Definitely crisis management
This happened last night as I was on my way to meet up with the other organizers of Capricornucopia.
I was driving along St-Jacques, when as I reached the corner of Desnoyers a woman (of apparently Native American descent, not that I could swear to it) wearing nothing but a red sleeveless cocktail dress hurled herself into traffic, shrieking and carrying on and trying to throw herself at the passing cars. I swerved to avoid hitting her, and, after a nerve-wracking wait for the light to change at the Courcelle intersection, I pulled over, parked and switched on my hazard lights.
By the time I had run back the one block to where she was, three other men had approached her. One was standing a little off to the side, cell phone to his ear, obviously talking to 911, while the other two were trying to prevent the woman from running back out into the street. She was still screaming, at them and at the world in general, and most of what was coming out of her mouth at that point was "Fuck you! Leave me alone! Fuck you!" etc.
I gave the two guys -both young men in their twenties by the looks of it- a friendly wave, and did my best to approach the woman. She initially screamed that she didn't want help when I asked her, but I kept my body language friendly and open, and when I put out my hand for her to take she came to me, grabbed my hand, and the next thing I knew I had an armful of sobbing womanhood.
I put on my best "there-there" tone, assured her that she was going to get taken care of, manoeuvered her to the sidewalk so we wouldn't be in the street, and kept her from collapsing in a heap on the ground. When I asked her what was happening she pointed to a doorway on the first floor of a nearby building where I spotted a tallish man in a dark parka watching us. He immediately pulled back into the apartment, while she gave a somewhat incoherent account of his trying to convince her to commit suicide, even though she didn't want to.
The two young guys vanished in the interim, leaving me with her and the guy with the cell phone, who very thoughtfully pulled off his winter coat and wrapped her in it. He was obviously uncomfortable with the whole situation and very pleased to have someone there to help him out. It took me several attempts to get the woman to tell me her name -at first she claimed she couldn't, then she didn't want to, and eventually she told me it was 'Tiffany.' She repeated her accusations about someone trying to make her kill herself, and complained about being cold (which it really was, and she was clothed in nothing but the cocktail dress, some flimsy dress boots not made for the outside, and a single leather glove).
I carried on with my technique of reassuring her that she was perfectly safe with us, that help was on its way, and that the nice police officers would take very good care of her when they got there. The police arrived within about four minutes -two squad cars- and assured us an ambulance was on its way as well. Two female officers went to knock on the door where I had seen the man before, and the guy with the cell phone mentioned that he had seen a camera earlier, which was news to me, because I hadn't seen it when I got there. Two male officers took charge of the lady, though I had to tell them that the parka belonged to Cell Phone Guy, because otherwise they'd have taken it away with her. They wrapped the woman in one of those thermal blankets while awaiting the ambulance, and took quick statements from both myself and Cell Phone Guy, and then told us we could leave.
Cell Phone Guy thanked me for my help, and told me moreover that I was really good at that, so I felt I had to explain that this was sort of my job. I took the opportunity to thank him as well for stopping, because there are very few "regular" citizens who would have stopped to help a woman who looked like she was having a really bad trip in the middle of a busy street, and I really feel that this is something to be encouraged.
Leaving felt kind of anticlimactic, especially since I'm probably never going to know the end of that particular story. Still, it was a bit of an adventure. I hope she's okay, whoever she is. Whatever was going on in that apartment, it can't have been good.
I was driving along St-Jacques, when as I reached the corner of Desnoyers a woman (of apparently Native American descent, not that I could swear to it) wearing nothing but a red sleeveless cocktail dress hurled herself into traffic, shrieking and carrying on and trying to throw herself at the passing cars. I swerved to avoid hitting her, and, after a nerve-wracking wait for the light to change at the Courcelle intersection, I pulled over, parked and switched on my hazard lights.
By the time I had run back the one block to where she was, three other men had approached her. One was standing a little off to the side, cell phone to his ear, obviously talking to 911, while the other two were trying to prevent the woman from running back out into the street. She was still screaming, at them and at the world in general, and most of what was coming out of her mouth at that point was "Fuck you! Leave me alone! Fuck you!" etc.
I gave the two guys -both young men in their twenties by the looks of it- a friendly wave, and did my best to approach the woman. She initially screamed that she didn't want help when I asked her, but I kept my body language friendly and open, and when I put out my hand for her to take she came to me, grabbed my hand, and the next thing I knew I had an armful of sobbing womanhood.
I put on my best "there-there" tone, assured her that she was going to get taken care of, manoeuvered her to the sidewalk so we wouldn't be in the street, and kept her from collapsing in a heap on the ground. When I asked her what was happening she pointed to a doorway on the first floor of a nearby building where I spotted a tallish man in a dark parka watching us. He immediately pulled back into the apartment, while she gave a somewhat incoherent account of his trying to convince her to commit suicide, even though she didn't want to.
The two young guys vanished in the interim, leaving me with her and the guy with the cell phone, who very thoughtfully pulled off his winter coat and wrapped her in it. He was obviously uncomfortable with the whole situation and very pleased to have someone there to help him out. It took me several attempts to get the woman to tell me her name -at first she claimed she couldn't, then she didn't want to, and eventually she told me it was 'Tiffany.' She repeated her accusations about someone trying to make her kill herself, and complained about being cold (which it really was, and she was clothed in nothing but the cocktail dress, some flimsy dress boots not made for the outside, and a single leather glove).
I carried on with my technique of reassuring her that she was perfectly safe with us, that help was on its way, and that the nice police officers would take very good care of her when they got there. The police arrived within about four minutes -two squad cars- and assured us an ambulance was on its way as well. Two female officers went to knock on the door where I had seen the man before, and the guy with the cell phone mentioned that he had seen a camera earlier, which was news to me, because I hadn't seen it when I got there. Two male officers took charge of the lady, though I had to tell them that the parka belonged to Cell Phone Guy, because otherwise they'd have taken it away with her. They wrapped the woman in one of those thermal blankets while awaiting the ambulance, and took quick statements from both myself and Cell Phone Guy, and then told us we could leave.
Cell Phone Guy thanked me for my help, and told me moreover that I was really good at that, so I felt I had to explain that this was sort of my job. I took the opportunity to thank him as well for stopping, because there are very few "regular" citizens who would have stopped to help a woman who looked like she was having a really bad trip in the middle of a busy street, and I really feel that this is something to be encouraged.
Leaving felt kind of anticlimactic, especially since I'm probably never going to know the end of that particular story. Still, it was a bit of an adventure. I hope she's okay, whoever she is. Whatever was going on in that apartment, it can't have been good.