I’m walking up Pico Blvd Shabbos morning and near Aish HaTorah on the other side of the street, I see a sign announcing that a store has closed and “moved to the internet.” It was FunkyFrum.com.
Walking East on Pico at 10:55 am, I see a well-built Filipino guy holding his arm and walking towards a dry cleaner.
There’s something weird going on. I feel it in the air.
The guy is walking normally but holding his wrist tightly. What could be wrong? I feel something is very wrong.
Then I hear a plain white woman, around 30, screaming, “Patrick! Patrick! Patrick! Get in the car. We’ve got to go to the hospital. We’ve got to go to the hospital.”
He walks past me and says to the woman, “Get away from me! Leave me alone! Leave me alone!”
Then I see the spurting blood coming out of his wrist.
I don’t understand what happened, but it feels like she did something to him.
She corrals him back to the car and keeps yelling, “We’ve got to go to the hospital!”
He opens the passenger door awkwardly, still holding the wound. He gets in and struggles to close the door.
She gets in. Then she gets out and runs to the back of the car and then turns around and returns to the driver seat and roars off East on Pico Blvd.
They had been right next to me. I wanted to help and yet I was afraid to get involved. The couple seemed scary. He was calm and she was yelling but both seemed unsafe.
I don’t think he inflicted the wound. I don’t think she did it intentionally if at all.
I wanted to yell to them, “Follow me,” and lead them into Aish HaTorah and yell, “Is there a doctor in the house?”
There are usually doctors in a synagogue and a first-aid kit to staunch the bleeding.
But I did nothing.
