Editor’s note: The potential to become hardened to our business is always present. When EMS is called, it’s never for a “good time”, therefore it’s easy to adopt the mentality of “what constitutes an emergency on your part doesn’t necessarily constitute one on mine”. Some of us even complain why when we’re called for seemingly frivolous reasons and overburdening local EMS systems. Well, a story like this provides the occasional cold slap that reminds us why we want the public to call. Please share your thoughts below.
Art Hsieh, EMS1 Editorial Advisor
By Deepti Hajela
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — The homeless man lay face down, unmoving, on the sidewalk outside an apartment building, blood from knife wounds pooling be neath his body.
One person passed by in the early morning. Then another, and another. Video footage from a surveillance camera shows at least seven people going by, some turning their heads to look, others stopping to gawk. One even lifted the homeless man’s body, exposing what appeared to be blood on the sidewalk , before walking away.
It wasn’t until after the 31-year-old Guatemalan immigrant had been lying there for nearly an hour that emergency workers arrived, and by then, it was too late. Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax — who police said was stabbed while intervening to help a woman being attacked — had died.
“I think it’s horrific,” said Marla Cohan, who teaches at P.S. 82, a school across the street from where Tale-Yax died. “I think people are just afraid to step in; they don’t want to get involved. W ho knows what their reasons are?”
Tale-Yax was walking behind a man and a woman on 144th Street in the Jamaica section of Queens around 6 a.m. April 18 when the couple got into a fight that became physical, according to police, who pieced together what happened from surveillance footage and interviews with area residents.
Tale-Yax was stabbed several times when he intervened to help the woman, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. She and the other man fled in different directions, and Tale-Yax pursued the man before collapsing. Authorities are searching for the man and woman.
A 911 call of a woman screaming came in around 6 a.m., but when officers responded to the address that was given, no one was there, police said. Another call came in around 7 a.m., saying a man was lying on the street but gave the wrong address. Finally, around 7:20 a.m., someone called 911 to report a man had possibly been stabbed at 144th Street and 88th Road.
Police and firefighters arrived a few minutes later to find Tale-Yax dead. Officials say they’re not sure whether the man was still alive when passers-by opted not to help him.