Dr. Stephen Dorner, an emergency-room doctor at Mass. General, posts video taken by an MGH physician's assistant, on her way home after an overnight shift caring for Covid-19 patients, who asked a woman on the Orange Line to pull up her mask.
Of course, it didn't end there:
This passenger not only got in another passenger’s face while unmasked, but then followed this PA through the station where she got off, continuing to scream at and taunt her. @MBTA what are you doing to keep the public safe? This is completely unacceptable.
Violence against healthcare workers is at an all time high. We put our lives on the line caring for patients in this deadly pandemic. We should expect to have the ability to get home safely.
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Comments
Both people in this video
By anon (not verified)
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 10:24am
Suck.
and the T's reply: "If we are
By Rob
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 10:36am
and the T's reply: "If we are made aware at the time, we will address the unmasked person"
-
"Made aware at the time"???!!!
Make who aware???
Motorman?
Conductor?
Transit cop conveniently on the beat on that train or the next platform?
A token booth clerk??!!
Pull the emergency brake and ruin everyone's night (more than the asshat not wearing a mask already is)?
Oh, I know! Talk to an ambassador! Where do I find them - East 42nd St, The Hague, or Geneva?
What do you propose? The T
By anon (not verified)
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 11:41am
What do you propose? The T can't have a mask enforcement agent walking up and down every subway car at all times.
If you want to report a problem and you can't find a T employee, you can call the Transit Police on your phone. If you don't have a phone, you can look for an emergency call box.
It isn't impossible
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 5:51pm
I saw one hockey fan who was "gagging" (like sagging, but with the face butt hanging out) headed onto a train in Montreal and he was immediately stopped by Metro personnel and told to pull it up.
Of course it would help if Charlie would stop trying to drown the T in a bathtub.
That's the point, genius -
By Rob
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 6:12pm
That's the point, genius - that those things can't work when they're not there.
Oh, I almost forgot... Nice
By Rob
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 7:31pm
Oh, I almost forgot... Nice trivialization of assault. Maybe you should get some help?
On the flip side
By BostonDog
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 10:47am
I took the Red Line yesterday in as long as I can remember. I went to the front car and there was only a few people.
One couple was not having a good day. One kept collapsing from the seat onto the floor whenever the train would leave the station. They had spilled a large iced coffee and subsequently fell into the large puddle, got up, and fell again. Their hat was soaking up the spilled coffee. The other was crying and trying to stabilize guy who couldn't balance himself in a seat.
They asked me what the next stop was and when I lookup up they weren't wearing masks.
I thought about the people are getting upset about maskless people on the T meanwhile people like this couple have things so much worse in life.
Not a comparison
By Anon (not verified)
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 11:09am
Should not compare suffering. Maskless people put others at risk of death. This couple sound like they were high which is unfortunate.
There's only so much empathy one can have
By anon (not verified)
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 11:37am
There's only so much empathy one can have. Every day, all day I see maskless addicts and mentally ill people on the T and in the stations. One was smoking at Bowdoin Station when I was there yesterday afternoon. When one smokes in an enclosed T station it can be perceived from one end to the other. Others urinate and vomit in the stations. There is no conceivable way on earth to get this population to wear masks on the T. None whatsoever. So "mandate" all you want, you're wasting your time.
There is also a separate, smug looking population who do not appear to be addicted or mentally ill but who simply do not wear masks. I see this group daily on the Blue Line. I would estimate it at about 30% of the ridership of the Blue Line.
Two drugged out people on the train doesn't hurt anyone
By NL (not verified)
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 11:46am
Whereas one unmasked person risks infecting an entire subway station with a very dangerous disease. I understand that this is the Internet and being a sanctimonious jerk is more important than being correct, but it baffles me that it's been two years since the pandemic started and we're still coming across arguments like yours.
Your sympathy
By SamWack
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 12:09pm
for the couple you describe is creditable; less so is your lack of it for someone who spends the night caring for Covid-19 patients, and then has to ride home with people who refuse to inconvenience themselves to avoid providing her with more of them.
I thought about the people
By _Sean
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 12:08pm
No offense, but these false choices drive me nuts. I get that these people were in a bad state, but we're in a GLOBAL PANDEMIC. We don't let people get off of speeding tickets because they had something else happen in their lives. Why should we think this is permissible? I'm not saying riders should have to enforce. We need more transit officers at stations & on trains.
Because screw it
By BostonDog
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 12:33pm
Yes, fuck the fatboys and meatheads who think masks are for wimps.
But for people like this I don't see what giving them a hard time about masks would accomplish. The guy did have a mask around his chin so at some point he tried to wear one. Look, he couldn't even balence himself in a chair. They are about to go out into the cold with a coffee soaked hat. What is giving them a hard time about masks going to prove apart from figuratively kicking someone when they are down.
I suspect the risk of OD'ing is a whole lot more immediate than the risk of a COVID infection. They need real help, not a lecture about the importance of masks or someone keeping them off the train.
Believe me, I take COVID seriously myself. But I'm no so blind to know that for some people it's the least of their worries. I wear my own mask and count my blessings I'm doing OK in life, all things considered.
The least of their worries...
By lbb
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 12:53pm
It's the least of their worries, but perhaps not the least of someone else's. Wearing a mask isn't just for your own benefit.
I just don't get this argument
By BostonDog
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 2:22pm
The idea that the theoretical COVID infection should outweigh the current agony of someone right in front of my eyes.
For me, or a cop, or anyone else to try to make these people wear a mask would be fruitless.
The only thing it would accomplish is keeping these people off the train so they can suffer on the street in Boston instead of wherever they were headed in Cambridge.
Again, this is a false choice
By lbb
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 2:50pm
Again, this is a false choice. Requiring someone to wear a mask in the middle of a very much non-theoretical pandemic is not subjecting them to agony.
They are CURRENTLY in agony!
By BostonDog
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 3:46pm
Did you not read what I wrote?
They don't even have full motor controls at the point in which I saw them! Keeping a mask on is out of the question.
The very much real choice is to give them shit for not wearing a mask and ignore the very bad circumstances they are currently in or just let them go on their way and hope their plight improves.
Hope?
By lbb
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 4:26pm
Will "hope" save those who are infected by those who do not wear masks?
I wish I had your moral clarity
By BostonDog
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 5:24pm
I guess I'm just a sympathetic bastard who sees every action as a balance of tradeoffs.
Time to stop atomizing everything
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 5:56pm
You painted yourself as some sort of hero for having to watch this.
You aren't.
You are someone who reduces his entire world to tiny interactions, and cannot grasp the larger system or reality.
And if you can't figure out how wearing masks isn't about the individual wearing them, I seriously cannot help you understand it because your math skills suck so badly.
If they're literally falling
By anon (not verified)
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 4:25pm
If they're literally falling out of their seat, the cop should have taken them off the train and called an ambulance. Someone in that state is a danger to themselves, and could fall down the stairs or onto the tracks.
Your couple
By cybah
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 4:55pm
Your couple = on drugs. Classic sign of opiate abuse or methadone + a benzi (i.e. Xanax). (the benzi removes the block from the methadone so you get high from it, as told to me by local PD)
If I had a dollar for every time I've seen that in the last 10 years... I wouldn't need to ride the T anymore cuz I'd own a Mercedes.
Its sad to watch, and yes it's drugs. This isn't tired, I've seen (and been) that tired, but to be sliding all over the seat like you're rubber.. that's not tired. That's drugs. When you can't even grip on your cell phone while you slide all over the place.. that's not tired. That's drugs.
And the thing is, I see this all the time so I know its drugs. Plus when I see them on the 111, a good chunk of the time they are 'en route' to their connection, and are usually in a phone call or texting frenzy in between nodding off. And when you're that messed up, discretion isn't your best attribute right then. (read: they are pretty obvious they are high & going to do a pick up by who they are talking to)
So yeah.. it was drugs. So thats probably why no masks either. I find most of these folks.. even if they do have one on, they are so out of it, they don't realize its been pushed up or down or even that its needed.
Narcan?
By Emmy (not verified)
Wed, 12/29/2021 - 8:46am
Sounds like the person falling down might have needed medical help. Do MBTA police carry Narcan?
Consider an analogy
By Bob Leponge
Wed, 12/29/2021 - 1:33pm
Consider another example of a couple wasted on drugs engaging in a different behavior that increases the risk to others. Let's say that instead of sitting unmasked on a train they were stumbling around a parking lot trying to get into their car to drive home. Could one still make the argument that "giving them a hard time" (i.e., stopping them from getting into their car and driving), when, arguably, they had no other way to get home on a cold wet night, shows a lack of compassion?
Yes, the level of risk to the public is grossly different in the two scenarios. The point is that being wasted probably shouldn't give anyone a pass on public safety rules.
When my grip on sanity slips
By Rob
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 1:52pm
When my grip on sanity slips a little bit, I think things like "Damnit! Things like this wouldn't happen if Chris Farley was still alive!"
Wouldn't you love motivational speaker Matt Foley riding around the subway yelling at people who don't wear masks?
Sure! Don't wear a mask! You'll just end up in an iron lung down by the river!!!
This will be a hot topic
By Notfromboston
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 5:25pm
This will be a hot topic during the inaguration dinner.
Before or after
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 5:56pm
The vaccination check and the rapid testing?
I'm sure they have access to
By Notfromboston
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 6:58pm
I'm sure they have access to rapid tests, so maybe during?
I'm going to say it and not
By anon (not verified)
Tue, 12/28/2021 - 7:21pm
I'm going to say it and not care about what people think. Anyone who verbally or physically assaults healthcare workers...nurses, doctors, EMTs, first responders on any level, does NOT deserve help and deserves to get the wrath of Covid and suffer. These angels are here to save people's lives! Fire Dept, etc. And no. I'm not in these fields but experienced first hand how I would not have survived without them.
Transit police
By Timmy Walsh (not verified)
Wed, 12/29/2021 - 8:05am
The transit police should be in stations and riding the trains. The problem is they are driving around acting like Boston cops what a joke.
Possible solution?
By anon (not verified)
Wed, 12/29/2021 - 11:00am
I unfortunately have a smart mouth that nearly fifty years on this planet haven't completely quelled. I've started carrying extra masks with me and when I see someone with their mask hanging off, I offer the person one of my masks. This both satisfies my urge to stick my nose in someone else's business and 90% of the time results in a good social interaction. (One guy refused my mask but that was it.) People usually apologize and pull their mask up. I tell them that I am fine with them not wearing a mask (spoiler alert: I am not) but that I get masks free from work and am offering just in case they want extra.
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