英语报刊读50篇.docVIP

Hard to help the elderly now What will you do when you see an old person falling to the ground? Your first reaction may be helping him/her up. Hold on, you may get yourself into trouble. The old man or woman may grasp you by your arm and claim that you pushed him/her down. If the old person has broken his/her arms or legs, you will have to pay handsomely. That is not a bizarre scenario one has made up. It happens often. Then, you may ask, who will dare to help a fallen old person in streets? Thats right. Nowadays, few will do. Take an event that happened not long ago. In a downtown plaza in Nanjing, a man of about 70 fell to the ground, foaming at the mouth. He fainted several times while trying to call for emergency rescuers with his mobile phone. Passers-by watched but none moved to help. They informed an urban administrative officer nearby. People did not act to help the old man for fear of being accused of causing his fall. Once the old man or his relatives raised such an accusation, the helper will find it difficult to prove otherwise. This, again, is not exaggeration. People have learned a lesson from a case well known throughout the country. It happened in the same city of Nanjing. One day in July 2007, an old woman surnamed Xu broke her shin when getting off a bus. Peng Yu, a young man who was also alighting from the bus, helped the woman to a hospital and gave 200 yuan to her relatives for initial treatment. Xu claimed that she fell because Peng bumped into her. Peng said he did not collide with Xu, but that he helped her purely out of fellow feeling. A passer-by, who had seen what happened, proved Pengs innocence in court when the case was heard. The court, however, ruled that Peng was partly responsible and ordered him to pay 45,876 yuan, or 40 percent of the losses the old woman suffered. The court based the verdict on its reasoning. It said Pengs action went against common sense because he could have well left the scene if he had not caused the woman to