Photo of an elderly woman forced to stand in a train goes viral and divides the Internet

Most people who take public transport know that if someone who is elderly, pregnant, or disabled needs a seat then it is common courtesy for a non-disabled, young person to give up their place for them. However, this was not the case for one elderly lady.

In Sydney, a photograph was taken of a senior woman standing on a train while three young, non-disabled passengers continued sitting down and none of them offered her a seat.

The photograph was first shared on Facebook and later made its way to Reddit. This immediately caused outrage on social media from those who saw the young commuters as disrespectful.

TRAIN TRUTH

Later on in the comments on both Facebook and Reddit people who claim to have been present when the picture was taken.

They defended the young people by saying that they had offered her a seat, but she declined. Others said she was about to get off at the next stop.

Due to the anonymous nature of Reddit, it is not possible to know if these claims are true or not and it is left to mere speculation.

There were also those who said that if the person taking the picture had a problem, then they should instead have spoken up.

NO SEATS AVAILABLE

A 20-year-old Australian nursing student, Jemma, had the bad luck of breaking a bone in her foot during an overseas hike. Her doctor had told her to wear crutches and a moon boot for ten weeks while the injury healed.

She uses public transport three days a week to get to university and back, with a two-hour journey each way. However, she did not receive the empathy from her fellow commuters that she had been expecting.

She found that people who took the vline train to Melbourne were helpful, but that those who traveled on the busy metro trains tended to ignore her altogether and tried to break eye contact with her for as long as possible.