Every morning when I go to work I take the train for a 45 minute ride to Downtown Chicago. The ride is usually quiet at the beginning and then the noise starts to amp up as we get closer to the center of the city. During the ride I, like mostly everyone on the train, am staring down at my phone, catching up on emails, reading Facebook posts and reading posts by my fellow dad bloggers. You know, trying to be productive while riding the train.
Every now and then I get an idea for a post and open up my blogger app and start writing, mostly drafting an idea to finish off later. The one thing about the app though is that sometimes it does not save what I write. Case in point; one morning I was writing my first reaction to the Spider-Man Homecoming trailer. I wrote about five paragraphs and was feeling pretty good about the post.
Since Spider-Man is my favorite character, I could not wait to share this with our readers. I had pictures ready from the night before, so I just had to put them in their spot and it was all ready to go. I hit save on the app and put my phone away to get off the train. When I got to work, I had another idea to add and when I opened the app, the post was not there. So, I had to write it all over again. Annoyed? Yes, but I could always write it again.
During the first week of February I started getting excited about going to the Dad 2.0 Summit and wanted to read something for the Dad Voices event that takes place at the Summit. Dad Voices is a night when the dads read posts from their blogs or posts that are not yet published. It's a fantastic event and there is hardly a dry eye in the room as the posts are being read.
While I sat on the train, I remembered an incident that happened with my son and my parents. I decided to write about this incident and hopefully share it at Dad Voices. I was about four paragraphs in when I saw something strange from the corner of my eye.
There was a lady standing up holding on to one of the bars on the train and she was slowly moving into the sitting position, bare in mind there was no seat behind her. Next thing I saw she fell down on the floor of the train and was not moving. I immediately put my phone in my pocket and went to check to see if she was ok. I asked the man man sitting next to where she fell to see if she had a pulse. I don't know why I asked him this, but I figured he might know how to do it. I also attribute it to watching too many medical shows on television.
As I knelt near this lady seeing if she was ok, I noticed some of the people on the train just going about their business. I saw one lady look over, chuckle and then her face went back to her phone. Some people we walking to the other side of the train, as if they didn't want to have anything to do with the incident. I was starting to feel disgusted that people were reacting like this. I mean, what if they were the ones on the floor, wouldn't they want someone to help them? I didn't know this lady, but my first reaction was to help her.
Another lady asked where the emergency button was. The button to call the conductor to let him know what happened. The button was on the other side of the train and the lady, along with myself, started yelling for someone to push that button. I looked down and the lady's eyes started opening and she looked confused as to what was happening. I grabbed her by the arm and slowly lifted her up and helped her sit down.
A lady came over and asked her if she wanted water, while another lady asked her if she wanted a banana. I asked her if she was ok and she mumbled something about this happening before and she started taking off her scarf and unbuttoning her jacket. I figured the heat from inside the train and all the people was a little too much for her and that might have caused her to pass out. I asked her a few times if she was ok and she just kept nodding yes.
At the next stop the train conductor came to our car and asked her if she was ok or if she needed medical attention. She said no to the medical attention and said she was fine. The train was delayed for maybe about ten minutes as the conductor talked to the lady and I pulled out my phone and texted my manager that I was going to be late. When I put my phone away I could see that some of the people looked annoyed that we were still on the tracks and not moving.
We came to her stop and she got up to get out. I tapped her shoulder and told her to have a good day and take care of herself. She said thank you and walked out of the train. I saw her take a seat on one of the benches at the train stop and pull out her phone. Maybe she was going to call a friend or family and tell them what happened or maybe she was just seeing what time it was. I don't know what happened next to that lady, but I hope the rest of her day was ok.
My stop was coming up and I just started reflecting on the people that just stood there and watched. I understand that people do not want to get involved in incidents like this, but we all need to help each other out in this world. If we just stand by and say "It's none of my business" pretty soon we will have no one caring for each other and things can get pretty ugly real fast. I guess what I am trying to say is, let's all look out for each other and try to make the world around us a better place.
Thanks for reading and be nice to each other.
P.S. When I got to work I checked my phone for the post that I was writing about my son, it didn't save.
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