November 28, 2016
Screengrab via YouTube/for PhillyVoice
A crazy scene broke out in a bar-heavy section of Center City in the wee hours of Nov. 18, 2016. It included a fight in the street and an apparent overdose victim being revived.
The YouTube video, originally a series of Snapchat posts that were edited together and titled “A Series of Unfortunate Events in Philly,” was recorded in the wee hours of Nov. 18 near South 15th and Locust streets in Center City.
What that 1 minute, 46 seconds shows unfolding in the middle of the street near the Academy House garage entrance starts as a common street-fight video, not unique in its content, even when one of the participants’ lady-friends screeches at the top of her lungs.
These are the sorts of things that happen during the holiday season in the hearts of areas that boast of several watering holes.
About 50 seconds in, though, it takes a dramatic turn.
(NSFW: The video below contains profanity and violent images.)
The cameraphone-wielding narrator hearkens back to a woman they had passed on the street who may well have been dying. She wasn’t. Nope. The video captures her flipping out on the stretcher, seemingly swinging at police and medics.
Folks I know who work along that block pinpointed the watering hole at which the fight started, but considering that apparently nothing of a criminal nature was filed in connection with this video, I’ll leave its name out.
Suffice it to say, the images captured of the woman's reaction to being on a stretcher border on "tragi-porn."
Here, eyewitness Rob Wright breaks down what he saw just 10 days ago.
We were walking past (a bar near that intersection) and saw a girl on the ground, eyes rolled in the back of her head, her friend (girl with no pants) crying over her and a bunch of people gathered around.
At almost the same time the bigger guy, who's yelling at the girl, came up to the small guy who was leaning up against (the bar's) building and whispered something in his ear. The smaller guy ran out in the middle of the street, put up his fists and invited the bigger guy to a fight.
The bigger guy grounded and pounded him immediately followed by the yelling that you saw in the video.
The cops got in the middle to break it up but neither of the guys were arrested as the cops were more worried about getting back to the girl. About then, the cop car came in followed by the ambulance. The street was shut down. The cops and EMTs were focused on bringing the passed-out girl back to life. I think they gave her Narcan but didn't actually see it.
Once the girl was on the stretcher, you see her wake up completely disoriented and extremely volatile. She continued squirming, screaming and throwing her arms around until she was locked in the ambulance.
There was a cop blocking the side access door as the girl with no pants screamed and punched him to let her in with her friend.
None of the cops reacted with any force throughout the entire ordeal.
The girl passed out, her friend and the guys fighting might have all been out with each other that night but I can't confirm.
It's worth noting that the crowd was also very cooperative with police and that the bouncers and managers from Howl at the Moon and Down nightclub were outside helping the girl and keeping the crowd at a distance.
I reached out to Philadelphia police for information about the incident. They had no details beyond a call for a disorderly crowd near Sansom Street around 2 a.m. on that date.
