EricNau said:
In my opinion the argument of helping the guy is a moot point; the guy was dead.
You're right I think. To be honest, it never even crossed my mind to go check on him. In the neighborhood I live in... if someone is doing something that looks crazy...
it's because they are crazy. There's no in between in Dayton, the city has been inviting the homeless/indigent/mental cases for years - because they're getting federal funding to house and "help" these people. It's to the point that hard-working young people don't want to live here anymore, the town has high taxes (because the taxable population is shrinking) and its the 9th poorest city in the US (data released yesterday). Crime is huge here.. it's a rough and dirty town and going near anyone who is trespassing on your property "to see if they're okay" just doesn't even make sense to me.
The other interesting note was
when this happened. It was midnight and it was the night that Katrina made it up to Ohio. It was a very erie, rainy but calm night (but gusty, it'd be all quiet and then this wicked wind would kick up). Very odd weather, very dark and wet and... spooky.
All in all, I think it was (hands down) one of the coolest things I've ever seen. It's unfortunate that he felt the need to hurt himself... but if it had to happen, I consider myself lucky to have experienced it. It was unusual and freaky... but a year later, I'd also include "awesome" in the list of adjectives that describe that night.
It was just an amazing set of events that we went through and I'm happy to say we have gotten past them... it was horrible at the time, but now I always tell the story to people just to see their eyes get big when I repeat the cop's words "yeh... he's dead."