Interesting Tube Experience

So I'm riding on the tube this morning, minding my own business. Pretty normal tube experience, except that there weren't as many people as other days of the week at the same time. My guess is lots of folks stayed up drinking last night! It turns out that this is a very good thing this morning.

Anyway, so there's this guy next to me who had gotten on before I did and he has this huge bruise on his face like someone hit him with a bat. But he's minding his own business as most Londoners are wont to do on the Underground.

A little while later, I notice that he's asking the woman sitting in the seat next to where he's standing if he can sit down. I think that's a bit odd, but after she gets up to give him her seat, he starts to sit down and just falls over onto the floor next to me! He fainted (probably from the big bruise on his head) and the woman who had just given up her seat crouches down next to him to see if he's still breathing. I'm not exactly sure what to do (I'm kinda standing there looking like...duh, what just happened here, and what the hell do we do with this guy now?), when I mention to the person standing next to the emergency switch that maybe they should pull that to talk to the driver. Someone else told her not to do that because the train would stop and we were between stations. In hindsight, that's dumb because the train doesn't just stop if someone pulls one of those. It just means they can talk to the driver if needed. A minute later he wakes up, and so she waits until we get to the station to pull the lever. The driver comes back and sees what's going on, resets the emergency lever, and asks the guy if he’s all right. The guy says that he can go on (his office is close to one of the stops), and somebody else mentions that he should really go to the hospital. There’s some seat shuffling before the train gets going so the guy doesn’t faint again, and we’re on our way. At his stop, he got off the train under his own power, which is good, but I sure hope he goes to the hospital and not his office!

I just thought I’d share that little experience. POETS day of all days! :)

-- Michael

BTW, POETS day is the British equivalent to TGIF: Push Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday.