You're driving along, looking forward to a nice hot meal. As you go around a corner you come upon another car, flipped over, wheels spinning, debris still bouncing on the road.
What do you do?
Standing next to the car, you note it's still running.
What do you do?
There's someone inside. He's breathing and his eyes are open but he's not responding to stimulus.
What do you do?
He starts regaining consciousness but is still heavily disoriented and starts thrashing around in the car.
What do you do?
The above is not a hypothetical but an actual situation that I experienced this weekend. Thankfully I've had enough (very) basic training in first aid and accident response to react properly until better trained and equipped individuals arrived on the scene. Others who stopped helped direct traffic, call 911 to report, what have you.
Some just stood gawking and taking pictures.
Who would you be if you were the first on the scene? Do you know enough to help in even a basic way or would you just stand there hoping someone else will help?
I'm glad that I was able to help this individual and do my duty as a responsible citizen and not as a leech on society.
4 comments:
Well? What did you do?
Tell us how you turned the ignition off, and why, because some of your readers might not know about the need for that, or might need reminding.
Tell the whole thing.
A couple years back I was sitting in a turn lane at a major intersection here in Phoenix, (8 lanes on both roads), a car turning left in front of me was t-boned by another vehicle doing around 45 mph. This was in the middle of rush hour. There were literally dozens of people sitting in their cars who watched the whole thing happen. I was the only person that got out of his vehicle and started doing some basic first aid/accident response on the two drivers. Not a single person in any of the other vehicles so much as hollered out their window if I needed help. When the first cop showed up I vented about the whole situation and he just shook his head and said "That's the way it is these days. No one helps anymore. If they get out of their cars they are just taking cellphone pictures" I lost a lot of my faith in humanity that day.
Keep going.
Otherwise you take a chance on being sued.
Per Paul:
Unless you are an EMT, Medic, Doctor, Nurse, or designated First Repsonder, you should stop and help, at least in NJ.
I dated a nurse for a while, she filled me in on the Good Samaritan laws - and how they DO NOT apply to medically-trained personnel, even off-duty. Standards of care are different.
Pity, really... It hurts to just drive by because you once served as a volunteer fire fighter, and now you could be sued to extinction as a "designated First Responder", held to a "higher standard", because you once were certified in CPR.
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