“They kept walking”: 78-year-old man breaks hip and is left on the road without help
A 78-year-old man was left on the road for an hour and a half without help after falling off his bike, his daughter said.
Karingal resident Allan Mayo-Smith was cycling near Skye Road in Frankston, Melbourne when his front wheel slipped on sand, landing him on concrete and breaking his hip.
His daughter Kathryn Smith said he called on several people who saw him, but they did not go to his aid.
“He saw some people walk past and he was waving at them,” she told the ABC.
“He was screaming ‘help me’, and they just looked at him and kept walking.”
Smith said her father was “left to lie on wet grass” before a father and a son stopped to call an ambulance and take his bicycle for safekeeping.
“I was really disappointed in those people who just looked and then kept going,” she said.
“It’s not hard to check on someone.
“You can check on them a couple of metres away if you’re afraid it’s a set-up or a drug person. But he was in cycle gear, he was an old dude, you know.”
Since the fall earlier this week, Mayo-Smith has had hip replacement surgery.
Smith recalled a similar experience that she had when motorists “were just driving past” as she struggled in a motorbike accident on the Monash Freeway three months ago.
“People stopped, but only the ones that witnesses it. They didn’t get out and help, they saw me struggle to pick the bike up,” she said.
“I think everyone’s just out for themselves these days.”