Editor's Note - The following is an eyewitness account from the picket and antiwar march on Saturday, January 27th, 2007. To the best of our knowledge the following account is accurate and true.
I had been the active picket captain at the January 27 picket at Pier 33.
The Peace marchers were on their way down the Embarcadero to rally along with us, and they were about 10 minutes away from Pier 33 when a man on his bicycle fell.
This bicyclist was neither with the Peace march nor the picket; he did, however, have fishing tackle in a container on his bike, probably on his way to go fishing somewhere along Fisherman's Wharf.
After he fell, he appeared to not be moving, so I ran over to see what kind of condition he was in.
Seeing that he was bleeding profusely from the back of his head, and with the Peace marchers approaching, I yelled for someone to call an ambulance and also made sure that no one made any attempts to move the man (given that he appeared to have a serious head injury).
I then asked someone to give up their coat so that I could cover the man in order to prevent him from going into shock.
Two guys offered up their coats, with which I then proceeded to cover the man as he lay on the pavement.
By this time, some police officers had come over to assist the man, and one of the officers asked me to get some rags.
I ran up to the barricade in front of the entrance to Pier 31 1/2 and asked for some clean rags from the female Hornblower employee who is always videotaping our picket.
She politely informed me that another Hornblower employee had gone to the office to retrieve some rags and some ice packs.
As I thanked her, the other employee then appeared at the barricade, his arms loaded with what looked like about 5 or 6 ice packs (but no rags), only one of which he handed to a nearby female police officer.
Standing right next to said female police officer, I then extended my hand out to the Hornblower employee with the intention of also receiving an ice pack to take over to the injured man, because I figured that one small ice pack would not be enough.
The Hornblower employee ignored me. I walked away, disgusted that these people would put politics ahead of helping a fellow human being in need of medical attention. Never mind the fact that the injured man has no apparent connection to either side of this struggle.
Amy G.,
IBU
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