Depending on the kindness of strangers.

Not always a good plan.

Josh Brown’s eyes welled up as he recalled desperately clinging on to his friend who dangled 10 metres above the ground at an Uxbridge ski resort — and the shock when he slipped from his grasp.

“It was the longest five minutes of my life,” said Josh, 13, sitting outside his friend Kyle Armstrong’s room at Sick Kids hospital on Sunday, where the boy is being treated for seven fractured vertebrae, two broken ribs, and a punctured lung.

Kyle plunged onto the snowy hill of Lakeridge Ski Resort around 6:15 p.m. Friday, after slipping under a safety bar of an ascending ski lift. The two Whitby boys insist that Josh’s ski pole was the cause.
“I guess my pole got in the way when he sat down and so it acted as a ramp and brought him down,” he said.

That's a very unfortunate accident, but when you do sports you take risks associated with that sport.

However:

While some are hailing Josh as a “young hero,” others are raising questions about why two adults riding in the same chair didn’t offer help.

“I’m talking to them saying, ‘Please help me,’ and they’re just like, ‘You gotta pull yourself up, bud,’ ” said Josh.

Witnesses told staff at the ski resort that the two men were seen skiing away after the fall.

WTHeck? Two  supposedly grown "men" sit beside this young man, on the same bench and just offer pithy advice to pull yourself up? A-Holes.

So no kindness in this case from strangers, how about your neighbours?

Again..some not fairing any better.

A 66-year-old woman with Alzheimer's disease froze to death after she collapsed on a driveway near her home Monday. Neighbours heard her cries for help, but no one responded and no one called 911.
The temperature dipped down to minus 20 degrees Celsius Sunday night and early Monday and an extreme cold weather alert was in effect across Toronto.

And.

There were also scratch marks on the screen door of the home. The woman had called out for help and neighbours heard her, yet no one came outside to assist her or even called 911. "I can tell you around 2am, through our investigation, there's a couple of neighbours in the area who did hear a scream," Toronto Police Sgt. David Dube said.

 "I think one of them actually saw this person in a bit of distress but didn't know what was going on but did not call us," added Dube.

Well isn't that special?  The evolution of Civilization is happily trotting along, Rome didn't have much on us baby.