I live in a very strict and conservative country and once a young girl passed out in front of everyone. Her sister was panicking screaming at her to try to breath. I'm usually a savior vigilante type of guy whenever and wherever the situation but sadly at that time I was wearing shorts. So my immediate reaction was to nope out and pretend I didn't see anything. They had to bring another woman who was working close by to do CPR and resuscitate her. The girl then survived obviously. I later had feelings of guilt that I did not step in to help, but in the same time I could've been jailed for touching her and worse get beaten by everyone there. what an awful dilemma ...
I believe it's more the fear of looking informal or unprofessional. Without more formal clothes, he was afraid of looking like a random chancer copping a feel instead of someone trying to save a life. Pretty silly in retrospect but definitely a possible fear in the moment.