About 1967 I was one of seven or eight cousins in a Midwestern suburban park when one of the younger ones tripped and hit her head against a bench. She was not gravely hurt, but it tore the skin on her temple, and it bled a lot. A couple of utter strangers, a man and a women of probably 45 to 50, drove her and an older sister to the emergency room while the rest of us waited for my mother to get us.<p>It all worked out. We rounded up the cousins at the ER. The one who fell had no visible scar.<p>Sometimes I think about this and how odd it seems in the context of the last 25 years. If my wife and I showed up at the ER with two girls from a town 200 miles away I think that the staff would call the police. I also wonder what would be required in the way of release forms, payment assurance, and so on.