LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – For nearly 20 minutes nearly 20 gym members failed to intervene during a woman’s drowning, but a Las Vegas psychology expert has a few possible answers as to what was unique about this case.
Stephen Banning, a UNLV psychology associate professor, sat down with 8 News Now to watch a redacted video depicting the drowning death of 58-year-old Leticia Triplett at a Las Vegas Athletic Club pool.
“When I look at video like this and think about what the experiences of people around in an individualistic culture like ours,” Banning said. “There’s very much a sense of not wanting to mess with people or given their business.”
In the redacted video, individuals are seen walking by Triplett, stopping to look at her unconscious body floating in the four-foot-deep pool and carrying on walking through the pool room.
“I would think that even the people walking by, may have just been using the schemas and the heuristics or the everyday mental shortcuts,” he said. “That they use to go about their daily lives.”
The American Psychological Association Dictionary of Psychology defines schema as basic knowledge about a concept or place, such as a gym pool which a swimmer might use many times.
Benning explained many of the gym members likely used the pool area frequently and were less likely to realize something was amiss.
“They were just doing what they probably have done hundreds, maybe thousands of times in their lives before,” he said.
The “Bystander Effect” was another possible factor Benning pointed to as many inside the pool area likely didn’t intervene because everyone else acted as if nothing was wrong.
“This might be a manifestation of a bystander effect, where people don’t understand what it is that they’re seeing,” Benning said. “It is so unlikely that we would as people, imagine seeing others dying in a pool that we’re using, that it may not enter people’s mind that this is something that’s actually happening.”
During Triplett’s struggle to exit via the pool stairs Benning mentioned “bodily autonomy” and dignity as other reasons others didn’t intervene as she tried to get out of the water.
“Rather than it being a cold-hearted, calculated or dismissive attitude toward other people, it may be a reflection of wanting people to allow some bodily autonomy and allow them to do what they want in a pool,” Benning said.
However, Benning shifted to point out much of the explanation for lack of action pertains to a “layman” or bystander in this situation, not a trained professional like a lifeguard.
“Even if we may have thought about it before, we don’t have training that gets renewed every year to help us remember, in this situation,” he said. “This is why it’s important to have employees who receive that training and receive refreshers on that training every year so that they have that schema refreshed day in and day out.”
Benning noted the redacted video did not appear to show any vindictive behavior toward Triplett and instead said the lack of action can be characterized another way.
“Not out of malice, but out of habit,” he said. “It is likely that most of us in this situation would do exactly the same, because we would not recognize how distressed a person might be.”
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