Strangest thing you've seen in public.

I dont know if it qualifies but it was strange to me and obviously stuck with me.

I was out for a walk early one Saturday morning and saw a woman wading into the large river in my city (she was walking down a large slipway for boats). She was small and frail looking and i guessed she was elderly.

I took me a few seconds to realise what was happening as it was so strange. It was early so there was nobody really around. I ran after her down the slipway and started talking to her. I convinced her to come back out. She was wearing lots of clothes - i assume to ensure she would get dragged down once they became wet.

She seemed like she was in a trance or something.She wet up to her waist. She was a really small lady so she would have been washed away so easily. She was in her late 70's i would guess.

I asked her could i call an ambulance or someone from her family and she started shouting at me not to. I asked where she lived and she told me. I said i would walk there with her (it was about a 20 min walk) - so we did walk there, with her drenched. I didnt want to spook her again so we just chatted and i tried to get info from her about her name/who she lived with etc. She said she was a carer for her husband who had a debilitating disease and she couldnt go on anymore.

I just listened and walked with her. We got to her house (spotless cute little house - totally perfect looking) and she thanked me (but all still like she was in a daze) and i left but then hid around the corner and checked to see if she came back out again. She didnt - so i sprinted to the nearest Garda station (5 mins run) as i didnt know what else to do. They were really good when i told them what happened and i started crying - i think i had been holding it together in front of the woman. I gave them what details i had got from the woman and then they asked me to show them the house, one of the walked with me there so she wouldnt see the squad car.

The Gardai verified her car reg and her name matched so she had told the correct details. The Garda took my details and told me he would call me. That he wanted to go with another Garda to her house - but they would walk over so as not to cause a fuss.

He rang me later that day - they called in. She said what had happened, they asked about family and contacted a sister who was going to come to stay with them for a while and help out. I burst out crying again. He commended me on what i did.

Anyway i often pass her house and think about her. Last week i saw her driving her car (i remember the reg/her car and she lives not too far from me) and it brought it all back. She looked healthier than when i saw her. I doubt she would remember me at all.

That was the strangest thing i have ever seen in public.

A few weeks ago I was meeting my boss at citynorth hotel carpark to go to an early morning meeting.......This is about 7am in the morning.

Whilst standing at the side of the road, about 20/30 Asian elderly (what must have been) tourists, started skipping around the grounds of the carpark, some holding hand with each other, others on their own singing/chanting some sort of song.

They seemed in great form, and weren't harming anyone but it was just a bit surreal to happen out in the middle of nowhere.

xzanti wrote: »

Not so much strange as sad and tragic.

A man leaning against the wall at the back of Penneys on Mary Street last week, just at the junction where the Woolshed is. He had a can of butane or some other solvent, white top gone, just the tube left on it and sucking away on it for all he was worth.

Guy hadn't a clue where he was, didn't care who was looking at him, looked like he'd been living in a skip for the last 10 years. He literally had a thick layer of dirt and dust all over him.

Very very sad just waiting patiently for death by the looks of it.

Used to see something similar to this under the pillars of BOI College Green at Westmorland St Entrance. Few times coming into work I saw a woman rolling around on the street with 3 - 4 cans of aerosol after inhaling the lot..........not a baldy where she was or what she was doing......Scarily sad.

In the run up to Christmas I was picking up a few bits in the city centre in Galway and then walking home. It was a lovely Christmas buzz, I was kind of zoned out and just looking at all the nice things, there's a family with kids going to see Santa, there's all the nice fairy lights over the streets, there's the Christmas trees in the windows, there's the man in the middle of a vacant lot, shaving his dog...oh.

Passed the same way later that evening and there was a confused and wary cat sniffing around the ground there

I was in a major London station, walking along the platform beside the train thats boarding, there is a random woman walking in front of me, some dude sitting by the window inside the train attracts her attention (I don't remember if he was banging on window or something but I remember I ended up looking over to him too).
He sees she is looking and he presses his phone up to the window and its showing a woman being strangled by a mans hand.

It was only probably about 10 seconds of an incident really and didn't involve me at all but pretty disturbing on a deeper level considering the implications about that guys mentality and how he was doing this to some complete stranger of a woman that had done nothing to attract his attention.

Edit:Weird just saw a very similar story also from London in the "Most Disturbing thing someone has said to you" thread, maybe this is more common than would have thought