The Good Samaritan?

Thirty years ago, I was a graduate student/teaching assistant at the University of Maryland in College Park, MD.  One spring day (towards the end of the term, i.e. early May)  I was staying very late in my office grading quizzes which I had given. My practice was to give a quiz every day for the entire term, and that gave me 140 one-page quizzes for each week to grade -- and I  had gotten a week or two behind - giving me a serious stack of paper to go through.  So I was still at it at 1 am - when the cleaning crew came on duty.

The weather was unseasonably hot -- above 100F and so the air-conditioning system was making its noise. So it took me a while to hear the cry for help from the elevator down the hall.  I looked out the door of my office and saw a young woman clinging to the rail [the floor near the elevator was sloped slightly]. She was bare-foot.  One of her legs was bleeding.  The injury came from kicking in the window of a vending machine a few levels down. Apparently the machine ate her dollar bill [this was at a time when this capability was  new] but she didn't get her candy bar. The machine tried - but the item wouldn't/didn't fall -- so she kicked the glass in.  Later it was replaced by plexiglas. She got her candy bar but the cost was glass cuts on her leg.

So when I first saw her I found out soon about the vending machine and the quest for the candy bar.  But I was in a new country and I didn't know what to do next.

The rest of the cleaning crew was "taking a break" in the math lounge down the hall in the other direction. They offered no advice or inclination to help their injured coworker.

Obviously she needed an ambulance but I was in no position to bear the cost of this.  The Washington DC area is a blizzard of various police forces.  I called campus police and they eventually called an ambulance. I lost track of it after that.

My marking didn't get done that night despite staying up very late.