It isn’t just the negiah that is the issue, you know. It is also the connection it makes between people when one person helps another out. “
You mean like the connection of her being GRATEFUL to someone for helping her in a difficult circumstance, and the other party feeling good about themselves at having been ABLE to help??? Are you opposed to connections that foster ahavas chinam and hakaras hatov? And how likely were these boys to ever run into her again anyway (and so what, if they did)? I suppose we can discuss this ad nauseum, but I will always be bothered by this story.
“I don’t think it should be done in such a situation unless it really is absolutely necessary.”
And how long should she be lying on the floor, humiliated and possibly injured before one deems it necessary to help her stand up? Would you feel differently if it were an older person, a mother with a small child, someone who has Cerebral Palsy, a young woman with an ace bandage on her foot or arm in a sling? Does that really matter SO much that anyone should stand idly by? And worse – to use religion as a reason for failing to act promptly? At the very least (and if this was a theoretical and not actual story), boys in that situation should RUN to get help.