Everyone’s intrusive thoughts take over from time to time. We imagine the karmic moment when the person who has been making your life miserable finally gets what's coming to them. It's a satisfying, if petty, daydream of a universe that finally balances the scales.
But rarely does this savage daydream become a real-life fight-or-flight situation unfolding right in front of you. What happens when you're the only person who can save your nemesis, but saving them could literally end you? For the bullied office worker, that hypothetical moral dilemma just became his very real, very public lunch break.
More info: Reddit
A life-threatening allergy is a constant battle, especially when other people don’t respect its severity
Image credits: Sweet Life / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
A man with a severe peanut allergy was forced to watch a coworker, who mocked his condition, eat a peanut dessert in front of him
Image credits: Freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
In a moment of unexpected karma, the coworker started to choke on the very food she had flaunted moments before
Image credits: pixel-shot.com / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Faced with a choice between saving her and risking his own life, he turned around and walked out of the room
Image credits: ScaryRich8329
She survived, but now his coworkers are calling him a monster for his seemingly cold reaction
A man with a life-threatening, full-blown anaphylactic peanut allergy has spent his entire time at his current job in a state of high alert. He carries two EpiPens, he's made sure everyone knows about his condition, and he's even been hospitalized after a cross-contamination incident at the office. Yet one coworker, Linda (why is it always a Linda?), has always treated his insane allergy like he's just being "dramatic."
One day, he walked into the break room, and his worst nightmare was unfolding as Linda was eating a peanut dessert. But then, in a twist of brutal, instantaneous karma, she started to choke. Actually choke. As his coworkers panicked, yelling and not knowing what to do, he, the one person in the room trained in the Heimlich maneuver, was frozen.
His mind raced with a terrible, split-second calculation. Helping her meant getting close to the very allergen that could unalive him. It meant risking his own life for the woman who had repeatedly mocked and dismissed his condition, the woman who had made his workplace a minefield of anxiety. And in that moment, he made a choice. He turned around and walked out.
He later found out that Linda was fine; she had coughed up the food. But now he's the office pariah, a monster who "just stood there and walked out" while a coworker was choking. People are suggesting he could have just used his EpiPen "like it's some kind of undo button." He's wrestling with a crushing guilt, wondering if he was ajerk for choosing his own life over the life of his tormentor.
Image credits: asier_relampagoestudio / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The OP was right to fear for his life so close to peanuts. Mayo Clinic explains that a severe peanut allergy can trigger anaphylaxis, a rapid and potentially fatal reaction where the airway closes. His previous hospitalization from simple cross-contamination proves that even minimal exposure is incredibly dangerous for him. His flight reaction kicked in for the right reasons.
The coworkers' suggestion that he "could have helped" ignores a fundamental rule of first aid. As the NHS and other first aid organizations make clear, the absolute first step in any emergency is to ensure your own safety. You cannot help someone else if you become a casualty yourself. By approaching a situation that could have triggered his own anaphylactic shock, he could have triggered a second medical emergency.
The most damning part of the story is the coworkers' suggestion that he could have just used his EpiPen "like it's some kind of undo button." This reveals a dangerous ignorance about what an EpiPen actually does. It is not a cure! It is a temporary, emergency treatment to buy a person time to get to a hospital. It's a painful injection with significant side effects, and using it is much more than a casual inconvenience.
Ultimately, this man was faced with a real-life version of the "trolley problem." This thought experiment forces a choice between two terrible outcomes. In this case, he had to choose between the possibility of his coworker coming to harm and the very real possibility of his own. His decision to walk was a choice not to sacrifice his own life for the person who had repeatedly shown a callous disregard for it. Fair play!
Do you think he was being unreasonable? Let us know what you would have done in the comments!
The internet, however, unanimously declared him a hero who made the only rational choice
