Monday, September 28, 2009

AT AN ACCIDENT SCENE: WHAT DID I SEE? WHAT DID I LEARN?

Yesterday, I was present at an accident. In truth, I didn’t see it, as I wasn’t the driver, and I was crocheting. But it did happen in front of us as we were waiting at a red light, the fourth car in line. The light changed, two cars tried to occupy the same space simultaneously, and wham, bam, the two cars were badly damaged in the intersection. I learned at least four important lessons from what happened next.

We immediately pulled our car to the side of the road just as two women dragged themselves out from one of the two damaged cars. Neither was bleeding. While one seemed all right, her companion was definitely in pain. With the help of her friend, she hobbled in my direction to the side of the road, eyes closed and moaning. I started to search for my first aid kit, but I couldn’t find it during the first critical moments. We had bought a new car five months previously, and I didn’t know where my first aid kit had been relocated. I rushed over with a pillow, but she didn’t want to lie down. She was still standing up, moaning, when I heard first responder medical staff approaching.

When I finally did find the kit, the first responder medical vehicles then arriving made my small offering unneeded. It was too late to be of any medical use to the victims.

What did I learn about first aid equipment?

• Different kinds of accidents have different first-aid needs. The first aid kit wasn’t needed at this one. But a disposable blow-up pillow and disposable sheets and blankets would have been useful. Get them.

• Know where to find first aid equipment.

• Make sure that site is easily accessible, even if your car is the one that has been damaged

I also realized that if there had been intensive bleeding, I was no longer adequately-prepared to address such a situation on my own. I am a DC CERT member – that’s a national program to provide community residents with triage and emergency response training in case of some grave emergency. In fact, I have gone through the full training twice. But I realized that that training is limited in scope and depth, and needs annual repetition to competently deal with emergency situations. This is especially true if the situation could possibly potentially involve a life and death matter.

What did I learn about training?

• In all cases, remember that the first duty is to do no harm.

• Do not act on partly-remembered training.

• Realize the limits of even fully-remembered training and don't attempt more than minimal assistance in a situation when professional help will surely be coming quickly

• Retrain annually.

The third thing I learned was that I had only focused on the victims from one of the cars. I paid no attention to the people in the other involved car. I only saw one of them, a man standing by himself, and had no idea if he had been hurt. As the accident was pretty nasty, he or any of his unseen companions could well have been. Looking back, of course I should have taken the initiative and gone to check on the victim of the other car as well to see if he, or any others in his party, had been injured. Why hadn’t I? Partly because the two women had headed in my direction, while the man stood still. But also, I think I felt that his car was to blame for the accident (on what evidence, I’m not sure). That made me feel hostile, so I didn’t go and ask him how he was feeling. Upon reflection, of course that made no sense. Pain knows no boundaries of any kind, and once the accident happened, all victims were equally entitled to whatever help that I or anyone else could have given.

What did I learn about who should get help?

• Pay no attention to the question of fault – that’s someone else’s job

• Check all cars and the surrounding land for potential victims

• Make sure I give help fairly and strictly in terns of triage

Finally, as we stood by the side of the accident, my husband talked to the to the man whose car was first in line. He had had a complete view of the accident that had unfolded in front of him. My husband asked this fellow what he had seen. It was immediately clear that the best possible witness had no sense at all of what he must have seen. His description of what he thought had happened was seriously impossible, geographically, time-sequentially and physically. What he thought he had seen did not correspond in any way with either the position of the cars or the placement of the extensive damage.

What did I learn about witnesses?

• Memory is not to be trusted

• Nor is the judgment of a witness

• Looking at the clock to determine when an accident happened would be helpful.

• So would a pad of paper to take notes and make a quick sketch.

• A disposable camera can be really helpful, and possibly a dedicated emergency phone

Probably the most important thing Mme. Magpie learned from this incident is sequencing reactions to an accident. The duty of a bystander should flow as follows: The first duty is to think about how soon first responders may take to arrive and with what level of assistance. An accident in the middle of nowhere needs a different level of help than an accident at the corner of two major city streets. The next duty is figure out how much needs to be done before professional assistance arrives and how much help any training the bystander has to offer is appropriate, based on these estimates. The final duty is to act with restraint and in accordance with all the limitations noted.

Mme. Magpie hopes that this learning process will allow an injured person the opportunity to get better quickly and fully – accident-related injuries are much less fun to contemplate than bright, sparkly jewels.

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