So me and my wife were on the lite rail to the u District in Seattle to go meet up with some friends. And across from us is someone who appears to be or is on drugs. He keeps nodding over and appearing to do things like grab something from his pocket or touch his jacket for no reason. Eyes closed like totally out of it. I get up from my seat so the lady who is sitting next to him can sit in my seat because he is definitely making her uncomfortable. About 2 minutes go by and he rolls up his sleeve and you can see some kind of medical plastic bracelet on his wrist like he was just in a facility or something. I can see it looks official because you can kind of see a hospital or location name and his name on it. He slowly rips it off and finds a lighter in his pocket. With his eyes barely open he begins to light it on fire while the lite rail is heavily crowded. I can see immediately peoples reactions "like what is this guy doing" within 2-3 seconds I quickly step forward grab the item that is starting to lite on fire and say " don’t like fires on the train" he responds give my bracket back I’m trying to burn my name off it. I hand it back to him after stating don’t like fires on the lite rail. He continues to burn his name off really quickly and drops the burned bracelet on the ground. Am I the asshole for taking that from him. I should add he was in the action of lighting it so I feel like words at the point was already to late.
No you’re absolutely not the asshole. Thank you for being vigilant. With the various train and subway incidents that have occurred recently I would have been very relieved if I were there and you stopped him. It is definitely not legal or safe for someone to set a fire on a train.
NTA
Thank you I’m still feeling weird about it since it happened about 3 hours 4 hours ago ish.. I feel like it was a knee jerk reaction but was needed in that scenario
NTA
F¥¢k that guy. Your action was a simple and effective response to protecting life and limb for you and everyone else on that train.
NTA. It’s public transit. Would you stop someone attempting to light a fire on a plane you were on? Stopping someone from doing something that could endanger others in that type of situation isn’t the wrong move. The alternative is he’d get blasted with a fire extinguisher.
Guy could’ve just waited until they were off the train. If he had to roll up the sleeve; wasn’t visible to anyone else.
Understand why you might feel like TA here, though.
Thank you for being brave enuff to step up and do something.
You had every right to grab it.
NTA Thank you for trying to stop him. That could have been super bad. You weren’t wrong at all.
Nope. You did right. He wasn’t able to make decisions.
NTA.
You should have called the conductor and had him removed from the train.
Interesting that he wanted to burn his name off. Sad that he felt like he needed to do that. Thank you for stepping in quietly. Thank you also for protecting the woman sitting next to him.
NTA.
NTA, especially after that lady was lit on fire on the train like a year or so ago.
Don’t hospitals shred the wristband ID when you’re discharged?
NTA. normally, yeah, snatching things from strangers is rude. but when the thing you’re snatching is something that endangers dozens of people, it’s justified and necessary. randomly dropped fires (even recently-put-out ones) can easily cause fires that quickly spread out of control; its (one of) the reasons why smoking inside buildings is banned – they kept catching shit on fire