slipped and I fell backward. Now, like every single other patron of this gym I didn’t have that automatic STOP link attached to me – the one you clip on your shirt so that if something happens the machine automatically stops. Because of that, when I fell, the machine….didn’t stop. I fell to my knees and reached out for the handrails to try and support myself and pull myself up, but because the machine didn’t stop my body kept on moving backwards and I couldn’t support my weight, so my arms fell from the handrails, wrenching my left arm seriously, and the machine basically spit me out of its back and landed me flat on my stomach.
Yeah, I know… A Peggy-Lucy moment if ever there was one.
But…
There I was on my big belly, flat out in view of the entire gym including the staff at the front desk and there were three people all lined up next to me on their own treadmills. Do you think anyone stopped what they were doing to help me? To ask if I was okay? Heck, to even laugh in embarrassment for me?
Nope. Not one person – nada, niente, zilch- lifted a hand to assist me. They all saw me fall because I made eye contact with them while I was on the ground. But not one person stopped what they were doing to give me aid.
Who does that? Or in this case, doesn’t? Who doesn’t see someone sprawled on the ground, obviously just suffering a fall or accident and doesn’t even ask, much less off to help, if you’re okay?
When did we turn into a society who doesn’t give a flying fart about one another? Seriously, when did this happen?
My husband was on the other side of the gym, hidden from view, so he didn’t even know about the fall until I told him, so he gets a pass because if he’d seen it he would have been Jonny on the spot to help.
Now before you ask, there was a mix of age groups in the gym that day. Some younger than me, some my age, some older. I would have at least expected the older folks, who were raised with manners, to offer some help, but even they didn’t.
I was raised to hold doors open for the people behind me; I was raised to say please and thank you and excuse me when speaking to others; I was raised to offer my seat on subways and busses to pregnant women, elderly people, and anyone with a disability.
I was raised right.
Apparently, people aren’t raised right anymore. What is this world going to turn into in the future if we can’t even ask if someone who’s injured is okay? If we don’t even have it in us to offer sympathy or aid? Just what the heck kind of society are we turning into???
I guess I should be happy no one did the most common thing of all these days and film my fall and the aftermath with their attached-to-their-bodies-at-all-times phone/cameras and then post it to Youtube and every other social media outlet.
So thankful for small favors ( sarcasm inserted.)
Today I have a doctor’s appointment to see if I tore my bicep muscle in my left arm. The past two days have been agony and I can’t lift or move my arm without wanting to pass out from the pain.
I wonder if anyone in the doctor’s office will hold a door open for me?
~peg
Peggy Jaeger, Author 