A Sephora at Kohl’s shopper experiences a medical emergency while shopping, and receives medical attention from a lawyer.
TikTok user Reb (@rebmasel) starts the video by saying, “None of you will believe what just happened to me but I don’t care I’m gonna tell you anyway.”
She goes on to explain that she had arrived early to a meeting and in the same area, there was a Kohl’s retail store. Instead of sitting in her car and waiting for this meeting to occur, she decided to walk around the air-conditioned store and get some steps in. She described the interior of the store as rather desolate: There was only a singular, small group of people huddled in a circle near a Sephora section inside of the Kohl’s.
As she ambled along in the store around 10 minutes out for her meeting, she heard a surprising statement come from someone inside of the Kohl’s: A person asked if there was a lawyer present as if it was an emergency. Their tone, Reb says, was akin to the type of urgent pleading a person would have upon seeing someone collapse in an airplane mid flight, which is the type of situation she never wanted to find herself in as a professional. It’s a big reason why she chose being a lawyer as her career path.
Unfortunately, the impossible situation thrust itself upon Reb, and she instinctively replied to their call for someone who practices law, much to her own chagrin. Simply from the tone she employs while relaying the events that transpired following her verbalized announcement of being a lawyer, it doesn’t appear that Reb believes she made the right choice in that moment.
At this point, she only has eight minutes until hear meeting starts when she sees why the group was in a huddle. They surrounded a woman who was laying down on the floor and who Reb said looked “very angry.” So angry that the TikToker said her rage could even be seen through her Botox procedures.
Reb asked the group if they were sure they were looking for a lawyer, and they clarified they weren’t asking for a legal practitioner, but that the woman on the floor had asked for one.
@rebmasel pls??????
♬ original sound – reb for the rebrand
The TikToker who is still counting down the minutes until she has to attend her meeting, crouches down in her three-inch heels and “pant suit” and asks the woman how she can help her. The woman informs Reb that she was choking and that a Kohl’s employee attempted the Heimlich maneuver on her to save her life.
However, the woman went on to claim that she wasn’t sick or coughing at all, and that the Kohl’s employee, who Reb says looked like he was maybe 18-19 years-old, “put his hands on” her. Reb was shocked by the woman’s accusation, and also that the Kohl’s employees thought the woman’s request for a lawyer was a demand that needed to be fulfilled immediately, as if she was being rushed in for emergency surgery.
Reb says that she ultimately was able to “diffuse” the situation, but remarked that when she was applying to law school and pursuing her degree, that she never would have imagined her career would’ve seen her having to rush to resolve a conflict between a woman who is either really bad at wording what recently happened to her, or she decided to change her story about the incident so she could potentially slap Kohl’s with a lawsuit.
The video has amassed more than 3.3 million views as of Sunday evening. In the comments, viewers shared how they think they would’ve handled the situation.
One person wrote, “I would have been like ‘Oh, I’m not that kind of lawyer.’ and walked away.”
Another user joked, “The lawyer Gotham deserves.”
There was a TikTok user who said that Reb missed out on an opportunity to make some money off of the situation. Who’s to say she couldn’t have nabbed herself a “discounted” retainer fee to mediate the situation as a lawyer? “Did you show her the venmo before you continued the conversation because that’s what I’d do,” they wrote.
One commenter inquired about a law that protects “good Samaritans” from facing any legal/financial liabilities if they’re attempting to help someone in a time of crisis. “Isn’t there a Good Samaritan law that should protect would be saviours?” they wrote.
The National Institutes of Health states that all 50 United States, and the District of Columbia, have Good Samaritan laws, but not all of these laws are the same, and some of their stipulations and the legalities surrounding them are variegated across the country.
However the basis of the law is very simple: If you’re trying to save somebody’s life in a hairy situation, you have certain legal protections if they do try and sue you for whatever you did or didn’t do.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Kohl’s and Reb via email for comment.