Canada: Bystanders ignore plight of burning homeless man

The Times Colonist ^ | December 14, 2005 | Maurice Bridge

[Stoat]

Bystanders ignore plight of burning homeless man

 

 

Christine Wellstead, an emergency room nurse at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, stands near an alcove outside a Starbucks where she doused a homeless man whose comforter caught fire while he was sleeping.

Photograph by : Ian Smith, CanWest News Service

 

 

 

 

Maurice Bridge, CanWest News Service

Published: Wednesday, December 14, 2005

VANCOUVER -- St. Paul's emergency nurse Christine Wellstead has seen some pretty rough things on the job, but nothing has shaken her as much as the callous indifference she witnessed Monday night as bystanders ignored an unconscious homeless man wrapped in a burning comforter.

Wellstead was on her way home from work around 10:30 p.m. when she stopped at Starbucks at 19th and Cambie for a coffee. Smelling smoke, she walked outside to see what was burning, but all she could see was a woman sitting at an outside table, talking calmly on her phone as clouds of smoke rolled past her.

"She's on her cellphone, having her coffee and she's sitting amongst this acrid smoke," she said.

Looking further, Wellstead found a man slumped on a bench in a nearby alcove on the side street, wrapped in a comforter that was on fire.

"It was smouldering, and it was by his face," she said. "It was all orange, and there was smoke. I threw the blanket on the ground and tried to wake him up, but he didn't wake up."

She ran back into Starbucks for water to put out the fire, and that's when she got a real shock.

She said another woman customer standing at the counter told her: "Just leave him alone, he's a homeless person," Wellstead recalled. "I looked at her and I said, 'What are you talking about?'

"And she says, 'He's homeless, just forget it.' "

Appalled, Wellstead rushed back out with water to douse the fire and still couldn't wake the man, so she ran inside again and asked a barista to call for help.

"I said, 'You'd better call an ambulance, because I can't wake him up,' and the lady [customer] said, 'Don't call the hospital, they don't want him,' and I just looked at her, and I said, 'I work at the hospital and yeah, we want him.' "

Wellstead finally woke the man and got him sitting up as they waited for the ambulance. He told her he was prone to seizures and believed he had one while he was smoking, wrapped in his comforter against the night chill.

Wellstead said she didn't believe he suffered serious burns. The fire and ambulance crews who answered the call were great, she said, and treated him with respect as they took him away to St. Paul's Hospital.

The ambulance service confirmed a man was taken to St. Paul's after the incident. CanWest News could not obtain information on his condition Tuesday.

The well-dressed customer who made the callous remarks sat alone in her car at the curb, sipping her coffee and watching as the event unfolded.

Wellstead went home, but she was still upset Tuesday morning. "I can't get my head around it," she said. "I'm so upset. I was almost in tears.

"I know there are a lot of homeless people here and I know some of them can be annoying, but this was a human being.

"His blanket was on fire."

[Grizzled Bear]

Those "people" are a nusience. They're scum. I can fully understand why no one would care.
_________________________________________________________
Gee. I'm glad I'm not your Grandfather.

[xp38]

Burning Homeless Man....Canada's answer to the Burning Man thing in the Western US.

[Stoat]

Maybe, but homeless advocates are notorious liars. Remember all those BS statistics they gave us in the '80s about a hundred homeless people dying every minute (or something like that)?

The woman who is quoted is not a professional homeless advocate, she is an ER nurse, as is stated in the article.  As for the professional homeless advocates, I agree 100% with your statement.

[Grizzled Bear]

I'm hard pressed to think that anyone in America
____________________________________________________
Read the title. It was Canada.

[beaver fever]

I'm from Vancouver too and this guy is a soulless twit.

The guy is on the street because he got bumped off of welfare because he couldn't afford a room on the $510 a month welfare pays for a single person.

If you don't have an address you get no welfare. Zero, nada, zilch.

I knew a homeless guy who was here from England and couldn't collect welfare so he panhandled until he was eventually murdered in crack hotel.

A sympathetic desk clerk let him stay in the room. Unfortunately a junkie broke into the room and accused him of stealing his stash.

Everyone thinks Vancouver is a nice friendly place, which it is if you have money. If you don't people will step over your bleeding corpse and turn around and complain about the inconvenience.

[Fruitbat]

I'm from Vancouver. Those "people" are a nusience. They're scum. I can fully understand why no one would care.

Ahhh, come on now, you're really a senator in the Dim party, right?

[Rembrandt]

"I'm from Vancouver. Those "people" are a nusience. They're scum. I can fully understand why no one would care."

You sound as if you'd be happier in North Korea, Cuba or Russia pre-Gorby. Nobody worried about the rabble in those places either.

[Fruitbat]

A homeless man in Canada? Hmm!

They don't even have a Republican or Conservative president. What gives...?

[umgud]

Light a man a fire and he'll be warm for a while.

Light a man on fire, and he'll be warm the rest of his life.

[Fruitbat]

I think you would be shocked how many people would watch someone burn.

Yeah, in this country I could understand it. Someone would probably get sued for taking the man's sleeping bag off of him if it was below 68 degrees. Burning or not. You risk your life's savings.

[burzum]

It's called diffusion of responsibility. When people are in a group they think that it is the group's responsibility to solve a problem, not their own. Diffusion of responsibility is greater when the group is large, respected, and has an authority figure.

In rare instances there are cases where people will take action. This is because these people are either not 'in tune' with the group or because they have a very strong level of personal responsibility. I believe in liberal areas there is a very strong level of group-think and a very weak level of personal responsibility, which is why the greatest atrocities in history have been committed by leftists (because noone would speak up).

[furquhart]

Am I on FreeRepublic or DU here?

If he got bumped off welfare - good. I didn't vote (Provincial) Liberal and donate to the party so that my taxes could go on paying for worthless bums to lay about on the streets dealing drugs.

I'm not saying that it would be a good thing to let the guy burn, I'm simply saying that, all things considered, given the great harm wrought by the scum, I'm not particularly moved by his plight either. If anything, I'm glad she put him out simply so I won't be on the hook for his burn rehabilitation.

And Vancouver isn't a nice place if you have money. I can't go downtown without having my car broken into (twice in the last year alone), nor would I be inclined to walk most parts of the city unarmed.

Hell, a few years ago I left my suitbag in the trunk of a car at the Wall Center for about ten minutes and, when I returned, some bum (perhaps the burning one, one can hope) had broken into every damned car in the underground parking and stolen my $700 suit - and my favorite pair of runners (which were about five years old, and worhtless) from the damned thing.

[furquhart]

"You sound as if you'd be happier in North Korea, Cuba or Russia pre-Gorby. Nobody worried about the rabble in those places either."

What "rabble"? We're not talking about ordinary citizens here, we're talking about Meth and Heroin addicts who constantly steal the property of their fellow citizens - both by active theft and through the government assistance they receive - and who are coddled by government at all levels (or, at least, certianly by the Municipal and Federal Governments).

[goldstategop]

Gee... you'd think in liberal Vancouver they'd be compassionate to the homeless? Nah.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

[Palladin]

Typical Starbucks customers.

Moral of this story: If you are homeless,have seizures, smoke, and sleep in a flammable blanket, better do it outside Dunkin' Donuts.

[Old Professer]

101 doesn't take the place of 911; amateur psychology aside, the point here is the man was smoldering along with his blanket; at least someone might expect the smell to interfere with their enjoyment of the evening and piss on the poor bastard.

[goldstategop]

Goes on to show socialism hasn't made people kinder and gentler. But that's what you get if all you think it takes to help people is to give them a check and say then whatever happens to them afterwards is not our responsibility. The government produces more alienation than capitalism. If Marx were alive today, he would have to rework the idea of man being estranged from himself.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

[Old Professer]

I have been saving a suit in which I expected my wife to bury me; the thing is over 40 years old as I was married in it.

What you just said makes me think I will just go ahead and have her put me down in my jeans and pullover.

[beaver fever]

"Am I on FreeRepublic or DU here? "

You're on Free Republic and you're still a twit.

There's nothing conservative about watching an epileptic burn to death in an alley.

And by the way the people breaking into your car are Vietnamese gangs. The people stealing your car are Sikh gangs.

I have never seen a Sikh or Vietnamese living on the street.

Steet people panhandle or collect bottles and used clothing. I know because there at least 10 regulars within 2 blocks of my apartment.

[randog]

I would only add to your assessment that the nanny state has everyone conditioned to "let the authorities take care of it". You don't need a gun to protect yourself/family--call 911 and let the cops handle it. Don't teach your kids anything (especially about sex)--let the state do it. Don't worry about being financially stable before starting a family--we'll take care of everything. Don't worry about that burning human being--there must be someone in "the system" that's in charge of burning people.