(Photo by Kassie Hall)
Have you ever thought about what would happen if you were seriously injured in the middle of Bourbon Street on a packed Saturday night and needed emergency care?
Well unfortunately this guy found out the hard way. I didn’t see the events leading up to this man lying in the street gushing blood that, ironically, looks like a spilt daiquiri, but I witnessed the response. The incident occurred last Saturday evening, on June 12, as the Bourbon Street crowd capacity was at its peak.
New Orleans Police were on scene and rather quickly began taping the scene off, blocking the street and pushing back the crowd, who obstructed medics in their efforts to provide emergency help from this injured man.
After the cops arrived, a crowd of drunk tourists with Hand Grenades in tote began dancing on the cop cars and gathering around the caution tape to record all the chaos.
Watching from the balcony above I have a perfect view of the ambulance attempting, and failing horribly, to get through the crowd.
Stuck rolling at barely 2 mph trying to split the crowd as the drunk “woo” girls decide to use the ambulance as a balance to twerk on. Unfortunately this has lately been a common occurrence in the French Quarter.
Vehicular and pedestrian traffic keep emergency response vehicles from reaching those in need of critical care quite often.
Disappointed by the lack of empathy and general lawlessness from the crowd, I watched on as the ambulance finally made its way to the man.
He was able to stand to get himself on the stretcher and seemed to be OK aside from a gash on his head.
Just as soon as the police tape came down, the party continued on as if nothing ever happened. The man’s blood pool was left on the asphalt for the street cleaners in the morning.
