KFI:
EMTs probably have seen a lot of disturbing things when they’ve show up to accident scenes, but the first responders in South Point, Ohio weren’t expecting what they encountered at a car wreck this week. Sidney Wolfe, a student at Marshall University in West Virginia, was coming home from a haunted house event that she went to dressed as “Carrie” to promote her role as the title character in the musical of the same name, based on the Stephen King book. Sidney was driving while wearing a tiara and a white prom dress and covered in fake blood, when her car hit a deer.
The vehicle was totaled so the EMTs who showed up were expecting to see some injuries, but were horrified when they saw Sidney with blood all over her, not realizing she was just in a costume. She tweeted an apology to them. read more
“Carrie” the musical? Now I’ve heard everything.
…I don’t see why this would be a problem if she’s conscious and talking to the medics, although it certainly complicates things because people involved in high speed collisions don’t ALWAYS know where, or sometimes even IF, they’re injured, as the damage can happen very quickly and the adrenaline can mask the pain.
In my misspent youth I hit another car very hard and had a lovely conversation with a LEO after the fact, who asked if I wanted to go to the hospital. I said, “No, why should I?” and he pointed at my forehead and said “For that”. I touched it and there was blood, then looked in my rear view mirror and saw I had a pretty good ecchymosis weeping blood in the center (no, I didn’t know that word then, just thought it was a bruise), and was very confused how it happened. I still declined and, since our business was done with that (and him citing me for ACD, ensuring PLENTY of future business with my insurance company and my Father), and my car was still operable (1973 Cutlass Supreme Sedan, 6000 pounds of pure American steel with NO airbags or gay pollution controls, couldn’t kill THAT thing in a collision), and gripped the steering wheel…and saw that it was split in half at the top. I had apparently went forwards in the collision SO fast and with SUCH force that I was able to break a solid molded plastic steering wheel with metal reinforcing trim ring in half with my evidently Klingon forehead, and not even know I DID it.
The point being that, just because she’s sitting there (or standing there, not sure if she was in the car or not), it behooves medical personnel to not necessarily take the victim’s word for whether they are injured and look for further damage…IF she wants to be transported. If she declined, that’s the end of it, as long as she’s oriented times 3: if she wants to be transported, backboard, Bashaw head chocks, C-Collar, and a secondary examination after ensuring the ABCs to make sure your victim isn’t going to bleed out on the way to the hospital, because it’s very embarrassing to deliver patients that you let die on the way to the hospital to the ER, and people WILL talk about you, many of them in a court of Law.
The secondary CAN be embarrassing for the victim, but it’s not sexy AT ALL for the responders, as you’d have to be pretty sick to be turned on by clinical activities in a patient care milieu, and you would – and SHOULD – be kicked the fuck off the Department if you think or act like it IS, even JOKINGLY. THAT shit ain’t FUNNY, and this is WHY. If she doesn’t want to submit to it, then we’d be back to signing a refusal and have a nice day. Again, not knowing how she was found or presenting other than a bloody dress I can’t assess, but there could be anything from bruising on the chest that could be indicative of a steering wheel strike that damaged the heart, to an impalement somewhere that’s masked by the fake blood. The patient would be apprised of these possibilities and again given the opportunity to decline transport or submit to a secondary, which the hospital will be doing anyway, whether or NOT the field unit does. You gotta do what you gotta do.
…by the way, I suspect I spotted a misquote in the story.
She says this; “Next came the police officers who were like ‘oh man’ and kept asking over and over again if I needed medical assistance.”
…being the veteran of many scenes and young LEOs who aren’t as conditioned to some of the uglys that medics see, I can almost GUARANTEE that he said “Oh, SHIT!”, not “oh, man”.
The “OH, SHIT!” run is a legitimate thing in emergency services. This is the run that is SO bad, the guy who calls 911 says “OH, SHIT!”, the first-in LEO says “OH, SHIT!”, the first EMS responder says “OH, SHIT!”, and so does the fire crew, the ambulance crew, the hospital (it’s TOUGH to get the HOSPITAL to say, “OH, SHIT!”, but sometimes we managed), etc., etc., usw…
There ARE some that are THAT bad. And THIS guy had EVERY reason to think he just rolled UP on one…