From Jester To King XXVIII

Man down in Hampstead

A man fell down in Hampstead yesterday as everyone else carried on doing their thing. A man of indeterminate age was reported to have fallen down on the street yesterday, sources say. An ambulance was called, whilst most passers-by went on their way. The man was believed to be dead but showed minimal signs of life. Most people went on their way. The man was found flat on his stomach in the front courtyard/garden/driveway of no.7 Rosslyn Hill. He was for all practical purposes motionless lying next to debris removed pursuant to a recent putative home refurbishment. The man’s head was turned to his right but was not visible since: 1) the man was wearing a hood, and 2) the aforementioned debris was so close to his face and of such height that it obscured any viewing from above or any angle the onlooker should choose to make. The man was wearing a blue anorak of sorts blue jeans and trainers. The anorak appeared puffy and large in relation to the man’s smaller frame. The man was unmissable from the northbound roadside pavement but might have been suspected to be dead. A private hire car driver stopped and phoned his office to report the fall. The office advised him to turn the man around so that the latter man was not facing downwards. All other people went on their way. Another heroic man then noticed the fallen man whilst walking southbound down the northbound pavement side of the road’s pavement. The man sought to approach the body to investigate. The second man saw the first man on the phone. The first man told the second man he was on the phone to his office and asked the second man the address of the location where the fallen man was lying. The second man gave the first man this address after double-checking it wasn’t Haverstock. The second man walked into the front garden/driveway/courtyard of no.7 Rosslyn Hill in order to look at the man. There was only a short distance of low wall acting as boundary not matching or consistent with the entire length of the front garden/driveway/courtyard, making entrance and exit unimpeded and making the body fully visible from the northbound roadside pavement. Everybody went on their way. The heroic man noticed the momentary expansion and deflation of the man’s upper body signalling breathing, though the heroic man’s verbal enquiries fell on deaf ears. The first man reported the aforementioned office advice to the second man but seemed reluctant to come anywhere near the fallen man. He touched the fallen man from afar as if poking him with a stick hoping to receive some more enthusiastic response than just breathing. He repeated his intention to move the fallen man. The second man told the first man that he did not feel comfortable doing so. The first man retreated as if to give up in his efforts. The second man asked the first man if he had called an ambulance. The first man said he had called his office. The second man said he would have called an ambulance but having just returned from a run did not have his mobile telephone to hand. The first man produced a second mobile telephone for the purposes of calling this ambulance. He asked the second man for the number, whereupon the second man told him ‘999’. Some moments later, the second heroic man told the first man that there was a hospital just there [pointing with his finger in its direction] and that he would go there personally to find a paramedic. He asked the first man to wait. The second man promptly found two people in hospital uniform on the street outside the hospital and asked if they were paramedics and they might help because a man had fallen on the street and looked to be dying. They declined to do so giving reasons or excuses. The second man walked in to the accident and emergency unit but was unable to convince a staff nurse to send a paramedic. The second man intercepted an ambulance on the street but was told that an ambulance would be on its way by way of 999. The second man walked back up the street. The two people who had declined to help then walked up the street with him as if having given the exact opposite response to the one initially given. Not one of them ran. The second man asked them their position and function to which they replied ‘nurse’. Upon reaching the site of the fall, the second man and the two people saw that an ambulance had arrived, so the two people turned back. The ambulance was stationary and parked in the lane of the road nearest the pavement. The second man continued up the hill and crossed the street to the northbound roadside pavement. Whilst doing so he saw the first man give a thumb’s up signal as this first man walked away from the scene and northbound up the northbound roadside pavement. Everyone else went on their way. The second man reached the scene of the fall and found that the fallen man’s body was no longer lying on the surface of the front garden/courtyard/driveway where it previously had been lying. The second man concluded that the man had been moved into the ambulance. The second man wanted to speak to one of the ambulance operatives but realised that the operatives were attempting to resuscitate the fallen man. The second man could see the rear block of the ambulance rising and falling and concluded that this movement was the direct result of hand pressure being applied to the fallen man’s thorax in an attempt to restart his breathing. The second man continued his wait. Everyone else went on their way. The operatives remained in the rear section for twelve further minutes. The heroic second man decided that the fallen man was dead and went on his way too. Everyone else also went on their way.