Two good Samaritans stopped to help an epileptic man after he was allegedly knocked unconscious by a speeding e-scooter on the pavement in Rotherhithe on Sunday night, needing medical treatment.
The man, whom witnesses named as David, was found by local resident Allison Robertshaw lying passed out and bleeding on the pavement on Teredo Road by the Pizza Hut, as she made her way home from the Yellow House, where she had been watching England’s defeat to Italy in the Euro 2020 final.
“He was just lying there in the open,” she said. “I can’t believe no one else had seen him or was helping him.”
Allison immediately called an ambulance but needing more help with the victim, she asked if any of the passengers on a bus that stopped nearby had medical knowledge.
Paul Tester, one of the people on the bus, had done first aid training years before. He was on his way to Euston to catch the last train home to Berkhamsted. Missing the train could have been an inconvenient and costly problem for him, but he saw that David needed help so got off the bus.
Paul said: “It was the first time I’d done something like this but no one seemed to jump up and help. Although I did have to get my train home, if someone asks for help, if you can you should. I just got off to see if there was anything I could do.”
He found David lying on the pavement slipping in and out of consciousness and bleeding from the mouth.
“I put him in a recovery position, supported his neck, shook him, talked to him, got him to come round a bit. His leg was hurting. He was in a bit of pain and shock too.
“I was trying to make sure he was conscious, and then get him conscious again when he was passing out.” When he was conscious David told Paul that an e-scooter had raced along the pavement and knocked him over.
David, who is epileptic, also suffered what Paul described as a minor seizure, rolling over and stiffening up before recovering again.
All the while Alison was on the phone with the ambulance, which she said arrived between twenty minutes and half an hour after she made the call. “But that’s not surprising considering the cluster f*ck that was last night,” she said, referring to the violence and disorder in London before and after the football match.
After the ambulance arrived paramedics treated David and decided he did not need hospital treatment.
But Paul still needed to find his way home. He had missed the last bus so got an expensive Uber to Euston, eventually making the last train home.
Asked if he had learned anything from the incident, Paul said: “I think it reinforced in me, if someone asks for help, help. If you don’t think you know what to do, you probably know more than you think, so just help.
“I did a first aid course years ago, but I never really needed it until now… But you don’t even need too much training, it was literally just keeping him company and keeping him awake.”
A spokesperson for the London Ambulance Service said: “We were called at 11.01pm yesterday (11 July) to reports of a collision involving an electric scooter and a pedestrian on Teredo Street, SE16.
“We sent an ambulance crew, who treated a man at the scene but did not take him to hospital.”
Police said they had no record of the incident.
The alleged collision comes a week after Southwark joined a Transport for London (TfL) trial that means people riding TfL scooters are officially allowed to go through the borough on roads, cycle lanes and cycle paths. You cannot hire e-scooters in the borough.
Despite what appears to be widespread usage of private e-scooters on public land, they are only supposed to be used on private property. E-scooters are not allowed to be ridden on the pavement, although this is also a common sight.
There will be many many more casualties