What will you do if you happen to see a SUV run over a trio of pedestrians? Call 911? Assist the wounded? Stand still? Or satisfy your hunger? The last option may not fit in the scheme of things, but a woman recently chose to keep walking biting into her pizza even after she saw a car hit three people, killing one in Fort Green, Brooklyn.
A surveillance video shows an unidentified unfazed woman, momentarily glancing toward the accident scene, then turning around and walking away biting into her pizza as if nothing happened. Apparently, she was too busy eating a slice of pizza to care that another woman had just been killed.
“I don’t know how you could keep eating your pizza and keep walking. There’s no reason. At least try. Make it your business to help. Not OK. … Wouldn’t you want to help?” Lerima Guadelupe, 32, who works at a nearby bakery, told DNAinfo New York.
Frank Lopez, who works at a nearby deli, remarked, “All I can say is the world we live in, some people are cold-hearted. There’s nothing I can do to change them. God have mercy on them and that’s it.”
While a 30-year-old art curator, Victoria Nicodemus, died in the accident, a 37-year-old man and 75-year-old woman were left seriously hurt in the crash. The driver of the SUV, 39-year-old Marion Sewell, was arrested and charged with driving without a license and insurance. He told police he went up on the sidewalk after swerving to miss a bus that had stopped on the road.
Witness Leslie Meeman, who lives and works across the street from the crash scene, told the New York Daily News that after the fatal accident the driver got out of the car and dropped to the ground, weeping.
“And that’s when I started crying. I cried for him. Whatever happened to him while he was driving, he’s in jail now. He’s in jail on his mind for the rest of his life. It just looked like a guy who made a horrific, horrific mistake. I don’t know what happened but he wasn’t driving erratic, it didn’t seem like he was speeding. He’s broken for life. The family of that poor woman is broken.”
Was the pizza-eating woman incredibly heartless or was she simply not in her right mind? Should she have stopped and helped? Xiomara Morgan, who saw one of the other victims crawl through blood to try and help Nicodemus, said she cannot judge the woman who walked away. “Honestly, I can’t judge her. She has her own reason for walking away in a situation like that.”
Slate observes:
Going into shock during and in the immediate aftermath of catastrophic events is apparently a frequent enough occurrence that there’s a technical name for it: “peritraumatic dissociation“, which can involve “emotional numbing, reduction in awareness of one’s surroundings, depersonalization, and amnesia”.
The local police have stated that “she wasn’t obligated to help by law” (wait but wasn’t she obliged to help for the sake of humanity?). What would you have done if you were at her place? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below…
This Article (New York: Woman Witnesses Fatal Crash, Walks Away Eating Pizza [VIDEO]) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and AnonHQ.com.
Some people are callous. That could be what was going on here. However, some people’s brains react differently when witnessing horrific events. The brain can try to protect itself . And a sort of denial can occur. So we can’t really know what was going on with this woman and her brain or how she experienced this event.
I don’t really know. Does anybody? The idea of dissociative disorder makes some sense to me. Anybody old enough to remember Kitty Genovese?
Kitty Genovese died because she was a lesbian and DID is quite a stretch
don’t spend much time in NYC, huh?
She could have had a lot of reasons not to run over there…maybe she has no training, maybe she’s allergic to the sight of blood, maybe she doesn’t speak English, maybe she knew many people were coming to help, who knows? I bet if this was in a more secluded area with few chances help would be by, she would have dropped her pizza and ran to give what aid she could…and I believe most people would do the same.
We don’t know what was going through that woman’s head. None of us should judge her for walking away.
New Yorkers…. hardened to the core..
Ignorant statement of the day. Ignore the scores of others rushing to aid and define an entire cities worth of people from this one woman. Good job.
Some people are just dead souls. Perhaps this woman is one of them.
Good one kit that lady could of done something I’d be embarrassed if I was her
OK. Look at the walk.. That woman was absolutely waisted. Totaly doped and out of this world..
This is my conclusion. Oft drilled into my head in the military was “stay out of the way when you’re inebriated, cause if you make a mistake while sober, it’s a mistake. If you’re inebriated, you’re a risk, and a mistake is a felony.”
I agree. She probably wasn’t sober. Looked very confused…not there.
You wouldn’t want her involved.
I got slapped around after being sued by a guy in 2001 that I gave cpr to after he nearly drowned. He didn’t win the lawsuit against me, but the lawsuit process and time away from work made it very traumatic. No way in hell I am going to risk my home and family financial freedom again by trying to help people. Unless it is a family member I will just walk away and let fate take its course. In new york where practically every third person is a lawyer or is related to a lawyer, then it has to be even worse.
There are “Good Samaritan”laws on the books across the country. Your case should not have ever been filed! Such a shame. But please reconsider your position – we are all brothers and sisters and need one another. A life you help today you may need tomorrow! Blessings!
Shitty view of life. lets hope that if your ever in that situation the person available to help doesn’t think “well i might get sued, good luck lady”
It’s a pretty old concept to walk a mile. A shitty view of life comes from experience, that you obviously don’t understand. I live in a country where I’m a foreigner, and even if I save someones life with cpr, I can be imprisoned for sexual assault. Will I refuse to perform cpr? No. But I will ask for and caution anyone else in my case under the circumstance to seek local help. But I’ve been kicked around my whole life, and the country I’m in now has been kind and generous to me. I’d gladly give my life to save one of theirs. And the legal issues in the states are seriously fucked up. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Were I still in the states, I’d agree with Aislynn. Especially given that the girl in the article is obviously intoxicated. No way in hell would I try to help someone in New York while intoxicated. I’d call an ambulance, while eating my pizza to try to temporarily quick sober and give directions. Sure as shit not the police, and I would not stop walking. Sober, yes I’d help. Either way, I’d eat that pizza.
Very possible she has had a bad experience trying to help in a situation especially when police are bound to be involved
brain dead, #CognitiveDissonance, souless :'( I am a quick responder. I know myself. I dont care HOW fkin good that pizza was, life matters. I witnessed an accident right near my window, guy speeding, hit a car, then a telephone pole, then rolled over. I grabbed my dish gloves (was all I had) and my first aid kit and CPR mouth piece, and went out there to help. Luckily for the douche bag driving drunk, he was not injured.
Don’t offer excuses, she turned around, turned back and ate while she gawked. Maybe there is no requirement she help but my God, what has happened to us?
This person could be mentally disabled, in which case calling them out as “cold-hearted” and “callous” after showing a video of them online for their reaction during a traumatic situation would actually be considered bullying.
Every non-verbal movement she made is one of indifference or at best casual interest. The multiple times she turns and evaluates what she saw, the hesitations and then the final decision to continue on and take a bite of her food shows me this woman was in clear control of her thoughts and feelings and chose to simply go on her merry way.
This is what I get out of it. Can’t believe how many people are trying to make excuses
i seen an older woman walking down the street some time ago she dropped a can of food from a distance and seemed to be struggling i sprinted over to her took her bags asked were her car was and helped her with her shopping and that felt like something i couldn’t walk away from
we know as mankind not everyone is built the same not everyone is born with empathy
im glad i was born with a soul i actually feel sorry for the woman walking away
because if that was her under that car i would still help her…
there,s a switch in your mind that is supposed to turn on when you see a situation like
this i thought that was just human…
I probably would have done the same thing honestly. Life has made me apathetic by nature. People will suffer. To feel for one of them would require me to feel for them all. I could but I just feel too empty to care
Whats up with everyone judging ? There were people rushing to the scene seconds afterwards . You also see on the right in 2nd cam people looking on and standing there .
Plus Pizza is a life . You go girl !
Clearly not a Human in New York
mmmm Pizza
I have witnessed an accident, and while everyone stood around just staring, Me the handicapped woman who walks with a cane is the only one to go and help an elderly woman out of her car, as Im struggling to keep her upright it wasn’t until I started yelling at all the able body MEN standing around with their thumbs up their asses, to get over here and help me, i could not believe they would all stand there and watch this. I dont get people.
That’s a damn shame. I would dropped that damn pizza and helped. I helped a man out before when his motorcycle was hit from behind. Nasty seen he wasn’t wearing a helmet. Even went to see him in hospital the next day. That’s what’s wrong with this world. No compassion for others.
no unfort. we live in a society now that if you try and help you can get sued or well orchestrated scenes can be set up for an ambush causing you to be injured or killed. indifference is the current actuality. What was expected of her?
i get it. she seems callous and cold hearted. but is there a point in publicly shaming her for it? why not shame people caught on security footage walking past the santas ringing bells for charity? when do you draw the line of expecting people to act to your standards, and then shaming them when they stop. its not like shes the one who drove the vehicle, and then drove away. and for that matter, in the same video, it shows two african american men who just stood there watching the entire thing, with hands in their pockets. where the public shaming for those able bodied men just spectating and offering no assistance? if youre gonna be that much of a dictator on peoples reactions, hold the entire crowd by the same standards, not just the one enjoying her pizza.
and yes, at the very least she could have taken a moment to call 911. but technically she did nothing wrong. morally is another story. but theres so many reasons why she might not have helped physically, maybe she was drunk, maybe she thought it was gang or terrorist related and didnt want to get involved (although if that was the case id suspect to see her running from the scene). regardless, the point is, you dont exactly have the right to try and ruin someones life via social media just because her moral compass doesnt point directly at north like you think yours does. unless shes actually done something legally wrong, she doesnt deserve the amount of attention being singled out on the internet can bring. there are literal psychopaths who (if her identity is found and released) would threaten her life over this. and if anything came of those threats, your hands wouldnt be free of blood.
I would have kept walking and eating my pizza, maybe taken phone out for a couple of selfys
in Australia, you do not have to administer first aid if you have not been trained, but you cannot do nothing, the minimum is to call for police/ambulance.
Here we go with the losing of humanity rhetoric again. Wasn’t BLACK FRIDAY PROPAGANDA enough?
No way to know what’s happening with the woman and the pizza. From the video there seems to be an extraordinary amount of loud and bright input. The woman is walking slowly, almost staggering?
The accident looks sort of like a slow impact event, not able to tell where the victims are in the frame.
Lots of folks are helping, lots of movement.
Such a sad event. My sincere condolences to those who lost a loved one in this incident. Truly the most important focus should be to help them now if we can.
am i the only one that thinks she may not have realized people were hit?
i have bad night vision and could miss something like that…
i could think it was a ‘oh this guy hit the parking meter’ type of thing and not be too concerned
I personally don’t see that this is a real issue… If a person walking away from an accident is a problem, then what is our intentionally ignoring of problems that are all around the world?
Everybody complaining about the lady but there are other people standing closer not doing a thing. She got singled out cuz she is eating pizza.
People has cause people to not want to help. For example here where I live a woman got hit by a train a person stopped and helped the woman but pulling her out of the vehicle to save her life cause neck injury guess what that sorry no good woman done that could have died she sued the person that helped her because of her neck. And things like that had happened in situations me personally I’m sorry unless your a kid I don’t think I could help due to what you would do later that is the reason people are like that
If she was high on marijuana I’ll understand. She’s just high enjoying her pizza, trying to get home. I hope.
You who condemn, can you not say that in the confusion of the incident you are simply another bystander. I think that most people have already walked on when they knew the emergency services were there and did not want to stare. You could not do anything, you would be in the way and she was receiving all the help. Haven’t you done it – be honest with yourselves. Not to say that we are not emotionally affected anyway and may feel helpless.
ok let forget about her for a minute , and yes she was wrong , ok ,, so what about the ones that just look and one was smiling , why they dont do nothing, they are just looking no ?
It has simply become a world where no one cares. Weakness, selfishness and as long as I.. Are words thoughts opinions that permeat this world we live in.
We are all born with fight or flight reactions, it is an innate ability that we share, regardless of race or gender.
To abandon the weak, suffering or dying is morally reprehensible and one no one should undertake.
There are no words to describe this person who chose herself and her own needs over another. The point is she was caught in her action of moral and ethical failure, she must now live with the consequences of her behavior, she may find that one day she is in need of help and there is no one there to help her.
Perhaps she didn’t realize the situation because of the situation of many of the countless reasons?.
I see other people walking away in the viseo and just standing around just standing around not helping. It’s not just this woman.
what about the other people that were just standing there not even eating pizza?
I would not judge the woman. Who knows what she is going through. She knows herself and her capabilities and why should we be blaming her for not helping?? Blaming her will be just like blaming you for not being there??
I am just about convinced people are just becoming desensitized. This just comes down to people not caring. No time in my life for people like that. Stale stagnant useless.
If we try to ‘technologize’ our society to make it more calculable, all we get are fights on black friday and pizza eating witnesses when other people need help.
pick up the phone and call for help , need no obligation for that . she was the first who saw the crash and it was just behind her .
Or maybe she didnt get it how much big is the accident , thinking oh well that was quick no body hurt and etc.. let eat pizza..
My Condolences for it .