duty to rescue

What Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax Can Teach America

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The one with the premium-grade ethics alarms bled to death on the sidewalk. The people who never had them installed at all took pictures. Is this the way it’s going to be?

Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax was a Guatemalan immigrant who lived in Queens, New York. His life was a mess; he was destitute, ill, and had no job or likelihood of getting one. When he saw a knife-wielding man apparently assaulting a woman on the street two weeks ago, however, he knew what his ethical obligations were. He rescued her by intervening in the struggle, and got stabbed, badly, for his actions. The attacker ran off, and so did the woman, who didn’t check on Hugo after he fell, and  never contacted the police. She also neglected to say, “Thanks for saving my life.” Continue reading →

Leonard Sedden, Dying for an Ethics Hero—Or a Caring Human Being

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

In Philadelphia, a Metro Bus driver called her supervisors…

Driver: I have a passenger that’s not responding to me…It looks as though he had peed on himself and he had drooled a lot. I can’t get any actual response.

Control: Just come on down the street, the supervisor will pick you up on the line and give you some assistance.

Driver: OK, so just leave him on the bus and pickup passengers when I leave on 4:18?

Control: That’s correct. I don’t want to delay service. The supervisor will assist you on the line so we don’t delay service for the passengers.

A bit later, the Driver called in again… Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Liev Schreiber, an Actor Who Understands the Duty to Act

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

The rescue situation is finally beginning to come into focus. If you are in need to be rescued in a public venue, you don’t want to have to depend on the rapid response of off-duty EMT’s or the assistance of on-duty security personnel. No, what you need nearby is a good, professional, quick-thinking, courageous Broadway actor.

Liev Schreiber, the star of the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s drama “A View From the Bridge,” rushed to the aid of an audience member who lost consciousness during a performance. The man’s wife began screaming for help, and when the theater house lights were turned on, Schrieber could be seen emerging from backstage and running down the aisle to where the unconscious man was sitting. The actor tried to offer aid to him until a physician emerged from the audience, and eventually the stricken audience member was placed in the care of paramedics. Continue reading →

The Seattle Beating Tape: “Just Following Orders”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

I know the Nuremberg defense when I hear it, and this is the Nuremberg defense.

The release of a January security video from a Seattle transit station has triggered a public uproar, and no wonder: it shows a group of girls brutally beating a young woman, including kicks to her head, as three security guards stand by, watching, doing nothing. Well, not exactly nothing: they did call for help.

Gee, thanks, guys. Would you tell them to bring some aspirin, an ice pack and a stretcher while you’re at it?

Seattle officials say that the guards appear to have done their job properly. The training manual the guards follow says “Never become involved in enforcement actions.” Continue reading →

Ethics Alarms and the Brooklyn EMTs

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The astounding indifference to both human life and their duties displayed by the EMTs in yesterday’s incident in Brooklyn relates directly to the title of this blog. Why…why…didn’t their ethics alarms go off when they knew that a young, pregnant woman was fighting for her life a few yards away? What could have dulled their senses of duty and humanity, disabled them, to this extent? Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Joe Girardi

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

I’m a life-time Boston Red Sox fan, and the New York Yankees winning anything is like a knife to my heart. Nevertheless, fair is fair. Joe Girardi, the Yankee manager, is an Ethics Hero for November.

Driving home from the Stadium after winning the World Series last night, Girardi stopped to help a motorist who had lost control of his car on the Cross Country Parkway and had crashed into a wall.

Girardi could have passed the buck, as most of us do in those situations. Lots of other cars would have an opportunity to help the driver, and Girardi had every reason to think he had done enough that night—a historic victory, a celebration, and now it was time to go home. It would have been easy to drive on. Nobody would know, nobody would criticize.

He did the right thing: Joe Girardi stopped to help a fellow human being in trouble. His choice had nothing to do with his being a New York celebrity, the manager of baseball’s most famous team and recently-crowned champion. It had to do with fulfilling his obligations as a citizen and a human being.

Today you’re my hero, Joe.

Just don’t expect me to be a Yankee fan.