Article on one challenging incident of your life in which you came out as a winner
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One day, waiting for my bus to school, I saw a girl on the far side of the bus station fall down hard (thankfully upright on a bench, and not on the cement ground) and begin to shake. Initially not understanding what was happening, I began to walk slowly towards her. In a space of a few agonizingly long, sharp seconds, there were two things which stood out to me:
1) The realization that she was having a seizure, and
2) Watching everyone near her literally turn their backs on her and move away
My walk turned into a sprint and when I reached her, her shaking had subdued and she was staring at the floor, unresponsive when I called to her. I didn't know anything about seizures, I didn't know what to do. I didn't have a cellphone to call 911. I looked around to call for help. Several people who had not scuttled too far away met my eyes briefly, and turned away. Again. I felt helpless.
I kept calling to the girl, checked her breathing, rubbed her arms and hands; still no response. I was looking around frantically when I spotted a girl my age walking towards us, asked if she had a phone and quickly told her what happened. Thankfully the girl immediately jumped into action and called an ambulance; we stayed with the girl who'd had the seizure and a few minutes later paramedics came and took her to a hospital.
I don't know what happened to her, but I hope she's okay. And I am so grateful to the other girl for stopping and helping.
But I could not forget the reaction of the other people at the bus station; their complete apathy disturbed me. A couple years into university, I learned in a social psychology course that what I had witnessed was called the Bystander effect - which, in a nutshell, is when bystanders do not offer help to someone in distress; this is exacerbated by the number of people around - that is, the more people there are in an emergency situation, the less likely any one will offer help because they defer that responsibility to someone else.
Despite this explanation of the phenomenon, the incident changed how I saw people. It made me feel confused and a bit jaded. I realized that people - even adults - are not as intrinsically nice as I had taken for granted. I realized that even when someone needed help, others would deny them that help. Most importantly, I realized that if I ever saw someone in distress, I would go to that person's assistance immediately. All it takes is one person.