Elijah Cummings once comforted a dying stranger -- while Trump boasted about ignoring a bleeding guest at Mar-A-Lago

Elijah Cummings and President Donald Trump aren't very much alike, and their differences have come into sharper relief as the U.S. president hurls racist attacks at the Maryland Democrat and the city of Baltimore that he represents in Congress.

But two stories involving the two men, coincidentally first revealed in mid-2008, highlight the personal contrasts between the veteran lawmaker and the real estate developer-turned-reality TV star-turned president.

Cummings stopped at a gas station in Catonsville, Maryland, on Mother's Day 2008, just moments after a father-to-be was stabbed during a robbery while taking his expectant wife to the hospital to deliver their son.

"As I was driving up to get my gas, there were three or four well-dressed African-American ladies on cell phones and they were crying," Cummings told the Washington Examiner a few days later. "I looked to my right and I saw a man with blood spewing out. I thought he had been shot."

Cummings tried to comfort the man, 19-year-old Carlos Santay-Carrillo, before help arrived.

"It couldn't have been more than 20 seconds before I got there," Cummings said. "He was lying there by himself. He stood up, and the blood kept coming. He fell on his face. He turned over a little bit. I just started talking to him. I said, 'It's going to be all right. It's going to be OK.'"

The lawmaker said Santay-Carrillo tried repeatedly to stand up and fought to stay alive, despite his grievous wound.

"The thing that got me, he kept trying to get up," Cummings said. "He was trying very hard. He must have rose up at least four or five times. He fought. He didn't have much strength, but he fought.

"His heart had been punctured," Cummings added. "For him to live for 30 minutes, that means he had a real drive to stay alive."

Trump, on the other hand, infamously boasted during a July 13, 2008, interview with Howard Stern that he turned away in disgust as a guest at his Mar-A-Lago club nearly bled to death in front of him.

The future president told Stern that a man of about 80, who he pointed out "a lot of people didn’t like," fell during a Red Cross charity ball at his Palm Beach, Florida club.

“So what happens is, this guy falls off right on his face, hits his head and I thought he died,” Trump said. “And you know what I did? I said, ‘Oh my god, that’s disgusting, and I turned away. I couldn’t, you know — he was right in front of me. I turned away, I didn’t want to touch him.”

“He’s bleeding all over the place, I felt terrible, you know,” Trump continued. “Beautiful marble floor, it didn’t look so good. It changed color, it became very red, and you have this poor guy, 80 years old, laying on the floor, conscious, and all of the rich people are turning away, ‘Oh my god, this is terrible, this is disgusting,’ and, you know, they’re turning away, nobody wants to help the guy, and his wife is screaming, she sitting right next to him and she’s screaming.”

Trump said some U.S. Marines, whom he said had been given the worst table in the ballroom despite being guests of honor, rushed to the man’s aid as he and the wealthy donors in attendance watched in horror.

“So from the back of the room they come running forward," Trump said, "they grabbed him, they put the blood all over the place, it’s all over their uniforms, they’re taking it, they swipe — they ran him out, they created a stretcher — they call it a human stretcher, their arms out, like five guys on each side. They ran him out, I never saw it, they ran him out. I was saying, ‘Get that blood cleaned up, it’s disgusting.'”

Trump eventually learned the man had survived, but he admitted that he neglected to check on him.

“I forgot to call, the next day I forgot to call to say, is he okay,” Trump said. “He was okay, it’s just not my thing. I just don’t like looking at blood.”