Hurt

The city of Lebanon, PA has a very large ambulance association called First Aid & Safety Patrol (FASP), who responds to well over 20,000 calls per year, and I have a few friends who work there. I was looking at FASP's website and came across a video clip of a mock scenario they did, I presume for training purposes. Some people in the past have asked me how us firefighters and EMS people handle going to calls that really turn out bad. Although I haven't been as active in emergency services lately because of college, in the past I've seen some things that no one should have to see. And when people ask about it, there's not a whole lot to say, partially because of HIPAA laws, and also because it's hard to describe what a bad scene is like or to even want to talk about it sometimes. Even within my local community I've seen people from similar backgrounds, or even the same family, respond differently to situations. For example, after one incident, two guys about my age who knew the patient, reacted differently. One was an active but somewhat new firefighter, and it took him a while to get back into running calls again after seeing this incident. The other guy responded in a somewhat similar way that I did after seeing a few bad calls for the first time. Even though the incident distrubed him a little bit, his resolve was to go get some basic first aid training to know what to do if there is ever a "next time." That's only one example though; I've seen others respond in various ways as well. The point is, people respond differently to tragedy.

Let me warn you though, if you think this video clip will bring back memories of some time in the past that you don't want to remember, THEN DON'T WATCH IT, and stop reading now. If you do watch this video, try putting yourself in the place of some of those responders, especially the first police officer on location, and the officer near the end. How would you react if that was your job? Some of you might look at this video and have all kinds of questions, like, Who would even want to put a video like that together, or Why would anyone even want to watch that? Others might watch and respond by realizing the potential to be of assistance to their neighbors. Some people's affect is such that it crushes them psychosocially, others it opens their eyes to a chance for outreach. Although this video might have some little details that aren't exactly how it might look sometimes, and I'm sure some people could play "arm-chair medic" and point out all the flaws, the point is, this is a fairly realistic re-enactment of a typical MVA with a DOA. I will say that often an incident like this is more chaotic than it appears in the video, but this was a training scenario, not a real incident. No one was hurt for real. I could say a lot more, but a picture is worth a thousand words, and a video - thousands:

http://www.faspems.com/community/video.html

Also, I'm not sure, but I think this might have been used as a community awareness event for the highschool kids about the risks of driving under the influence.