At a softball tournament recently a guy got a bat in the head. Everyone (35-40 people) circled him but noone said or did anything. He was bleading a lot (he is ok btw. No serious injury, just a cut in his mouth).
I, as the only non-Japanese speaking foreigner, was the last to arrive but the first (and only) to act.
Talked to the guy and made someone get some ice and water and towels.
Someone called an ambulance and everyone were overly helpful to direct the ambulance (like 5 guys running to point same direction) but noone helped the poor guy.
This also happened before at a car accident (it turned out ok).
In a big intersection someone called for ambulance but noone did anything. Everyone nearby was staring and cars even going around and carrying on.
I was the only one when ran there (a few more came after me). I got some ice at a nearby Family Mart (which the made me pay for after)..
So my question is: why are Japanese paralysed in these quite serious situations? People call ambulances but noone interact and try to help the situation in any other way.
I understand that some don’t want to get their fingers dirty and some actually are paralysed ik such situations. But to me it seems like the entire population don’t want to interfere in accidents.
It makes me worry that something serious would happen to me. Like fainting in the middle of a busy area and people just stepping over or looking at me.
TL;DR: Why does Japanese not take action in emergency situations?
29 comments
For the exact same reason as everyone else, it’s called the bystander effect.
Peter Noone generally has this sort of thing under control so no need for anyone else to do anything.
Why are foreigners in Japan so quick to assume that EVERYTHING is because people here are Japanese?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility)
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This is why, and why when you do first aid training you’re taught to call on a specific person and tell them exactly what you want them to do eg: “You in the red shirt, call the ambulance.” It’s a good thing to be aware of so that next time this situation happens, you can be the one to start things moving.
This happens in most countries, especially in the developed/wealthy countries where accidents are rare.
If you want to do better, IIRC the idea is to command specific individual to call ambulance or what not.
Years ago I was sitting with my Japanese wife in a cafe located in a department store on a hot August day when an elderly man collapsed on the floor seemingly from the heat. Two female clerks nearby hid behind a rack of clothing and whispered about what to do. The young man at the cafe counter just stared blankly at the scene. I had to get up and tell that young man to call for some help. A few minutes later the JANITOR came and helped the old man out of the building.
Another time, again on a hot August day, my wife and I were in a movie theatre for a double feature. When the lights went down the manager came near where I was sitting, opened a panel on the wall, and shut the AC off for the entire theatre. By the time the first movie was over, everyone was muttering how hot it was. I expected someone to get up and ask that the AC be turned on but nobody moved. So I, the lone gaijin, got up and forced them to turn it back on.
Another time I saw a man lying on the ground getting beat on the head with his own shoe in front of Mister Donut. Guess who got the attention of a policeman?
Once a heavily pregnant woman was attempting to get up a long flight of stairs and was crying as she stopped while holding on to the rails. Hundreds of people saw her but only the lone gaijin gave her a hand.
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The list goes on …
Some people also don’t want to get involved or feel they have things to do besides waiting for the police to give statements.
Other people may feel like they don’t know what to do. Sometimes trying to help without knowing what to do can cause worse outcomes, such as moving someone who has been seriously injured.
Lots of different things cause people to freeze up.
Having resided in China years ago, people were afraid to offer help to the injured because there was this assumption of responsibility if you did. And in some cases, legal liability. They didn’t have Good Samaritan laws, like in other countries. Victims who fell and injured themselves on their own would sue people who came to their aid. Even if you had nothing to do with the accident or cause of injury, judges in China could hold you responsible.
I’ve asked a similar question before and was told that, if something goes wrong while you’re helping someone else, you’ll get blamed (and possibly sued) for it, so people would rather not intervene.
And then everyone stood up and clapped.
This is just one factor, but people here seem to be terrified of litigation. Nobody wants to be held responsible for anything. Hospitals will turn away someone who will surely die rather than treat them at the risk of the patient dying and getting sued for it.
I, on the other hand, go completely blank in an emergency. I would never have thought of getting ice or towels, I just wouldn’t know what to do on the spot
People called ambulances and you think you did better because you grabbed some ice?
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So my question is: why are Japanese paralysed in these quite serious situations? People call ambulances but noone interact and try to help the situation in any other way. I understand that some don’t want to get their fingers dirty and some actually are paralysed ik such situations. But to me it seems like the entire population don’t want to interfere in accidents.
What an idiotic generalisation. Gain more life experience.
I don’t think people are paralysed in these situations, they just don’t want the responsibility or be liable. There are people who are experts (aka paramedics) so people think it is best to leave it to them.
Good samaritan laws here are very weak and mostly protect emergency service workers. Its one of the reasons ER departments turn away people if they are full. If they accept you but don’t have enough staff and something happens to you, they are liable. So if they turn you away and you die later, they are not liable as you were not in their care (shitty I know).
There’s also the issue if you try to help and you are hurt, what will happen to you as you willingly put yourself in the situation. Insurance (other than medical) may not pay out to you.
Even in the workplace you see people avoid get involved in projects because they don’t want responsibility or the blame if it goes wrong. Its why I always tell ALTs to not get involved. If it goes wrong, you are the scapegoat.
This is a global thing though, you see videos of people not touching people who are hurt as they don’t want the blame.
Last week a grandpa fell down near traffic lights. I saw him falling and a dozen of people just walked by. I rushed to him. He had some kind of information paper on his chest, probably is lost and does not even remember his name. Luckily a patrol car was going through the street so I rushed to them and made them stop. I have no idea what happened after that. It was very sad none actually gave a fuck.
That isn’t a Japanese thing. It’s common worldwide. When in large groups people are worse at dealing with emergencies since they all assume somebody else will deal with it, and probably do a better job than they coud too.
It’s why when in emergency situations you should call people out individually so they actually react. eg. rather than saying ″somebody call an ambulance″ point at a specific person and say ″hey, you, call an ambulance″. Using their name would be better, but if it’s a stranger that may be difficult.
To counter your story, I witnessed something really amazing once on the subway. During a fairly busy time of day a young woman suddenly fainted, falling backwards and loudly smacking her head on the floor. The response was immediate. Several women swarmed her and started supporting her head/checking for bleeding, a woman down the carriage jumped up and said “I’m a nurse!” and rushed over, and another woman yelled “I’ll call on the emergency phone!” And ran to it. I was floored by how quickly people responded. The girl was okay, really embarrassed, and at the next station an attendant was waiting at the door with a wheelchair to take her.
Maybe it’s just the power of the women-only car.
>It makes me worry that something serious would happen to me. Like fainting in the middle of a busy area and people just stepping over or looking at me.
It’s a valid fear and may very well happen.
People in the comments are saying it happens everywhere and it’s not just a Japan thing, but without a doubt it’s much worse here. Probably due to the culture of staying out of other people’s business.
My friend almost drowned as a young child while a group of adults just watched from the jetty. I guarantee this would not happen in my home country.
Welcome to the human race, that’s just how our species works. It’s called the bystander effect.
There’s only a relatively rare few like you who actually undertake action in such situations.
I know you probably meant well, and this may go against the cultural conditioning you’ve grown up with, but if there’s no immediate need to act then wait for the professionals.
The problem with head and neck injuries is that there is might be spinal cord damage that you can’t see, and moving someone can aggravate this damage. This is why paramedics immobilise the neck and head before moving the person.
So this guy got hit in the head with a bat? If there’s no life-threatening situation that needs immediate action then the best course of action is to leave them alone, encourage them not to move, and call an ambulance. Because they might have a serious spinal cord injury and moving them could be the difference between a successful recovery and permanent paralysis.
Now obviously if someone is fountaining blood, or is in a crashed car in a dangerous location, or if there’s some other compelling reason, like no heart beat, then moving them becomes an option.
But otherwise? Wait for the professionals. Let them do their job. They have the right equipment and training. In these situations often the wrong (but well-intentioned) action is worse than waiting.
I understand that some people here come from countries where you might be out in the middle of nowhere and average ambulance response times might be measured in hours, not minutes, but in Japan hospitals tend to be close and the average ambulance response time is less than 10 minutes.
And this is why Japanese people will tend to just call and ambulance, and then stand back and wait to guide them in. Because this is what they’ve been drilled to do, and under the circumstances it is the response that is likely to lead to the best outcome for the injured person.
Again, I know this can be hard to do, but sometimes the best thing you can do is wait for a professional with the right equipment and training to arrive, because there’s a distinct possibility that your intervention could do more harm than good. Try to resist the urge to do “something” simply because you want to be active. Instead focus on what is likely to produce the best result for the patient.
I saw a very drunk(?) woman collapse on a train in Osaka and I was expecting people to ignore it but everyone sprang into action asking if she was okay and assisting her.
This is the opposite of what I’ve observed. A few months ago someone fainted in my train car. Immediately a small group swung into action.
This wasn’t the case with me when I kinda fainted from heatstroke. I was at a water throwing festival watching the parade when I suddenly felt unwell and then kind of fainted (don’t really know what happened as I lost consciousness and was dreaming some crazy dream and when I open my eyes, I’m being led out of the crowd facing a different way). Quite a few people wanted to make sure I was ok, got me drinks, poured water on me, gave me a salt tablet, put ice packs on me and called an ambulance. Very nice and friendly people 😊
Don’t really know if it’s a Japanese thing or just a big city thing tbh.
I few months ago i had a bicycle accident at night flipping over my bike and plenty of people came to help me take my bike off of me after getting the wind knocked out of me.
People made sure I was ok and this was near an intersection in Tokyo.
At the same time I’ve eaten shit slipping on the cross walk in Sapporo and no one ever bats an eye.
Really hard for me to say it’s Japanese though the idea of it but being not your business because you are busy seems more reasonable
I wish I could say OP is overgeneralizing but I’ve been in situations like this as well. An old man fell on a street near Ebisu Station. He was bleeding from his mouth and couldn’t get up. My friend and I, both foreigners, immediately ran to help. Lots of Japanese who saw the incident looked and walked past a man who was clearly in distress. Eventually, a young woman came over with a police officer who told us we could go now that help was on the way. I’ve seen emergency situations in London and New York where people jump into action. I guess it’s just not in the culture here.
There was an [article](https://japantoday.com/category/national/schoolgirl-commended-by-police-for-helping-lost-4-year-old-child) about a 2021 incident with a lost 4yo girl. The only person to help was a 15yo. Japanese commenters lamented the state of affairs in their own country. Not saying Japanese never help because that’s ridiculous but there definitely does seem to be a theme of avoiding the appearance of taking responsibility.
This sub is full of English-language Nihonjinron.
Anecdotal, but a while back in my local neighborhood (in Tokyo) I was about the 4th person on the scene where an elderly gentleman had fallen off his bicycle next to the railway crossing. The three other (evidently unrelated) people clearly had things under control and were calling an ambulance and being careful not to move him or anything because potential head injury. I hung around for a couple of minutes in case there was anything I could do, but as there wasn’t, I made my excuses and left.
Not so long ago, in the same neighborhood, I nearly came a cropper on my bicycle while crossing a main road, a lady on a bicycle asked if I was OK, I’m pretty sure had I actually fallen off, she would have stopped and helped.
This week, Kabukicho (I sometimes cut through a corner of it for non-Kabukicho reasons), I espied a young dude curled up on the street, from a brief glance I suspect he was sleeping something off and was not obviously injured, but because Kabukicho I decided the situation was someone else’s problem and continued about my non-Kabukicho business.
TL;DR: from my experience, it’s not “the Japanese”, it’s “big city bystander effect” (which I have experienced in other countries too).
I mean in both cases it sounds like a Japanese person did the most important part i.e. calling the ambulance and getting medical professionals to the scene. Lots of folks freeze up when it’s actually a high stress situation that’s why jobs that require important reactions in stressful situations usually involve lots and lots of repetitive training.
This is not an exclusive Japanese thing. Here in London people do this shit all the time. Sometimes I think this sub is either full of closet racists or just ignorant people?
Two situations like this happened for me in Tokyo.
I was returning home and I saw an older man stop his bike, but couldn’t get his feet off the pedals. He fell sideways and hit his head on the side of a concrete wall. There were 6 or 7 people around him that just kept going, while I ran up and got the bike untangled from his feet and helped him up. No real damage. But it was surprising no one helped him.
Second, I was in Haneda airport walking up to my gate, and an elderly Australian woman tripped over her own feet about 25 meters ahead of me. She hit the ground face first, I was actually stunned for a few seconds. Semi-crowded hall but noone stopped while I ran up to her. She was rolling over as I ran up, and I could see streams of blood running out of her head. When she hit her face, her glasses broke and the frame cut a good 6 cm gash into her temple, pretty deep. I knelt and held my trustee handkercheif (yeah, I’m one of those guys with one always in my pocket) to her temple. Everyone else just walked by until one other person ran up. It was another white guy. He said his partner was a physician, ran and got her. 1 minute later (no one else stopped) a white physician helped me and she did assessments.
There were some shopkeepers at duty free looking on the whole time, but I had to aggressively flag them down to come over and ask them to call help. Security showed up and only had a small first aid kit. Turns out Haneda doesn’t have a nurse station and they said the only thing they could do is call an ambulance. The physician and I got her patched up as best we could and then security wheeled her off in a wheelchair.
I’m still blown away by the mass of people that looked uninterestingly on while we tried to help this poor lady, even though my hands and clothes were covered in blood.