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One evening in the early 1980s, I was walking in New York City’s Chinatown. The sidewalks were very crowded and some impatient people were stepping off the curb, walking close to the heavy traffic in the street. A man up ahead of me was hit by a car. He fell to the pavement. Blood seeped from his ear but he was still alive, eyes open and lips moving a bit.

Instinctively I knelt next to him and put a hand on his arm to at least let him know someone was there. Momentarily, another man came over and grabbed his wrist, holding it while he looked at his watch. A woman joined us, too.

“He’s 140 over 80,” the man said.

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That, of course, was a blood pressure reading that the man could not possibly have taken with his hand. The woman looked at him worriedly, but diplomatically said, “I’m a nurse.”

The man dropped the victim’s arm and enthusiastically held out his own hand to the woman, declaring, “Well, so am I. We’re all colleagues here then.”

I sensed from her demeanor that the woman was indeed a real nurse, but the guy obviously was a nut who apparently saw this tragic moment as a chance to live out some heroic fantasy. Fortunately, I heard a police or ambulance siren nearby beeping to get through the traffic.........

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