Would you risk your life to save a stranger?

In my town a year or two ago, we had really heavy rains and some flooding, and a guy died trying to get one of his small children out of a usually knee-deep and narrow river (he failed as well, unfortunately). Maybe in a still pond things would have been different, but it isn't necessarily true that you don't need training to jump into a river and save a child, or obviously this family would have been okay. That is a really sad story though.

Hi dere Kitty Genovese and so on.

URBAN LEG END

http://www.oldkewgardens.com/ss-nytimes-3.html

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Okay wahtever, she still got killed in a parking lot where a bunch of people could hear her fighting with her assailant...who ran away and then came BACK when no help arrived. Anyway in emergency response training they tell you to give people specific orders -- as in, you don't say "someone call 911!", you single out a particular person and say "YOU, call 9111" It's just simpler and guarantees that there is ONE person who perceives that it's his or her job to respond.