Its an old story, we have all seen it in a horror film, or read it in a book, or even heard it while telling ghost stories in a group. Someone’s driving along a country lane late at night, when the car’s headlights reveal a body on the road. The body is not moving. The driver of the car gets out to check on the body, only to find out that its some maniac.
If you were in the story, would you have stopped to offer help to the injured person? Or would you have driven past, possibly leaving an innocent person to die at the side of the road?
Well I now know my answer to this question, for it happened to me last night. I had gone to a kind of house warming/social gathering of sorts, then on the way home after a short detour to drop off a friend at his place, I proceeded home about 2am.
After l had left the main roads, and was traveling along country lanes, the lights of my car illuminated a body curled up at the side of the road. It was just lying there unmoving, and there was no houses, building in the area, and a bit out the way for anyone to be walking around at that time of night.
So I pulled over before the body, and decided what to do, it was not an easy choice, years of watching horror movies, and reading the books, coupled with training to be wary of suspicious circumstances telling me to drive on and pretend I saw nothing. And on the other side I had common decency in wanting to check the guy was alright and not in need of help.
In the end decency won out, and I got out the car to check on them, Ok, there was a knife in my pocket and I was ready to slam it into their chest had they made any offensive looking moves. As it was my caution was not needed, the guy was just drunk and lost, so had decided to sleep where he was, and find his way home in the morning. So I pointed him in the right direction, and continued on my way, happy in the knowledge that when the moment required it, I did the right thing!!
