A student is being hailed as a hero after she helped a pregnant Muslim woman who was the victim of a racially motivated attack.
Jodie Whitford-Stark, 20, was on a bus in Leeds when a seven-month pregnant Muslim woman got on crying. It wasn’t long before the poor woman collapsed, but luckily Jodie leapt to help her.
Jodie said: “She just laid there on the floor of the bus as she was so upset with what had happened… She mumbled saying she had been attacked and another lady came over. I introduced myself and I asked what happened, it was difficult to get information out of her because she was so upset.”
It turned out that the woman had been punched in the stomach by two boys in what is believed to be a racially motivated attack following the Paris shootings two weeks ago.
Jodie said no one on the bus came to help the woman, saying: “There were lots of people but they didn’t know what to do or how to help.”
After getting off the bus and calling an ambulance, Jodie kindly waited with the woman until it arrived an hour later. Jodie says that the woman calmed down but she didn’t want to leave her alone because she was pregnant.
Jodie then travelled to the hospital with the woman, and supported her while doctors checked her health. She remained in contact with the woman’s family until her brother arrived at the hospital.
Jodie said:
I didn’t want to leave her until someone came to meet her and the family kept in touch through me. The paramedics said to me ‘Don’t you have anything better to do?’, I couldn’t believe it!
I wanted to restore their faith in humanity, there are people out there who care.
If that was my mum you would want someone to go out of their way to help her wouldn’t you? She was really grateful.
Jodie said she had received lots of gratitude from the woman’s family members. One text message, from the woman’s husband, read: “You stood by my family, the least I can do is to say thank you and to see my family’s hero…you are a star”.
After the day’s drama Jodie jumped in a taxi and rang her mum to explain what happened, and added: “At the end of the journey I got off the phone and the driver asked me if I believed in good karma? I said I don’t know, and he replied saying that he had switched off the meter because I had done such a good deed.”
