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07/18/2006 12:03:37 PM · #1 |
Never in my whole life did I imagine that I would ever, ever, ever, see anything like that...
I was having classes for Uni entry test prep and me, with bunch of girls, were hanging out on a small balacony that overlooks the busy road the building is on. We got bored and our maths class was about to begin so we started going inside when suddenly loud bangs started coming from the road. I thought something electrical blew up but the sounds didn't stop coming and a guy's screams joined in with each bang. The sounds combined with the man's shouts were almost deafening. We ran out immediately and with a wall slightly obstructing our view with saw the man almost jump a foot in the air as he got shot.
All of us almost at the same time realized that the shots were not stopping and they could randomly come towards us so we got down a bit. The drama subsided in a few minutes and people started gathering with the traffic police arriving immediately.
Our classes resumed. The guys just kept peeking out curiously while some of the girls around me started crying. Our teachers were the ones who called the ambulance and they informed us that the guy's wounds weren't fatal and he was hit on the leg. The reason for all of this ruckus was a stick up gone wrong. The guy was carrying quite a bit of money and a random small time crook decided to have a shot at it. The obvious uncrontrollable shooting is evidence to the fact that they were small timers caught off guard by the resistance.
I wanted to get this incident out of my system once and for all and share another fact that I feel most embarassed to share with people I know. They keep asking me how I'm feeling and I don't really feel much. I'm not an emotional person but seriously I thought I would feel a little bit more. I feel like such a bad person for not feeling properly upset. I'm more shocked at the fact that it happened 11 0' clock in the morning on a road full of traffic. People in cars had kept going on because they didn't even notice anything wrong. Not that this kind of thing happens often but because it's something that people don't consider a possibility.
I feel so sad that media has de-sensitized me so much that I can't feel properly horrified by something that truely is 'that' horrifying. Although now I can empathize with people living through wars. I can't imagine how they live with the constant fear and the sounds. The sounds will probably stick to me the most. I have never heard any human being making more painful and loud screams then that guy.
Message edited by author 2006-07-29 05:39:17.
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07/18/2006 12:08:50 PM · #2 |
wow, must have been shocking. Ive never seen anyone get shot, But I have seen someone get jumped and beaten with a stick. I would say it took at least a month before I didnt get a shiver when I replayed it in my head.
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07/18/2006 12:19:11 PM · #3 |
Ok, let me give you two more stories.
My parents were walking on a downtown street one evening. A guy came running out of a bar. Just a second later, another guy came out chasing him. The second guy pulled out a pistol and fired at the first guy. He hit him and killed him. This happened all right in front of my parents. It was in the late 60's I believe.
But even more shocking is the shooting my brothers and sisters witnessed in the mid-seventies. My family went to a fairly large baptist church. A couple in the church had divorced, but they both still attended services. One Wednesday night, the ex-husband came in, sat in the back, and saw his ex-wife sitting in the middle of the congregation with another man. There may have been a history there, I'm not sure. Toward the end of the service, the ex-husband slipped outside and then came back in. During the final prayer, he walked up to the middle of the church and shot the other guy, killing him. |
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07/18/2006 12:33:16 PM · #4 |
I don't know if anyone of you knows the Taizé community in Burgundy in France. Last year in summer it was in the news because of the prior being murdered.
My boyfriend and me were sitting in the church and witnessing him being stabbed to death by a woman. When she first stabbed him, she screamed such a weird scream, it sounded so unearthly, that still after a year it makes me shiver when I think of it.
We both knew this man from when we were very young, but never imagined we would witness him being murdered. We always thought he would die of old age.
I was very emotional and shocking and we'll be carrying it with us our whole lives.
Nobody should ever see someone they love being killed. |
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07/18/2006 12:38:09 PM · #5 |
Originally posted by UrfaK:
I can't imagine how they live with the constant fear and the sounds. The sounds will probably stick to me the most. I have never heard any human being making more painful and loud screams then that guy. |
That alone tells me you aren't completely insensitive. It quite common that the shock of witnessing such an event turns our emotional settings way down. It's a copingg mechanism we have built in.
I was once mugged at knife point. To my suprise, I was not scared and my mind was extremely clear. I got through the ordeal unscathed and 30 minutes later was watching the guys that pulled it off being put in the back of a cruiser. This happened outside of a bar and some of the patrons knew who the perps were.
My point is, don't beat yourself up, if you don't feel emotional over this. Your mind and emotional responses are driven by instinctive behaviors.
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07/18/2006 12:51:49 PM · #6 |
It's difficult first few times. If you see those thing happening a lot, or if you were in the military and front line... it comes a reflex to you (sadly)
If you hear a shot, I would suggest one thing instead of looking around where is it coming from... duck. bullets don't have directions.
:( |
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07/18/2006 01:24:30 PM · #7 |
UrfaK:
When you experience something like this, your adrenaline kicks in and affects how you respond. If someone were shooting at you and you processed all the emotions first, you'd probably be dead. But, if the emotions are delayed, then you are able to deal with the emergency at hand, and get to safety. As fotomanforever said, its an instinctual response, a response that helps you to survive. Once your adrenaline wears off, you will probably be very exhausted, and your emotions will be more apparent. If you feel you should be sad for the victim, that emotion might not ever come, because you didn't personally know him. The fact that you felt his screams were painful shows that you do feel for him. Your other feelings of fear and shock are all valid responses.
Its good that you are sharing this with others. It will help you process what happened and to heal.
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07/18/2006 01:31:59 PM · #8 |
What a dreadful thing to see. I think you are slightly in shock right now - the reality of the horror of seeing someone being shot will eventually come upon you. As others have said, it's a coping mechanism.
My husband witnessed a woman being shot in the face by her boyfriend in the tiny town where we live (less than 700 people). He had gone to the little grocery store here to buy a can of soup for a recipe I was making. It took him ages to get back and when I asked him why it took so long, he said so matter of factly: "Someone came in and shot the clerk." He was so calm and it seemed it didn't seem bother him at all.
It was later that it started to bother him and especially when it came to trial and he was one of the witnesses. It upset him a lot then and I still think it does a bit today, many years later.
It was one of our favorite foods I was making when he went to the store for the soup - he couldn't eat it for a long time because if I fixed it too many memories would come back. |
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07/19/2006 06:03:42 AM · #9 |
Thank you guys for listening. I guess I really needed to get this incident off my chest...
Thanks again.
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07/19/2006 07:17:17 AM · #10 |
Originally posted by UrfaK:
I feel so sad that media has de-sensitized me so much that I can't feel properly horrified by something that truely is 'that' horrifying. |
Yeah, that must be it, the media. |
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07/19/2006 07:30:20 AM · #11 |
he he this could easily turn into a gun control thread :)
(or did i just start it ?)
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07/19/2006 07:41:05 AM · #12 |
Time's like this I am glad I live in the UK.
Although gun crime is on the increase, they are still very rare. Someone getting shot here is BIG news and is splashed across the national papers for days.
At the risk of starting a flame war I will never understand America's love affair with guns, but I think the problems gone too far to change anything now.
If a law was passed that called for people to hand in thier guns then surely only the law abiding portion of society would comply and that surely defeats the object of passing a law |
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07/19/2006 07:46:09 AM · #13 |
It's interesting how the "coping mechanism' kicks in differently for everybody. I would imagine you won't ever forget this incident and will probably have a bit of delayed reaction at some point. Something else may trigger this memory and you'll have to deal with it again.
My survival instinct didn't kick in for me when as a teenager someone stuck a gun in my ribs and said "Give me your purse, bi...!" I fought for it (unsuccessfully) and chased him until he ran into an alley.
I was 15 and had 20 dollars left over from my paycheck and a brand new pair of glasses in my purse...I'd worked hard to pay for them. Once the police came, I started crying, practically sobbing and didnt stop for a day or so. I realized how lucky I was and how stupidly I had reacted.
Even later on, it wouldn't hurt to talk things over with the counselors.
That's what they are there for.
Message edited by author 2006-07-19 07:50:23. |
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07/28/2006 06:19:00 PM · #14 |
Originally posted by UrfaTheGreat:
Never in my whole life did I imagine that I would ever, ever, ever, see anything like that...
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Wow, you must have a high threshold. I agree with another poster here, get down, or get inside away from windows. I didn't see any shooting, but last year waiting at a busy traffic light I witnessed a FedEx truck being hijacked. Guy running from cops wrecked in middle of intersection. He jumped from the car and sprinted to the FedEx truck, jerked the lady driver to the pavement and took off with the truck. He headed straight at me on the opposited side of the street. As I saw this I noticed two cops draw their weapons and point at the truck. As I realized they would track straight at me as the truck passed, I became intimate with the floorboards of my pickup truck. ;) My .357 magnum pistol was also located there. I was praying I didn't have to get into that ruckus. I didn't. He passed and traveled 50 more miles in a congested urban enviroment before he was captured. I think my heart rate went up about 50 bpm. One of the cops stayed at the intersection to help sort the mess. As I finally went thru the intersection he remarked the whole row of traffic I was in had pretty good reactions. Every driver in the first four or five cars ducked, as if on cue. ;) |
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07/28/2006 06:49:03 PM · #15 |
That sucks, man. You are changed forever, probably. I saw a guy get shot when I was 13 in my apartment building in Montreal. Someone ordered a pizza, and the pizza guy was standing in the entrance waiting to get buzzed up, some other guy came in, shot him in the chest, took his money and ran off.
I was about 10 feet away. I ran over to see if he was dead or if this was all some crazy joke or something, and called the cops from the phone in the entrance.
You'll never never never forget. I wasn't upset about it at first, I was just kind of bewildered. But 10 years later I can describe everything that happened and everything in the lobby to a startling degree.
You'll eventually react to it, I'm pretty sure. I didn't feel anything for a few days until it sunk in. That guy had a family, friends, etc. It'll sink in.
-Hideo |
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07/28/2006 07:16:15 PM · #16 |
If this is going to be a guun control thread, lets make it a deadly weapon control thread. It is people who use guns for the purpose of harming people, not the guns themselves. If guns were not available they would use something else, a knife, sword, baseball bat, shovel, car, anything that would cause harm. Even a pen can be used to kill someone and if you know how, you only need your hands.
I have seen someone die right in front of me. It was from a heart attack, not violent crime, but the effect was still devastating. I did all I could, performing CPR by direction of the 000 - that's the Aussie equivalent of 911 - operator until the ambulance arrived but my mother-in-law was gone. It is the first anniversary of her death on the 31st of July. I am still not 100% over it and I don't think my wife will ever be. It's strange though, I was able to function during the emergency, everything came weeks later. |
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07/28/2006 07:30:09 PM · #17 |
Originally posted by davyaldy:
I am still not 100% over it and I don't think my wife will ever be. |
I lost my mom at 19. No it never goes away. Don't let anyone tell either of you that its been x years you should be over it. It gets dull sometimes. But there are still times in the middle of the night when I wake up and can hear her voice or see her face like it was yesterday. There was a really helpful book called Motherless Daughters that I picked up a few years back. Mostly stories. Women of all ages. I wish you both the best and happy memories. :) |
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07/28/2006 07:50:51 PM · #18 |
i watched both my parents die last year, nine months apart. i will never forget the waiting, nor the guilt that i could do nothing to stop it.
the emotional numbness is completely normal. it takes a long time process big stuff like this.
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