Lights, Camera, Action

Log start: 2:23am Sunday July 25th, 2010

Suddenly the spotlight is directed to you unexpectedly. How will you react? How will you feel during the sudden suprise and how will you feel afterwards when you've had a chance to think about it?

Let me tell you the happenings of today (saturday).

So, today, regular boring ass day at work. Originally, my friends planned a day at Long Beach, but i couldn't go due to work...
So about 2 nights ago after a huge thunderstorm, the weather people (such idiots) issued a tornado watch or warning, i forgot, for long beach. so the group was like "nahhhhh" and they came to hang out at my pool instead.

Cool stuff. After the pool, we went to another friends house to play some ping pong in his backyard.
Short story, he baught a really nice ping pong table for his backyard and since we decided on dinner later, we had some time to kill before heading to dinner. We brought the pong table out to his backyard and we played ping pong there.

We played for maybe an hour until we hear a big BOOM in the near distance. Us being college students, established right away that the sound was due to a car accident that was not far away from my friends house. My friend Hao, being the more curious type strolled on faster than the rest of us up a mini hill driveway to find a car accident and yells out "OH SHIT, IT'S A CAR ACCIDENT"

Right then and there, my automated professional first aid mode kicked in and i ran as fucking fast that could in sandals to analyze the situation.

When we got there, there were two cars involved in the accident, the worse of the two cars had his front bumper torn off and the driver had bailed to the passenger seat (i don't know how that happened, but i arrived with it looking like that).
My first instinct was to call 911, as it is the first thing that we are taught in first aid class. We are only there to assist the people until people with better training arrives. So as i'm talking to this 911 operator, i asked the guy "CAN I HELP YOU? I'M TRAINED IN CPR."

Fail #1.

the correct wording would be "can i help you? i'm currently certified in first aid"

This was one of the things that i couldn't believe i had said until it had left my mouth and that i couldn't believe i said after i had A LOT of time to think about it.
I guess all of that messing around at work got to me... It's my first time being the first professional rescuer at a real accident scene and my heart was pounding when i saw the accident. I knew i could of done something, so i did it, for the safety of the people that were involved in the accident. If i know that i could do something and i just stood around and watched, it would of been such a dick move and i couldn't of lived with that conscience my whole life.

Called 911, ask the guy what happened and told him to stay still until EMS arrived. ( i suspected a head, neck, and back injury. LOL. )
the police station was about 8 blocks away, the fire department 3 blocks away, and a hospital 5 blocks away. i live in an area where (thank god) a lot of things are near.
As soon as i started talking to the guy, i hear the firehouse sirens and i calmed down.
As there was no immediate danger to the man and no life threatening forces in the accident scene, there was honestly nothing i could do to help the man, by the time i ran inside to my friends house to get a first aid kit (lol) the paramedics would of already arrived. so i just stood there watching the guy until the fire department came, then i strolled quickly back to my friends who were watching from the sidewalk and taking massive quantities of picures...

The guys left arm was cut up with bruises and had cuts without squirting blood, and the side of his head was rashed up, probably from the cars side curtain airbag. nothing more i could of done.

Once fire dept, police, and finally the ambulance came, i was just another innocent bystander.

But seriously. My first "real" accident, i splurted my words out incorrectly and i couldn't do anything except call 911.
My instructors say that it's always the most important part in the accident cycle, so i guess i did do the most important first step! *pats self on back*

But this brings up a question of what if. What if this were to happen again later on in my life where i'm the first professional on the scene? what would i do? what would i be able to do? would i splurt out my words correctly after the first time? would my actions mean life or death?

when you're put under pressure, everything changes. all the training you did only accounts for 50% of the things that you do in a situation.
It's just as surprising as someone shining a spotlight at you all of a sudden and telling you to dance. you'd go, "wtf??"
this was a "wtf" moment for me when i first saw it. i was like "this shit isn't happening to me... FML... but GOGOGO, ALL YOUR TRAINING TELLS YOU TO BE A GOOD SAMARITAIN."
i honestly wanted to help, there was nothing i could do. and even when the fire dept and police came, they treated the guy the wrong way. they asked him if he can move his legs and after he said yes, they asked him if he could walk a bit out of the car.

SERIOUSLY?? you guys who are trained in professional rescue care who are reading this should also go "SERIOUSLY?"

the dude was just in a serious car accident, you don't give him a neck brace and you TELL HIM TO MOVE??? good thing EMS came soon enough and was like "NONONO, STAY STILL!!!"

-_-"

but yeah, this brings up a lot of questions for me and for similarly trained people like me who ave never witnessed an accident.

What would you do to help? what CAN you do to help? and how would you react?

i relied on my insticts today and i hopped on my phone right away calling 911.
good thing to know for future accidents, that a lot of this rescuing business is already imprinted into my head.

I really wish i could of helped more, the guy was in pain, his left arm was probably either broken or dislocated, there was probably head trauma and serious internal bleeding. But i didn't want to risk doing anything wrong on the off chance that i did because the fire dept was already 2 blocks away, am i a bad person for thinking like that?
i haven't that time to think about that yet, but for future references, i will know what to do. hopefully i'll be more trained in helping and hopefully i can say the correct line...

when all pressure is on you, shit changes. you discard most that you have been taught during training and all you need to know is to not fuck shit up because so many peoples lives can either be saved or destroyed by your hands. we are the barrier between the people who are hurt to the moment that EMS arrives.

I probably need to think about the situation a but more tommorow... i'm sleepy... -_-

HakoneDayDreamer, i really felt like i could do more, but i couldn't do it...