Station Manager's Shocking Indifference

From Jon:

At approximately 6:10 p.m. yesterday, I was on the Orange Line heading toward Vienna.

At the Court House stop, someone yelled that we needed to hit the emergency button, and I looked behind me to see a young man had passed out.

His eyes were open, but he was initially unresponsive to communication.

I jumped off the train and sprinted up to the station manager and hit the "talk here button" explaining there was a medical emergency and asked her to contact the appropriate authorities.

This is when things went from unusual, to downright insane.

The woman was helping someone out with a farecard, she came over to me, snapped at me and said "you have to wait your turn to talk to me, I heard you the first time." Then, she went back to helping with the farecard situation.

I told her it was a medical emergency again, and that it could be a serious situation.

Her next quote blew me away.

"The train already moved on, it's not my problem anymore," she said.

The lack of concern for human life on this woman's face was absurd.

Then, she berated me, saying it wasn't her job to call or notify anyone.

I said she was being negligent.

She then told me if I didn't like the way Metro was run, tough, I should find another way to work.

I really wish I had this all on videotape. It was such an absurd lack of care for another human. It's scary.

Jon added that he ran into another, very professional and helpful Metro worker who'd been on a break and conveyed what had happened. That worker said the inaction on the part of the station manager was wrong and that she'd only been a station manager for a couple of months. He said she should have dropped what she was doing and called Clarendon immediately to let them know what was going on.

Two other readers witnessed the man passing out. They said the train stopped at Clarendon, and the operator came to the car. At this point, the man said he was OK, and the train went on.

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