A woman died suddenly on a beach in Ulcinj in Montenegro. The police investigate. In all its tragedy, the incident also offers hope.

The parademics and the doctor had been resuscitating the human being lying on Velika Plaža for quite some time, when I happened to arrive at the beach.

They are surrounded by a crowd of onlookers. Just as always.

Some are more than that, though.

When a young woman next to the lifeless body and the paramedics collapses, they rush to help her.

Everyone on the immediate vicinity does.

People do whatever they can

An elderly woman brings a plastic bottle of coca cola.

Someone else brings a towel.

The young woman’s friends stabilize her. One holds her feet up high, so her blood would circulate into her head again.

A waiter of a nearby cafe runs to his workplace to get her some cool water. As does a worker at a nearby hotel.

People are self organizing as if they had done nothing else in their lives. Just to stabilize the young woman who had collapsed.

From what they shout I can discern they are ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and Montenegro, Montenegrins and Bosnians.

I am writing this not solely for the benefit of readers familiar with the region, to illustrate the scene for them.

I also mention this to show that the urge to help the young woman transcends language barriers. People are shouting in their first languages, sometimes in their second languages. If that doesn’t work, they gesticulate to make themselves understood.

A Life that Can be Saved

Just ten meters from the young woman who is being propped up as best as possible by this remarkable and loveable crowd of strangers, paramedics are trying to resuscitate the lifeless body with a defibrillator.

It doesn’t work.

Reading the printouts from a portable ECG device, the doctor in charge pronounces her dead.

He and the paramedic in charge, both ethnic Albanians, sign a few forms.

A second paramedic and a few helpers from the hotel and beach staff cover the body in a white plastic sheet.

The first paramedic approaches the other woman, a syringe in her hands.

Some drug to stabilize the young woman’s blood circulation. Perhaps also something to calm her down.

Medical professionals know what to do in such a situation.

I am not sure if the paramedic gives her the injection herself or if the young doctor does.

I am careful to speculate here. I don’t know if nurses or paramedics are allowed to do that in Montenegro of that is a physician’s prerogative.

The injection works. The young woman sits up.

She is pale. She is shaking, and sobs.

She had witnessed whatever happened to the now dead woman right in front of her. Whether the woman collapsed or whether a lifeguard pulled her out of the water after she had drowned, I don’t know.

The woman from the hotel returns with a big jug of water. The woman’s friends splash her face with it.

Then they escort her uphill. I assume they are leaving.

The crowd just moments before busy to help her return to their beach chairs. Some even go into the sea for a swim. Others leave.

What else can they do?

Again, Strangers Are There For Someone In Need

Perhaps ten minutes later I walk up to the little cafe nearby.

There, the young woman from before and her friends – or perhaps family, from the looks of it – sit. They are trying to calm her down.

The first paramedic and the doctor drink cold bottled water. They certainly need it.

The other rolls the stretcher back into the ambulance van.

Someone who appears to be a restaurant manager also tries to help the shaken young woman.

She and her friends are Bosnian.

The police arrive. A plainclothes investigator and a uniformed policeman with a huge scar on his left temple.

They interview the young Bosnian woman. Both are calm and friendly, and as reassuring as they can be in that situation.

The young woman seems to have calmed down a bit, when all of a sudden she jumps up and starts sobbing wildly.

„Ni si ti kriva“, the guy I take to be a restaurant manager tries to comfort her. „It’s not your fault“.

The young woman stares at something behind me, and sobes even wider. The restaurant manager grabs her by the shoulders to prevent her from breaking down again.

I turn around and see that another team from the hospital are rolling a stretcher with the dead body covered in a white plastic sheet towards the exit of the beach, and presumably the hearse.

What Are Police Investigating?

When the young woman can walk again, the two policemen gently escort her away. I presume they want to continue the interview at the police station. This is what their body language suggests.

It’s perhaps not the most sensitive thing to do in that situation. But they have to get whatever information they can whenever they can.

I am asking myself why an investigator would be involved in this at all. Was the other woman’s death perhaps not an accident?

Later, the police officer with the huge scar returns to the beach. A security guard from the nearby hotel assists him.

They are looking for other witnesses. The security guard was at the scene right after whatever happened to the now dead woman happened. He knows who was also there at the time.

„From what I overhear, they are looking for a man who ran from the scene when the now dead woman.

„We are looking for witnesses“, the officer says. „Were you there when the woman died? A man refused to help her, even though he could. We are looking for him“.

The next day I try to find out what happened and google for articles about the incident at Velika Plaža in Ulcinj.

None of the Montenegrin outlets has written about it so far.

This is strange. People don’t die on beaches here all that often. One would imagine that the death of a woman on a beach as widely known as this one would arouse some interest. Especially if there is a suspicion of foul play of some sort.

But perhaps the police have not informed the public yet.

And perhaps the investigation was started by confused testimonies in the first place, and there was no wrongdoing by anyone in the first place.

To people who witnessed whatever happened to te now dead woman, this was a dramatic and highly stressful situation. In such circumstances, people are known to misremember things.

But this is the reporter looking at things. He would like to remember this incident as the bastard who didn’t help a dying woman – presumably, at least, from the snippets of information I got.

A Glimpse Of Hope

I know how I want to remember this incident as human being.

A crowd of people who had never met before, many of whom speak different languages, rushing to help a young woman in need.

No questions asked. Just human solidarity.

We all have that in us. We all can be that loveable crowd of strangers at Velika Plaža in Ulcinj, Montenegro.

This is a glimpse of hope.

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