Video Transcription
Step Back Think – Who and Why
There was a lot of headbanging going on, and then all of a sudden, B was up on everybody’s arms, playing air guitar, absolutely rocking out with pretty much the entire year level holding him up there. Rock the de, surrounded by 10 other sweaty men. It’s also pretty classic MBA, I guess. B and I played a lot of footy together, and he was tiny, really skinny kid, but foolishly brave. It was that last game he just absolutely turned it on, kicking goals from ridiculous angles. Yeah, I just remember watching him and thinking, “That’s pretty good.”
I remember we went around to his place and used to jump off his roof into his pool. He nearly killed himself one day. He’d run down the little slope, and then the pool was just below. He’d go, and he’d done a little slip. The look on his face was pure horror. “Oh my God, my mom was right!”
Police have charged two men and released a 14-year-old over a serious assault in Little Burke Street last night. The victim, who’s in his 20s, was set upon and bashed before fleeing for a short time. His assailants caught up, and the assault continued. He’s in intensive care at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
I think I got a call from one of the boys just saying, “He’s in a bit of trouble, you better come into the hospital.” I remember hearing on the news that there had been a report of someone being hit in the city, in critical condition, in the hospital. My mobile was just ringing and ringing, and I wasn’t answering it. Then it stopped ringing, and my house phone started ringing. I thought, “That’s a bit weird.” MB’s been hit in the city pretty badly.
I couldn’t quite register what was going on. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I kind of thought it was a joke. I didn’t believe it. I didn’t believe anything could happen to us and our mates. When my mate Tom said that he’s in trouble, I thought, “Yeah, I’ve seen fights before. He’ll be fine. He’ll just roll out of it.”
We obviously knew it was bad, but never expected it to be this bad. It was definitely a really strange experience going to the ICU and seeing so many people. I was always thinking, “It’s going to be okay. He’s going to pull through, and it’ll just be a scare that we laugh about like we laughed about heaps of other stuff with him.” The size that his face and head had swollen to, and the bandage across his forehead where they removed the bone… It’s just something you can’t really imagine until you see it.
It was the worst thing that’s ever happened in my life, to me and to someone I know. You don’t know how to feel. You just feel numb to it. He’s still around, it’s just that it’s almost like he’s not around. We realized James was going to be in that situation for a long time, and we knew we needed to band together and do something. So we started meeting after MB got hit. The group was started to try and keep his friends in touch with him, help his family out, and just keep his friends involved with his life, considering he was such a social person.
But over time, we kept reading about it in the paper. We kept reading about people being hit, people being killed. We realized that it’s a problem that goes far beyond our friendship group. Before the incident happened, many of our own mates would get into fights without even thinking about it. Ironically, MB was probably the least aggressive, least violent kind of guy.
We all learned a big lesson. For me, in particular, it was about letting other people know about that lesson without them having to go through it themselves or without their friendship group having to lose someone or be the one that hit them. We need to get our message out there and really show people how much damage that simply one punch can do.
One punch was the catalyst for the formation of Step Back Think. One punch was all it took to bring the issue of street violence abruptly to our attention. One punch turned out to be one of those news stories we would have once heard and thought, “That couldn’t happen to me.” Step Back Think’s ambition is to make everyone understand the risk that’s taken when you throw that punch. To be the nagging voice in each person’s head when they’re shaping up to hit someone, saying, “If this guy’s head hits the pavement, he could die—over spilled beer. It’s hardly worth it.”
We know that education is the best way to tackle this issue. If more people knew a single punch could kill someone or lead them to devastating injuries like MB’s, maybe they’d think twice about throwing it. So what can you do? You can look after your mates. You can flip the traditional “got your back” mentality on its head. Instead of flying the flag, you can make sure you protect your mates by keeping them away or distracting them from a situation that could explode into a punch-up.
The bottom line is: One punch will never be worth the risk. The risk of losing a mate, the risk of going to prison, the risk of spending the rest of your life in a hospital bed, or sentencing someone else to that fate. The damage can’t be undone.
Video by Step Back Think
