Four schoolchildren from Belgrade, England were out on their bikes on Wednesday evening. Unexpectedly, they saw an elderly man grasping for breath in the street.They tried to call the police and ambulance service, but their phones were not working, due to network problems. Before the Polish man became unconscious, the children kept him calm while they flagged down  a passing driver. The children used words they had picked up from their Polish classmates to translate the injured man's answers to the driver's questions.Gary,  10, and his six - year - old sister, Lily, stayed with the man while Thymus and Owen, both 11, led the ambulance to the spot where he lay. Soon the man was taken to hospital. The fantastic four children who came to the aid of the elderly man deserve the highest respect for their quick - thinking and courage in an emergency situation. They are a credit not only to themselves, but to their families and their school.And it is great to be able to hear such a positive story about young people. What is not so positive about this story is the fact that several adults apparently walked by without stopping to help.This seeming indifference to an emergency situation is a well noted phenomenon which psychologists sometimes refer to as "the bystander effect".Research suggests that when a group of people witness an emergency, people are likely to assume that somebody else  will intervene and they feel that the burden of responsibility is lifted from their shoulders. Perhaps the answer to this sort of things is to introduce a " Good Samaritan"  law. This already exists in France and places a legal responsibility on people who witness an emergency situation to help out as long as they can do so.This certainly seems to remove any doubt about who bears the burden of responsibility for offering assistance---everyone In France,  if an emergency happens to someone,
offering help to him is required by law people have the right to leave the scene others must get permission before helping him the witnesses will be punished if the rescue fails