October 1, 2009

The Good Samaritan

Last night as I was making dinner I heard some ruckus going on in one of the other apartments or outside. At first I thought it was our neighbors dog barking but after a few minutes I realized it was a woman screaming. I looked out our window to see if it was just people horsing around. What I saw was some guy leaning into a car yelling at a woman as she was screaming for help.
I immediately grabbed my phone and walked outside.
I yelled to the woman and asked if she was okay. The guy turned around and glared at me and barked, "She's fine!"
Without thinking I said, "She can speak for herself, Are you okay?"
After I said this I thought, Oh crap. I'm gonna get beat up. The guy looked shocked and the woman asked for my help. Before I had time to do anything else he yelled some obscenity at me, threw something at the woman and slammed the car door shut and stomped off. I watched him walk away and he kept turning around to glare at me and yell things to me. When he was out of sight I walked down our stairs to check on the woman and helped her pick up her things that he had thrown on our lawn.
He started coming back toward us and she jumped in the car and locked the doors and drove off. He saw me again and stayed on the other side of the street yelling things at me. Again I thought, Oh crap.
But he kept walking. For some reason he was scared of me. Or Heavenly Father was protecting me. Maybe a little of both. I don't know what happened after that and I probably never will, but I feel good that I did the right thing in a scary situation.
I'm also grateful that my dad taught his girls never to be afraid of men. Or anyone for that matter.
What bothered me was that cars just kept driving by as this woman yelled for help. Is this what our society has turned into? To give them the benefit of the doubt maybe they didn't know what was happening, but I'm shocked that on a busier street I was the only one who stopped to assist someone in need. I hope I never get to a point where I am so wrapped up in my own life that I think I'm too busy to help someone out.
Okay I'm off my soap box now.

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