Another body left unnoticed....

[Ceicei]

This is kind of similar to the story in the other thread, http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=53676, about the minister abandoned and forgotten for three days at the airport curb.

This story is sad... A person died at a gas service station and was "unnoticed" for ten hours. What I cannot understand is why didn't the service attendant do something? [From what I've seen with most places, a car that stays by a gas pump for more than fifteen minutes usually gets the attention of the attendant.] In this article, the police expressed his amazement about the public:

"What does concern us is the amount of time it took to discover this person," Quezada said. "I don't want to chew out the public, but it makes me scratch my head how people can get gas next to him, see someone slumped over and not call the police and say anything. It's a two-second phone call."

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_6750249#top

I think there is a bigger problem with society.... Are we, as a society, at a stage where we are too apathetic to even make a comment despite observing something that may be out of the ordinary? Do we think there might be something negative happening if we did say or do something? I think the litigious attitude of society is making people generally too afraid of taking action.

- Ceicei

 

[Kacey]

It takes 15 minutes for the attendant to notice? Around here, I can't imagine an attendant not noticing for 5 minutes... might take longer than that to do something, as many of them are in locked booths that they leave only reluctantly, and many gas stations around here have convenience stores that keep the attendant busy - but I can't imagine letting someone block a pump for anything close to that long...

I am more concerned about the attendant than the customers - I don't know that I would look that closely at someone in another car at the gas pump, especially since I pay at the pump; I'm never there long enough to notice someone being there an unusual length of time, but I would wonder if someone never got out of their car the entire time it took me to fill my tank, and I would think I would go over and look... but I don't know; it's never happened (that I'm aware of).

Also, I've told station attendants things - like the guy with the lit cigarette who walked up while I was pumping gas and tried to panhandle off me - and sometimes they do something, and sometimes they don't. If I were the attendant(s) who let this guy sit there that long, I certainly wouldn't admit that anyone had pointed him out to me... so there's really no way to know if anyone did, unless and until someone speaks up and says that they did talk to the attendant.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

That is a sad story and yet there are probably more to come that are similar to it in the future.

 

[grydth]

While sharing concerns about the general trend - another recent story was about a man dead in his office for days - this one may not be as bad as far as the public is concerned.

How many people look hard and long into other cars much when at a service station? That's considered rude and almost challenging in some venues. Plus many late model cars have dark tinted glass - could patrons some distance away even perceive trouble?

Now.... how the station staff wouldn't note that the guy at Pump 3 was taking 10 hours...

 

[Touch Of Death]

It takes 15 minutes for the attendant to notice? Around here, I can't imagine an attendant not noticing for 5 minutes... might take longer than that to do something, as many of them are in locked booths that they leave only reluctantly, and many gas stations around here have convenience stores that keep the attendant busy - but I can't imagine letting someone block a pump for anything close to that long...

I am more concerned about the attendant than the customers - I don't know that I would look that closely at someone in another car at the gas pump, especially since I pay at the pump; I'm never there long enough to notice someone being there an unusual length of time, but I would wonder if someone never got out of their car the entire time it took me to fill my tank, and I would think I would go over and look... but I don't know; it's never happened (that I'm aware of).

Also, I've told station attendants things - like the guy with the lit cigarette who walked up while I was pumping gas and tried to panhandle off me - and sometimes they do something, and sometimes they don't. If I were the attendant(s) who let this guy sit there that long, I certainly wouldn't admit that anyone had pointed him out to me... so there's really no way to know if anyone did, unless and until someone speaks up and says that they did talk to the attendant.

Why just last night I stood in a convinience store for five minutes waiting for the guy to come out of the back room. I even stepped outside and came back but to no avail he noticed me when he noticed me. Around here i can totally see something like that happening.
sean

 

[MA-Caver]

My parents are elderly (who's isn't??) and I sometimes worry about them when I'm having to work and they go driving somewhere. I would hate like hell to hear about how they sat in their car for hours or even days before someone noticed them. But then again... if they were gone for more than 4-6 hours when I got home... then I'd be on the phone to the cops too quick.

Apathy... it should be a crime.

 

[Mr. E]

While sharing concerns about the general trend - another recent story was about a man dead in his office for days - this one may not be as bad as far as the public is concerned.

How many people look hard and long into other cars much when at a service station? That's considered rude and almost challenging in some venues. Plus many late model cars have dark tinted glass - could patrons some distance away even perceive trouble?

Now.... how the station staff wouldn't note that the guy at Pump 3 was taking 10 hours...

I think you make a good point. Most of the people here are most surprised that this guy was not noticed after a few minutes by the staff. If this was a bus bench, then no one could assume that there was someone who was going to take care of the matter. But in a service station with a staff, we fall into the way of thinking that if there was a problem those in charge would have been aware of it by now.