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Some days you hear about something which absolutely beggars belief. Today is one of those days.

You hear about something that makes you wonder what the hell has happened to society. Sometimes it can be overseas. Or it can be something here in New Zealand. Today is one of those days.

Because I am blown away by this coroner’s report which has just come out, into the death of a four-year-old girl in a public fountain in Tauranga in May 2023.

Coroners are quite measured in the words they use and coroner Matthew Bates is no different, saying today that he’s “troubled” by a particular aspect of this tragedy.

I’m reading that as code for “appalled”. Because, even though four people could see four-year-old Nia Lohchab lying face down in the water, not one of them did anything to get her out.

The coroner knows that because CCTV footage shows there were four people near the fountain, but not one of them did anything.

One of them got on their phone - presumably calling emergency services - but then left her in the water.

The coroner says it’s unlikely that the outcome would have been any different if they had got her out. But what does it say about our society? What does it say about us?

To put it bluntly, it tells me that we’ve become a bunch of lamos. What other conclusion can you come to?

So Nia was at Memorial Park, in Tauranga, with her grandfather and her younger sister just over two years ago. It was three days before her fifth birthday.

She ran towards the fountain and her little sister ran in a different direction. So the grandfather went after the younger child first, as most people would.

That was just after 20-to-10 in the morning. At 9:49AM, a member of the public called emergency services saying there was a child face down in the water. But neither that person, nor three others in the area, did anything to get her out.

Four minutes later, police arrived, found her motionless, got her out, started giving CPR, but they couldn’t save her.

In his report, coroner Matthew Bates says - of the four people near the fountain at the time - at least three of them were clearly aware that NIa was there and that she was lying face down in the water. And they left her there. What the hell have we come to?

He says he is “troubled by the fact that none of the members of the public who observed nia face down and motionless in the water removed her from the fountain immediately”.

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. Because here’s another example of how lame people have got when it comes to helping out.

A chap was driving near The Palms shopping mall, in Christchurch, the other week and was T-boned by another driver. After the crash, not one person came to check he was ok.

Some people in the gym came outside to have a look. Then went back inside. No one came to help or, at the very least, check if he needed any help.

So maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that people who saw this little girl lying face down in the fountain did nothing to get her out.

But it is appalling and it shows how we have become a society that doesn’t care as much as it used to.

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