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More Than 25 People Stroll By Dying Homeless Hero

Posted on April 28, 2010 in Blog | | 18 Comments

salvationarmy_homeless_hero On April 25, more than 20 pedestrians strolled by a 31-year-old heroic homeless man as he lay dying in a pool of blood on a New York City street. No-one stopped to help. Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax was stabbed several times in the chest while saving a woman, a complete stranger to him, from a male attacker.

Mr. Tale-Yax remained on the ground for more than an hour and 20 minutes while passersby offered nothing more than a curious glance. When firefighters arrived on the scene, Mr. Tale-Yax had already died.

Unacceptable? Heartless? He might have been saved if someone called 911.

18 Responses

That is appauling

This is awful. I feel livid inside.

This is so sad. I can’t believe that no one would call the police. Especially the woman he saved.

my heart weeps for this man

This was inhumane of the passersby. He was someone’s son.

everyone who just walked by this man and did nothing. may as well have been the one who stabbed him. the truely make me sick to my stomach

Um… this is disgusting, but unfortunately, not unprecedented. What makes me really angry is the fact that there was clearly some surveillance of this entire event (as evidenced by the photo above)… so… someone recorded this event for 80+ minutes and did nothing but count people going by…. that’s seriously messed up.

large cities need a good semaritan law. when people refuse to help a victim, they can be charged.

It is 2010 and yet people still walk by as they did thousands of years ago in the bible, if the Good Samaritan hadn’t stopped, that man would have died too!Don’t tell me we have become such a hardened society and blind to others that we can watch a man bleed to death on the street. God help us!

I’m afraid it’s the way things tend to go Maggie. After awhile people become accustomed to minding their own business or thinking about a reason not to become involved that “being a good neighbour” is practiced less and less. Depending on where you live or what experiences you’ve had may have an influence too. For example there are some in large cities who that’s all they do is go around putting on a good act so that you’ll give them some money. Some stranger walks up to you and tries to help you put money into the parking meter so you can grab the ticket and put it on the dash of your car. Or some girl smoking a cigarette comes up to your windshield with a squigee while your stopped at a red light at a busy intersection and basically does nothing and then holds her hand out for some money. While it is always nice to help others out you envision some scenarios where the potential giver may feel it could be more trouble than it’s worth.
Anyway this is a different case and you’re right. This guy was obviously not acting or anything and it is sad to see so many ignorant people just walk on by.
Perhaps we’re coming up to this “famine of faith” we’ve read about.
Hi Gail. A Samaratin Law is a thought but it wouldn’t show that such an act would be done out of brotherly or sisterly love if such a law existed. Is it possibly to fake something like that? Probably not, nor would I think anyone would dare to try.
Anyway have a good day.

“Wise men learn from their own mistakes. Even wiser men learn from the mistakes of others.”

Any one of us could have been included in the number of people walking past the dying man. It is foolish to think that on any given day, you or I may not have had the courage to help.

While it is a natural first response to feel outraged that no one offered help, we need to look for the good that will come of this evil.

There is a lesson here: I urge you to remember this incident just in case you are faced with similar circumstances in the future and could be the one to prevent a tragedy.

We might be missing something very important here, and before I go on I want to declare that I’m in no way minimizing the horror that took place that day.

I wish the camera had been pointed the other way, so that we could see the faces of the passers by. I bet you won’t find horror on one of them. That’s because the man on the sidewalk wasn’t truly “seen” by anybody. No one paused, fighting with their conscience about whether to help this man or not. Nor did anyone register him mentally enough to feel the need to cross the street.

There is such a thing as overstimulation. It reflects the enormous amounts of information our minds are sujected to at any given place or time. The mind’s only defence to this is to “trance” out. The person is walking, in a medium-level trance – similar to sleep-walking. Anything different than the norm just isn’t processed at all.

No one helped the poor man, because no one truly SAW him.

This is absolutley appauling..there is no words for this cruel behaviour…
Breaks my heart, that poor man died trying to save someone and no one even gace hima second glance while he was dying on the ground..what is wrong with the world today?
Just because someone is homless doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to live.

@Brian C – does it really matter why someone would stop to help? Whether it was because they are truly a wonderful person who stopped or someone who didn’t want to be prosecuted, the result is the same – a man would be alive.

Dianne it is interesting what you say about not seeing. I am reminded of the Salvation Army ads that show homeless people faded into the bench, building or sidewalk and the captions say, “We see what other’s don’t”.

Hi I just dropped by and welcome to say you to make a Merry Christmas. Let all your wishes make get true for you and your home and lets hope the incoming period be prosperous for all us. Merry Christmastime

My prayer is if I see someone in need that I will recognize it and help.

Better yet, although his suffering must have been horrible, is the thought that God has taken him home.

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