Park Mellat by night
Death of an addict

Last year around exactly the same time, I was passing by Park Mellat when I ran into a similar scene. The man was dying in the cold on the sidewalk opposite the park -- in fact at first I thought he was dead -- and people were just passing by. I wished I had my camera so I could tape the scene and send it to you. He was just skin and bones, literally.

I stopped to call emergency with my mobile phone, but people advised me not to. They were saying that the police would harass me endlessly if I did. Eventually, some young guys also gathered. They tried to stop police cars that were passing by, one of which didn't stop, the second did but left after a minute saying they'd send for help. They didn't.

Finally, we called an ambulance from a public phone nearby and waited for it to arrive. That took another twenty to thirty minutes. When it got there, another patrol car stopped by. I think they were just curious as to what was going on. The ambulance people put the man in their car and the young guys gathered some money to put in the addict's pocket for later.

At that point, one of the cops from the patrol car started to get into an exchange of words with one of the young guys, who was apparently from Esfahan and who was complaining about the time lag for help to arrive. The cop was asking him if he thought he was very smart being from Esfahan... I couldn't believe it.

Nowadays, if you go by Park Mellat by night, you'll see a lot of lost young souls hanging around, looking like ghosts from the extent of their addiction. Some look as if they won't make it for more than a few days. All the police does is to come and disperse them around midnight every night.

I have seen a few similar scenes there in daytime as well.

A couple of years ago, when my wife, my son, my friend and I were walking by the old "Chattanooga" in broad afternoon daylight, we noticed a woman who must have been in her late twenties walking up towards us with her daughter, who was in turn probably five or six.

Now this woman wasn't badly dressed or anything, meaning she didn't look like a beggar, but what caught our attention about her was the way she seemed agitated. She was staring at a garbage bin right next to us and mumbling words that we couldn't understand at first. Her daughter just looked anxious. As soon as she got near the bin, she literally dove on some leftover food that was thrown out on the ground next to the garbage and started to eat.

That's a scene I'll never forget either. Fortunately, my wife ran towards her shouting "nakhor, nakhor" and got to there on time before she could give some of the food to her daughter, who stood there just looking abashed, not knowing what to do.

My wife eventually gave her some money to buy some real food and she left. I don't know who was more embarrassed though, us or the mother and daughter.

Also, I forgot to mention that the Esfahani guy at Park Mellat I talked about, told me while we were waiting for the ambulance that he lives nearby and he has seen a couple of addicts get hit by hit-and-run cars while they were trying to cross Vali-Asr avenue from the park in daylight. He said he knows of one case where the addict died from the injuries and where the driver just disappeared without even stopping for a second.