Spend much time on social media or websites that feature forums and commenting, and you’ll likely come across more than a few keyboard warriors who are all too happy to tell the world how they would handle emergency situations. Picture a mix of Superman and The Incredible Hulk, with a dash of James Bond, and you get the idea.
How these anonymous dreamers would handle a real emergency situation remains to be seen, but thanks to video footage, the world knows how Peter Gold would. Did.
Gold is a medical student. He was driving in New Orleans over the weekend when he saw a man hassling a woman. The man had taken her purse and was trying to take her with him. The woman appeared more than a little unsteady.
Instead of driving on down the street, or maybe even calling 911 before driving on down the street, Gold stopped, walked toward the two and demanded that the man leave the woman alone. The suspect pointed a gun at Gold and demanded whatever Gold had on him. Bear in mind, Gold wasn’t concealing a Glock in the small of his back. He’s not some sort of martial arts expert. He’s just a guy in the wrong place at the right time.
Then it got worse for the young medical student.
The suspect shot him in the stomach.
Gold fell to the sidewalk and could do nothing but look at his attacker as he came toward him.
Thankfully, this suspect had either a faulty weapon or doesn’t maintain his weapon because he pointed it right at Gold’s head and pulled the trigger.
It didn’t fire.
The suspect then fled to his vehicle.
Video of the incident is chilling. The suspect, who police have now identified and is still at large, didn’t bat an eye before walking over to Gold, presumably to end his life.
Imagine that. You’re driving down a street. You see a woman in danger. You stop and try to help. Next thing you know, you’re on the ground with a bullet in your stomach. The man who shot you is walking up to you and pointing the gun at your head. He pulls the trigger. The snap of the firing pin against the bullet would probably ring out like a thousand shots.
There aren’t words to adequately explain what Gold must have been thinking about at that moment.
He is recovering in a New Orleans hospital, with serious injuries.
As he lies in that bed, wonder if he will rethink his action?
Maybe.
Would he make the same choice again?
Most likely.
People like Gold — and there are many more than it seems sometimes — have the nature to help people if the occasion arises. They don’t go looking for troublesome situations, but neither do they shrink from them. You are just as likely to find them in rural Arkansas as on the streets of New York City … OK, maybe not as likely, but point is, geography isn’t as much a common thread as is our shared humanity.
It’s easy to say what you would do if put in a similar circumstance. It’s almost impossible to know, though. These decisions get made in a split-second, even though they can have lifelong repercussions.
As we approach Thanksgiving, we know one woman who will have an extra person to think about, and we know a family who will be thankful they have their loved one, even if they are spending time in a hospital cafeteria instead of around the dining room table.
And there’s a guy somewhere down around New Orleans who has a malfunctioning little weapon of some sort who we hope gets his Thanksgiving meal courtesy of the hoosegow. If not, he should be thankful for every free minute he has, because we’d guess he doesn’t have a lot more of them.