Morals
Wednesday 24th January, 2007 09:58 Comments: 3
A woman who stopped to help a driver whose car had overturned died after another vehicle skidded and crushed her against the man's car. A very similar accident happened to my uncle's father, he used to be a vehicle recovery driver and was helping move a car that had skidded off the road. As he was halfway in the car, another car came off at the same place and skidded into the car door, resulting in the loss of his leg. As a silver lining, the fact it was freezing cold helped reduce the rate of blood loss and helped saved his life. So the moral I can find from both stories is this: don't help people (especially when it's cold outside). Okay, the real moral is that if an accident happens once, if the conditions are unchanged, a similar accident will probably occur. This means if someone loses control on an icy patch of road, if the icy patch remains then someone else is quite likely to lose control there too. It's like the lie that lightning never strikes the same place twice. If it were true, why would churches and tall buildings have lightning conductors? Anything that provides a less resistant path (typically metal) is going to be a more attractive option and is more likely to be struck by lightning. If the structure is a permanent feature it is quite likely to be struck by lightning again. And you might think that none of this really matters to you, but next time you see an accident and go to help someone, be aware of your surroundings. It'd be prudent to mitigate the risk of a re-occurrence. Learn from your mistakes, and learn from other people's mistakes. And sometimes people are just very unlucky.
Fab - Wednesday 24th January, 2007 11:25 If you ever did a first aid course (mine was a long time ago), you would know DR ABC - Danger, Response, Airways, Breathing, Circulation. In other words before helping someone, check for danger. If that moving machinery, patch of ice etc is still there, you have a problem that needs to be resolved first. I have been known to yank a cyclist off the road with a bleeding headwound and get him onto the grass for treatment.
I used to be a junior first aider (from my DofE days), then I became a qualified lifeguard (which has expired now). People often have to think carefully about their initial actions, people like us that have been trained will almost instinctively deal with situations correctly, but sometimes it's not always clear what to do first. In some cases the right thing to do is move the cyclist off the road (e.g. grazed/bleeding but otherwise appears to be fine), but in other cases it might be more appropriate to park your car with the hazards on to protect the unconscious cyclist with a potential spinal injury that shouldn't be moved. Sometimes there isn't a right answer, and you have to make a decision between the lesser evil. Either way, you should be cautious, which can be difficult in the heat of the moment.
Hehe, I think people aren't sure whether to call me cautious or reckless. Work has really taught me to think stuff in depth, but sometimes you just dont get time to do that. I did once rescue a girl on a ski slope as she fell over on severe ice and was sliding towards a cliff. I skied up to her and jammed my pole in front to stop her. She didnt reward me with a kiss though (ungateful!!).