He lies there motionless ...

THE EDITOR, Madam:

I was watching a camera focused at street level on Bourbon Street in New Orleans where St. Peter (I’m not kidding) crosses. I got into checking on it, the webcam live view, during the recent Mardi Gras celebrations there – what a show!

It was the usual empty corner on a Sunday morning after a night of revelry in New Orleans’ French quarter. But there, next to a movable barrier, lying motionless was a black man, hair in corn rows, ragged clothing, unmoving ... just lying still. I watched for three or four minutes as the occasional passerby never looked or just looked and ignored the man lying on his back there on the street. A light rain had fallen.

I’d had enough, I cranked up the search programme on my computer and wound my way to the New Orleans Police Department non-emergency number, called and made a report of what I had seen, live on a webcam.

They gladly and professionally took the report; an officer arrived in minutes (I got to watch all the rest unfold as it happened) and checked him out; then, he went back to his car and made a call. The man was alive, but almost motionless.

Another few minutes and an ambulance arrived. The man was examined, put on a stretcher and rolled into the back of the ambulance. The ambulance stayed parked there for about 15 minutes, both attendants treating the man who was obviously in trouble, but not in serious enough danger to be immediately transported to a nearby hospital. Most likely he was just a ‘passed-out’ drunk, but he could have been anyone, lying there hurt in any condition.

Even while passersby had no sympathy for someone else in need, a total stranger a thousand miles away cared.

ED MCCOY

Bokeelia, Florida