So I've been speaking occasionally via email and phone with someone I met from the internet. We hadn't met yet until this weekend but had made plans to do so as soon as my sister (who was visiting) went back home. Monday evening we were speaking on the phone. She was at a store and had just gotten into her car. She said that someone was blocking her in and to hold on. I heard her horn and then her window rolling down, and then the phone went dead. 45 minutes or so later, I called back, got her VM, and left a message to the effect of "I hope you weren't a victim of road rage - I don't want to see you on the news HAHAHA. I hope everything is okay." As soon as I hung up, I got a really bad feeling, and it turns out that it was spot on.

Later that night, around 1:30am, my phone rang, waking me up. I picked up and it was her, and she was bawling. Now, I still don't have the entire story straight because she was crying, I was groggy, and it was a bad cell phone connection, but basically, the two girls who had blocked her into her parking spot jumped her and beat the tar out of her, for no other reason (as far as I can tell) than that she honked at them to let her out. They didn't take anything. Just beat on her. That would be bad enough by itself, but the icing on the cake is that this happened in a public parking lot, in daylight, and that there were 10-15 people (some of them grown men) who would NOT FUCKING STEP IN AND HELP HER. I'm surprised they even managed to call her an ambulance when it was over. Fucking cowards. Jesus.

As I was talking to her and trying to figure out what had happened, I learned that she was still at the ER. She just moved to the area and her nearest friends are almost 2 hours away. I told her I was coming to get her. So the first time I met this person was at 2:30am, at a hospital, with her in a hospital gown and her face cut and swollen. I drove her home, made sure she was okay, and then headed home to bed.

Yesterday, I called to see how she was doing and after my sister left town around dinnertime, I drove over there to bring her some of my leftover Percosets from my leg surgery. She had a prescription for pain meds but of course all the pharmacies were closed on July 4. I kept her company for a few hours.

I feel so terrible for her. As I said, she just moved down to the beach and really doesn't know anyone who lives close yet. She was fortunate nothing was broken but her body is one enormous bruise and she is in a lot of pain. The girls who did this were caught and have been charged with assault and abduction, and were denied bond.

The whole thing is so senseless, and made exponentially more so by the fact that no one made the slightest effort to help her. I'm doing what I can after the fact (I'm going to bring her dinner tonight), but it seems to me the whole thing could have been prevented. I am very shaken by this. Sigh.

What's the deal with random violence? I don't get it. There have been a few hate crimes in my neighborhood lately- guys beating up other gays, calling them racist and homophobic slurs. What makes someone say, hey, tonight, I'd like to beat up someone I don't know? Poor woman :-(

Crap, mike, that sucks. I hope they throw the book at the girls who beat her. It's a shame nobody there got involved; the bystanders really should be ashamed of themselves. If they felt threatened themselves they could've called 911. It's one of the easiest phone numbers to dial.

Woah. A: That is really awful. B: You are being very nice. I hope everything normalizes in whatever way soon.

Way to be her friend, Mike. That's atrocious. Glad they were caught.

Good grief, dude... how awful. I'm glad she'd met you and wasn't COMPLETELY alone in a new city.

I don't understand people not stepping in to help someone who's being attacked like that, I just don't.

That is outrageous. Sickening. So sorry to hear of this.

It's great good fortune that she had already made contact with you. It must have taken quite a lot of wherewithal for her to call you in a time of need, since you hadn't even yet had a chance to get to know one another in person. It speaks so well of you that you immediately offered your support (of course, none of us here are surprised that you're that kind of guy, but I'm sure she was thankful to learn it). What a terrible way to be introduced to a new place.

Anyway, yes, I hope she isn't super traumatized by the whole thing, and that the two of you can get over the strange shock of this event and see what kind of friends you'll be.

Glad she's got you for a friend, you're one of the good guys. Just go easy on the GHB in her drink tonight, okay? only kidding

WOW. God. I'm sorry for you and your friend.

Well, if I were a bystander, I wouldn't have been bystanding, I'd have been breaking her attackers' bones.

Take heart. The whole world isn't bad, it just mostly seems that way.

Fuck, that sucks! Poor woman!

Thanks everyone. I'm having a difficult time describing how I'm feeling. Like, I feel like I'm trying to make up for the bystanders' inadequacy in helping her, and, consequently, I feel like I'm not doing enough. I know that's silly and that she appreciates what I am able to do, but I still have this strange need to, I guess, "redeem" humanity's failure in preventing this from happening to her. I don't know if I'm making any sense right now.

miko, she said she called me because we had been on the phone when it happened and she wanted me to know why we got cut off. I don't think it even occurred to her that I could come and take her home. She hadn't heard my voice mail yet so I was able to warn her ahead of time that I had made such a poorly timed joke.

You're a sweet guy, mike, and you're doing exactly as you should. Your friend is lucky to have you.

Holy shit, that's sickening. Thank you, mike9322, for being a nice guy and helping your new friend.

I'm in no way justifying the bystanders actions (which was wormy) but in my experience, folks are less likely to intervene (especially male bystanders) when the fight is between women. If it were a man hitting a woman the rules are understood but for some reason the women fighting women thing gets blurry for folks. I'm only speaking from my experience...

You're a sweet fella to rush in to her aid, and I hope she recovers (physically, mentally) swiftly!

as disheartening as the story is mike, your part in it is enough to keep my faith in humanity in working order. here's my hope for a quick recovery of your new friend's body and soul.

Jesus Christ that's terrible.

I can think of a lot of reasons why people might not step in to help - girls kicking someones ass are unusual, they might have thought it was gang related - but none of them are adequete.

Note to self: If possible, help. You probably would anyway and maybe get your ass kicked, but this is a reminder.

My god, that's awful! Why on earth would no one help her?! I'm so very glad they were caught.

And I'm glad you are there to help her, Mike.

Jesus Christ! How old were these girls?

Hope your friend is feeling better.

psho, I'm not sure. I haven't asked much about it, which is why I've spent time with her since and still don't have the whole story. I figure it's better to talk about other things (there's plenty since we barely know each other) unless she brings it up.

Another thing: she was already on short-term disability because she tore the ligaments in the arch of her foot while moving 2 or 3 weeks ago and had been barely able to walk. She had planned to go back to work this week. She is in sales and is losing accounts and a lot of potential money.

OOPS! IMPORTANT CORRECTION!:

I skipped over the part where the attackers were women. Somehow I was picturing about 5 men.

No bone-breaking by me if I were a bystander. But I'd've tried to do something.

I've written and rewritten a comment several times addressing the female attacker issue, and have decided that it is ludicrous to try to rationalize the behavior on either side.

It was fucked up and someone should have done something.

Although your faith in man has been shattered, I bet her faith has been restored after you dropped everything to help her.

You are a good man, Mike.

I'm so sorry this happened to your friend... I think you're being wonderful to her... I'm sure it means a great deal to her to have you there, especially since she doesn't have any other friends or family around... all the best, truly...

Unfortunately, as a teacher in the Bronx, I've seen this kind of thing before... almost anything can set some girls off (not most, but some, if they're in that mindset)... they fight as if their "honor's" at stake... the girls more so than the boys, it seems... glad they caught 'em... sorry no one stepped in... human nature to "not get involved," I suppose, but it's still shitty...

I just assumed the attackers were teenagers and/or on drugs. I couldn't imagine that normal people would just beat on someone for no reason. (Yeah, I know, I'm prejudiced against teenagers. Because so many of them act like assholes.)

I hate to say this, but I'm not a violent person and I don't know how to fight or to protect someone in a fight, so I actually don't think I would have stepped in either. If I'd seen this all by myself, I would have started taking pictures for evidence while calling the cops on my phone, however, because that's the extent of what I know I can do. If I were with other people and we outnumbered the girls, then maybe I would have felt brave enough to do something more physical.

It's not much of an explanation and might not be the right one, but it is one possible explanation.

If I were with other people and we outnumbered the girls, then maybe I would have felt brave enough to do something more physical.

I mentioned that there were 10-15 other people at the scene, TL. If it had just been one or two, yeah, I can kind of understand the reluctance to get involved. As it was, it was like some sort of perverted spectactor event.

Holy crap people are nuts. The heat doesn't help short fuses, either. I hope they throw the book at the bitches. Very nice of you to be there for her. I hope she heals quickly.

Not that this helps, but there have been many studies of crowd psychology that show people are more likely to step in & help if it's just one person witnessing the event. If there are several people, people are less likely to help. I don't think the fact that they were women has anything to do with it. Then there's the "gee do they know each other, did something happen in the store to provoke the bitches?" angle. In which case *I* wouldn't want to get involved as lawsuit-happy as this country is.

^ called the Bystander Effect.

TrishaLynn, you don't need practice to be an effective fighter. There are just a few things to keep in mind.

The objective of fighting is to end the fight. It is not to hurt or maim or get an apology, but to stop the fight from continuing. This is why:

The most effective tool you have for fighting is your mouth (and your brain, for you quibblers). Most fights can be stopped before a punch is thrown by careful use of the mouth. If you are a bystander, your mouth (and the mouths of others) is more likely to end a fight than drag you into it. Particularly if you call others' attention to the fight (and I don't mean yelling, "Oooh! Fight, C'mon everybody, we got a fight, yo!"). If the objective of fighting is to stop the fight, talking someone down or shaming/scaring someone into not fighting is the quickest way to end it.

Tell the aggressors you just called the police, and then call the police. Tell someone else the police are coming in a loud voice.

If you can't end the fight that way, go for the throat. Literally. Use your nails, use your teeth. Aim at soft tissue. Bite noses off. Grab ears and rip. Nobody wants to fight when they're choking on blood from a bitten nose, or when they see their ear lying in front of them, or when they can't see at all because you dug your nails into their eyes. These techniques are worth mentioning when you're trying to talk the fight away. Most folks get scared when they think about going to the hospital to have their nose stitched back together.

You should be sudden, and unpredictable, and extremely violent. The aim is to end the fight. Do not try to inflict pain; try to inflict damage. If you bend someone's arm back, it will hurt, he'll get angry, and the fight will continue. If you bite a piece of flesh out of his throat, he'll bleed like crazy and start wondering if he's going to live through the night, and probably ask his friend to take him to the hospital.

None of these actions are good; none of them are best-case scenarios. Stopping fights before they start is the best. If you can't, stop them quickly with sudden, unpredictable, and damaging violence. If you have to wade into a fight, don't pull the aggressors away; push them, and if they're prone, keep them prone. Don't ever pick up a brick. If you have it in your hand, you're likely to use it. Then you go to jail.

You can go to jail for any violent act, even if you're protecting your grandmother from the baseball gang. I don't mean to encourage fights, but people should generally know what to do when hands are thrown.

This is not a general comment, and I don't mean to add to what is already a heavy burden of trauma and caring onto mike9322. I mean to point out to Trish that a little forethought is all the fight practice you need to help yourself or someone else in trouble.

Also, don't necessarily take all of my advice. Or any of it, for that matter. Situations differ. I can be intimidating due to size and demeanor, and that works to my advantage. I still fight hard and dirty when it comes to it, but my mouth has ended ten times as many fights as my fists.

Also, calling 911 is so easy. I just don't understand how these bystanders justified not doing it. The "bystander effect" is poor justification for bad behavior. Such a shame.

Wow. Sorry to hear about this Mike.

What city was this in?

Hugh, thanks for your comment, and your point is exactly mine: with that many people standing around, surely someone(s) could have put a stop to it without even having to resort to additional violence. And I don't know that no one called the police; in fact, someone probably did. My outrage is that no one stopped it before it got as far as it did, presumably when the police were either called or arrived. She has enough damage on her body that it had to have gone on for several minutes.

I do expect to get the full story at some point, and I'll post an update to fill in some of the blanks. I'm going to wait till she brings it up, though.

dobbs, it was in Virginia Beach, near the oceanfront/boardwalk. There are all types down there but it's not a bad area by any means, and it is the most public of places. There was certainly no shortage of available help.

The lesson I'm taking from this is a lesson I hope I'd already known and that it has simply been reinforced: next time I'm witness to a situation where I can help another person, help, even if the possibilty exists for harm to myself. Or, what loquacious said.

Hugh: I should have also added that I'm squeamish and I don't think that I could ever actually bite someone with the intent to draw blood. Gouge them in the eyes with my keys (thanks, The Facts of Life!) but that's using a weapon and not actually getting my hands dirty.

Jeez, HJ, remind me not to get in any fights with you...

Heel of your palm up under the nose of your assailant will stop a gorilla, too, TL... but only use it in dyer circumstances, since it can and does kill, driving the bone in the nose into the brain. (A little tae kwon do goes a long way...).

All the best, again, to your friend, mike9322...

The lesson I'm taking from this is a lesson I hope I'd already known and that it has simply been reinforced: next time I'm witness to a situation where I can help another person, help, even if the possibilty exists for harm to myself.

Yes. But doing so often requires a conscious, explicitly stated intent to do just that.

I doubt the bystanders were acting badly, or bad people. It's just very easy to think "This is so bad, someone else must already have done something to stop it." You're much more likely to get help from strangers when there are only one or two witnesses; otherwise diffusion of responsibility sets in.

I mean, really, this is the exact same justification New Yorkers and other big-city dwellers use for "minding their own business" most of the time. The more people who are around, the less responsibility you feel to each of them, and the harder it is to get involved when there is a problem.

All that said, Mike, I'm so glad you were able to be there for this woman, and I wish both of you the best.

Let me add my best wishes for your friend, and how glad I am that she's not alone in her new city. You're a great guy for helping her, and I'm sure you're doing plenty. I'm glad those idiots were caught.

Hugh Janus said: These techniques are worth mentioning when you're trying to talk the fight away. Most folks get scared when they think about going to the hospital to have their nose stitched back together.

This bears repeating.

I've had to use this technique in the the latter stages of the verbal portion of self-defense confrontations a few times in the more dangerous portions of Los Angeles at the wrong hours.

Speaking loudly, clearly and convincingly that if pressed you intend to escalate the physical portion of a confrontation directly and immediately into the realm of a sort of Mutually Assured Destruction, and that you believe that the misguided concept of "fair fighting" when it comes to self defense under outright assualt is for idiots goes a hell of a long way - even with totally dangerous schizoid crackhead CHUD street-dwellers. (No offense to sophisticated, harmless urban outdoorsman, whose legion are many times greater.)

It's kind of like dealing with bears in the wild. Stand up straight, make a lot of noise and look larger than normal. But be serious in your intent to follow through.

As such, I haven't actually had to physically strike back at anyone since I was still in High School.

But like Hugh Janus, I'm not exactly small or slim - but nor do I appear to be particularly large or menacing, so YMMV.

Hugh, that was beautiful. I can't imaging removing parts from people's bodies, but the rest was spot on.

I have an advantage in these things; I'm 6-2 and look just crazy enough when angry, and sound just angry enough when crazy, to make the other guy hesitate.

I've only been in one fight, and the other guy made the first move before I knew it was a fight; luckily friends ended it before I knew what was going on.

But I've stopped several fights before they started by making the other guy wonder how crazy I might be. A height advantage is good for that. When I was in college, wearing my fraternity letters on a shirt or coat did wonders too. The point is to give the other person, if he or she is pretty crazy, a reason to want to bow out of the fight.

Worrying about missing pieces is good; getting them to leave before the cops arrive is good; physical advantage is good; worrying about the rest of the fraternity is good.

If it stops violence, it's all good.

Oh... and I can menace with the best of them, loquacious. ;-)

And one last thing: Being there to help out the person who got the tar kicked out of her is good. You did a good thing, Mike.

It's been a weird ass week in Calgary. We had our 13th murder , a man killed his father -in-law and put his mother-in-law in hospital in Bearspaw and some nut broke into a home and sexually assaulted a woman sleeping next to her husband.

It is a blessing for the rest of the world that there is a person JUST LIKE YOU! May multiple blessings fall on YOU!!!