When Doing Wonderful Deeds Gets You in Dumb Trouble

You're supposed to feel good after doing the right thing. You might not ask for it or even want it, but you should get a reward for some good deeds. At the very least, you should get a thank you. The bad thing is that's not always how it works.

Rather than get a thank you, you get hit upside the head with the reality we face today. When you step in to help someone, for some reason, this world would rather reply with a fine, a lawsuit, or a bill for water you did not even ask for. It's the kind of thing that makes you wonder if next time you should just keep driving.

Take the guy who stopped to help at a car crash. He wasn't injured and didn't need medical attention. The ambulance crew looked him over, handed him a bottle of water, and added a six-hundred-dollar charge to his name. Apparently, water now costs about the same as a car payment. That's a tough lesson for someone to learn when all they wanted to do was help.

There was also a story out of Florida that sounded like something from a bad sitcom. A lifeguard named Tomas Lopez saw a swimmer in trouble just outside the designated area. He ran out, pulled the man to safety, and filled out the incident report like a professional. Moments later, his boss told him he was fired for leaving his post. Saving a life was not in his job description unless the person nearly drowned inside the invisible line drawn in the sand.

The part that made it even weirder was what happened next. Several of his coworkers quit in protest. They figured if being a hero got you fired, then they were not interested in waiting for their turn. And who could blame them? It's hard to watch someone get punished for bravery and then pretend everything is fine.

Now let’s visit Fort Lauderdale, where homeless advocate Arnold Abbott and ministers Dwayne Black and Mark Sims were arrested. Their crime was feeding homeless people in the park. When asked about it, Abbott said, "One of the police officers ordered, 'Drop that plate right now,' as if I were carrying a weapon." He went on to say, "It's man's inhumanity to man is all it is."

The sad thing is that the city has a strict ordinance against feeding the homeless because it's a bad look for tourists. Abbott was trying to care for people who needed food, and the city responded by putting him in handcuffs. The man brought soup and left with a mugshot.

That kind of response sends a strange message. It tells people that kindness might land you in court. When cities treat peanut butter and jelly like contraband, something has really gone wrong with the picture.

In another case, a woman in Australia stopped to help a cyclist who had been hit by a car. She did not know the man, but she used her first aid training and stayed with him until help arrived. She thought she was just being a decent human being. Weeks later, debt collectors started calling her about the ambulance bill. She never rode in the ambulance or asked for help herself. All she did was dial the emergency number, and suddenly she was on the hook for hundreds of dollars.

That would be like calling the fire department for your neighbor’s house on fire and getting charged for the hose. You try to help someone, and you end up in debt. It really makes you second-guess those first instincts to do good.

When it comes to the case of Veronica Cherwinski, the legal ramifications become scary. She found her friend overdosing, and because she didn't have a phone, she knocked on her landlord's door to ask them to dial 911. When the police showed up, they arrested Veronica for possession. Even though the state had a law that was supposed to protect people in that situation, it did not help her at the moment. She went from lifesaver to suspect in under five minutes.

The situation got so ridiculous that prosecutors even tried to be petty about it. They argued that since she didn't make the call herself, she wasn't protected. Even though she was in and out of jail by this time, the judge disagreed and dropped the charges. But by then, Veronica had seen enough of this world. She eventually overdosed herself.

In an even more heartbreaking tragedy, this story that happened in Los Angeles should really stop and make officials rethink everything. Two women saw a car crash and jumped in to help. When they tried to pull the victim out of the wreck, they were both electrocuted and killed by downed power lines. These were true Good Samaritans who gave their lives trying to save someone else. Their families were grieving, trying to process a sudden tragedy.

But before they could even finish the funerals, the city sent ambulance bills to both families. It was one of those moments that felt like a scene from a bad satire. A family loses someone to a selfless act and then gets charged for the privilege. If there was ever a time to waive a fee, that should have been it. Instead, they got invoices in the mail like it was business as usual.

These stories are not meant to make you give up on humanity. They just show how ridiculous and unfair the system can be when people try to do the right thing. Most folks want to help others if they can. They just don't want to end up with a court date or a four-figure invoice when they do.