Life and death at Supermac’s door.

In Blog, Interviews, Politicsby Fedayn18 Comments

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A well-known Dublin twitter user (ExecutiveSteve) recounted this tale of his experience outside Ireland’s premier fast food outlet on the country’s capital street.

So I tweeted about this late last night when I came home from a lovely evening of music with friends but you were all mostly asleep. Strolling through town on a hot summer night and there’s a man overdosing on heroin right outside Supermac’s on O’Connell street. A syringe is hanging out of him; his two friends are begging someone to call an ambulance – my friend Avril gets on her phone right away. I’m banging on the door of Supermac’s trying to alert the security in there – he looks me in the eye and just shakes his head at me. That’s a few hundred yards from my front door, and there’s someone refusing to get involved with a dying man on their workplace doorstep.

Dublin City have pretty strict littering byelaws that apply to fast food restaurants – they risk big fines for any litter outside premises. They sweep the pavement for stray chips, trash and burger wrappers etc. Clearly a man just dying isn’t much of a priority though. Same street had thousands turn out at a vigil for “life” on it not 36 hours earlier. We got him in the recovery position, his friends secured the syringe, ambulance came very quickly, his breathing was deepening, hope he’s ok. But seriously, who on earth lets a human being just die on a pavement without calling 999, that security guy should be ashamed of himself.

And as soon as your man was being bundled into the ambulance his friends turned to each other to see how much gear they had left.

Comments

  1. One down, a couple of thousand to go…

    Absolute waste of Ambulance resources

    1. Show some compassion Phillip. How would you like it if the person dying was someone close to you. Junkies weren’t always junkies.

      1. Your terming of addicts as mere ‘Junkies’ only serves to reinforce the idea of them being disposable. So far all your apparent empathy towards those with addiction troubles you’re as much a part of the problem in perpetuating the myth that addicts are a sub class to be viewed differently to other human beings.

    2. That’s absolutely disgusting. Those ‘wastes’ are people’s children and siblings, and human beings.

    3. I honestly couldn’t care less about some dead heroin addict. They made their choices in life and they are mostly involved in crime and begging in order to support the lifestyle they have chosen.

      If I wasnt constantly confronted with drug addicts interrupting me while I’m eating outside or trying to break into my home, I might have a little more sympathy, but I dont. Let the lot of them OD.

      1. A bit harsh, but I do agree it is a lifestyle choice. The security guard isn’t to blame here. Everyone calm down.

  2. Well, thankfully “phillip” you don’t get to make that call, and people in the ambulance service do not differentiate between calls by reading articles on the internet.

    Hope you’re proud of your “resource management”, it’s very big of you.

    1. Thats fine and you can think that.

      But when your family members are waiting in hospital behind a junkie, I’d like to get your opinion then.

      Best thing they can do is die. Unlike you or I who pay for them in taxes, they just sponge, no doubt getting disability allowance while decent people struggle to get on the dole.

        1. I agree with Stan, the level of inhumanity is shocking. I had a similiar experience on O’Connell St, people walking past heads down as a Turkish girl was being dragged across the ground by her hair by a Dublin couple out of their heads. Thankfully myself and a lovely Nigerian lady were able to break it up peacefully. Two women in a crowd of men helped the girl. This none of my business attitude to fellow human beings no matter what mistakes they’ve made is disgusting. Shame on anybody who says a junkie is better off dead, you’ve no idea what happened in their life to lead them to that situation. A lil less kneejerk reactionary bullshit and a little bit of compassion an solidarity with your fellow humans.

          1. So saying junkies are worthless yet you point to a case where you defended some girl from a couple “out of their heads”….

      1. Phillip, you’re unbelievable. As Stan and mr H.Wood have pointed out, junkies weren’t always junkies and they have family members also.

        You should rethink your previous statements and consider what the others here have said. It’s pretty saddening that you can’t show any compassion whatsoever. The most appalling thing though is how you think they should all die.

        Try and consider the number (be it large or small) of addicts who have since come clean, and gone on to be successful people.

        Shame on you, man.

  3. Phillip wow dude … that kind of reasoning makes you worse than a junkie.

  4. Phillip is an idiot and a troll. Why bother responding to him?

    Heroin use is rarely, if ever, a ‘lifestyle’ choice. Nobody makes the choice of becoming a heroin addict over, say, going to college. If we all had the exact same positive opportunities in life there would be no junkies at all.

    It’s a complicated issue and saying ‘they should die’ etc. really only highlights two things: The first is to compound the inability of people like Phillip to deal with very complex social issues that require intelligence and imagination to solve. The second is to amplify their own cowardice when balanced and logical discussion and argument are required.

  5. This article is nonsense, Supermac’s is in no way, shape, or form Ireland’s premier fast food outlet.

  6. I am the security guard referred to in the article. I would just like to point out, my reasoning for not calling that ambulance was that 3 different people passing by had already phoned for an ambulance, why then should I? It would be unnecessary. I’m not responsible for anyone let alone am I going to take responsibility for a junkie outside the shop (outside of the area I’m paid to look after) . The author of the article also fails to mention how two associates of the man who had od’d and the girlfriend rolled up, threatening the people helping the man then disturbing the paramedics just to grab a look at the man dying, then being less then friendly when told to stop disturbing them! Take this article for nothing more then some sappy activist pushing an agenda.

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