Here’s a rant that I hope somehow gets back to the cheap SOB jeweler at the Festival Flea Market in Pompano Beach, Florida.
I was standing out front waiting for someone as they took a bathroom break. A car pulled up and a man about 90 years-old was stepping out and missed the curb and went down.
He messed up his fingers pretty badly. The skin had huge flaps in it and he was bleeding.. a lot. Like Dan Aykroyd playing Julia Child.
His daughter was pretty upset and wasn’t thinking right, she decided to go park the car. So this old man is sitting there saying he’s okay but it’s looking like a crime scene.
I asked him if he was on blood thinners and he said he was. That wasn’t a good answer.
I ran inside the Flea Market and there was this jeweler guy up on a big platform in a kiosk, working in front of everyone. I noticed he had about a third of a roll of paper towels.
I got his attention and asked if he could hand me the roll.
He looked up slightly, made sideways eye contact, looked annoyed and kept on working.
Thinking that he might get this request a lot, and not for a good reason, I added, “an old man fell on his hands and he’s bleeding pretty badly. We need to wrap his hands up.”
He seemed even more annoyed now and dropped his tool and went to the towels and… get this… peeled off three sheets and handed them to me. Three sheets.
I looked at him like he must be joking.
His face said he wasn’t.
I went back to the old guy with the 3 sheets. He was thankful, and his tune changed. He said he didn’t think he was going to be alright.
With that, his daughter came running up and some other people arrived to help. So I wasn’t needed. I hope he’s doing well today.
Mr. Jewelry guy, you suck. You’re a cheap bastid.
Work inside if you hate people so much. Or, hide your towels.
Don’t ever put absorbent towels on an open wound it will draw more blood out.
A cotton t-shirt would be better. If the bleeding is profuse apply direct pressure to the wound. Or use a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourniquet
If it is spraying.
Maybe you should stay at home away from all people
Call 911. Use what you have on you to help. Don’t go parking the car or looking for paper towels. Just Sayin. Use your tee shirt. Anything.
Asshole jewelry guy was an asshole, period. No extenuating circumstance changes that.
Asshole. Nothing more to say.
Please feel free to pass on my opinion.
You have to do something, even if it’s wrong.
I came upon a women lying down in a parking lot, just fallen from a dizzy spell.
Her head was on gravel in a paved lot.
So I took off my felt shammy shirt, balled it up and gave it to the person attending her to put under her head.
It was about 5 min for the ambulance to come.
When the paramedics came I figured, great, I get my shirt back.
Nope, had to wait another 5 minutes while the paramedic used it to kneel on.
Am I complaining? No, just glad to be human.
The world has more than its share of pricks.. that jeweler certainly qualifies.
At a flea market in Florida? You’re lucky the guy spoke enough English to understand your request. Second if you held out money he’d of probably reacted more positively.
I learned basic combat medicine a long time ago and I will still tell you it takes a lot to klll somebody – God created our bodies with amazing redundancy and recovery power. If the bleeding can be stopped you’ve got a chance.
Unless you have placed a tourniquet before be extra careful and always try to mark the person’s forhead with a “T” if you can. But avoid if you can.
About 20 years ago I came upon the scene of an accident after being at the gym. I grabbed my towel and wrapped a guy’s arm who had been cut pretty badly.
Ever since then I try to carry a towel or 2 in the car to help if needed.
Being ready to help others (not only being an American trait) requires an attitude of caring. Many people want to look and see the blood, few want to really help.
Regardless most of the time any help is better than none but remember common sense.
The best thing you always do is be with the person for comfort.
Betcha that jeweler voted for Hillary. Democraps are always cheap bastids.
My 90 y.o. Dad fell over one of those concrete car stoppers and hit the side of his head on the curb. The fall broke his hearing aid and cut his ear. I am a nurse and I know that head wounds bleed a lot. We went into a fast food restaurant and into the single bathroom. It is very hard to put pressure on the outer fold of the ear! All I had was the paper towels in the bathroom and wetted them so they wouldn’t absorb the blood and did all I could. After I was done (the place was empty thank heavens so no customers banging on the door) I cleaned up the bathroom covered the paper towels in the trash with clean ones so it wouldn’t look like a slaughter! When I went to the counter I told them that even though the sink looked clean, someone needed to go CLEAN it and empty the trash. The look on their face was priceless–they were not going to do that. After all that and my stomach in knots–Dad wanted a sandwich.
I think you did a great job BFH because you cared and I hope the gentleman is doing well.
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“I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting.”
Sheryl Crow
I’m glad I learned something new today. Never use paper towels on a wound.
As far as the cheap bastid — no surprise. I encounter at least one fking a hole everyday of my life. I actually got into a fight with another parent dropping my son off to school this morning. A stay at home dad with a big stupid looking beard.
Nobody needs more than 3 paper towels!
Hans has a good point, I bet even a one dollar bill would have made him jump but who thinks of money at a time like that, eh?
One time my kid cut her foot at a playground when her flip flopped off near some glass. I instinctively reached up my back and unlatched my bra. Why didn’t you think of that Fur? Instant tourniquet AND a great way to meet the ladies.
The one thing I should add about the towel — use it over something you can place pressure on if you can.
Also – Bernie Sanders forgot to mention that paper towels should always be recycled!!!!
A few years back I witnessed a doctor fall in the parking lot of a large hospital and bang her head on the pavement. Although the security guard called it in within minutes, it took over 10 minutes for her to receive medical attention.
Gotta hunch all that jewelry was fake, stolen, swindled. Was he wearing an overcoat with all kinds of watches pinned inside?
The jeweler should have come running with a first aid kit.
Good job Fur. That shitwit jeweler will have his lack of common decency come back on him.
Unwrapped, unfolded tampons are great for wounds if you have happen to have any handy. The H cut off the end of his thumb and we had nothing but band aids. I needed something absorbent and lint free so reached for the box of tampons.. The tampon and pressure worked great until we got to the Urgent Care. The RN recognized what I used but the Doc didn’t until the RN told him. Laughs all around.
Keep some wrapped tampons in your first aid kit. You also use them to stuff down the throats of loud-mouthed progs and girly men.
“Mr. Jewelry guy, you suck. You’re a cheap bastid.
Work inside if you hate people so much. Or, hide your towels.”
I would have walked around and worked the crowd telling people not to buy anything from that cheap bastard. Then I would stand there while the crowd disappeared then lift my middle finger to him. 🙂
@/notmyrealname: Good idea, but I don’t think Fur wears bras anymore. Not since that tragic accident involving some underwires and an MRI machine, anyway.
😉
In Flawwwwwww-rida, it’s no wonder that five PI lawyers didn’t come running to help the old man……with a business card.
Good job BFH. 90 year old skin can be like tissue paper. A fall that is harmless at 30 or 65 can do lots of skin laceration at 90, as you described. Sucks getting old. Sucks when middle aged daughters panic and try to proceed with the errand when an unplanned trip to an ER may now be required instead.
I was at a Florida flea market last summer, heard a continuing commotion with several black female voices shrieking “Oh Gawwwd! Oh Gawwwd!”
By the time I got over to see, it was a fallen woman, 80s or older, bleeding profusely from a fall and still on the ground, disoriented. At least a dozen women were standing around her, phones out videoing her, and shrieking “Oh Gawd!”. Apparently they have learned this as the only appropriate reaction to someone else’s injury from youTube.
With phones out, none of them had called 911. None of them ever made a move to help her. EMS arrived pretty quickly, but she got no aid from the crowd.
There is a demographic that is steadily devolving into something new, or very old.
There still are parts of the US where everyone involved would have acted differently. Civilly, humanely. Admirably.
We moved 1800 miles away from the east coast last year. Did it for my yet unborn grandchildren.
I once slammed my finger in my car door tearing it to the bone. I was in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven and I went in to ask for a paper towel. The guy behind the counter went over to the Band-Aid section and grabbed some gauze. I was able to control the bleeding but I knew I needed stitches so I go to leave and a guide starts yelling at me because I didn’t pay for the Band-Aids. He had a first aid kit that he could have used but instead he charged me five dollars for the Band-Aids. I gave them a bloodied 5 dollars.
Not many think of this, I had an awesome first aid teacher.
Womans room, Kotex makes a wonderful dressing and it’s sanitary.
In Chicago they woulda robbed him … and if he was a white dude, kicked him in the ribs just for laughs.
NYC, too … and St. Louis, and Gary, and Detroit, and Columbus, and Memphis, and Cincinnati, and Boulder, and Portland, Kansas City, and Little Rock, and DC, and Baltimore, and Annapolis, and Richmond, and … &c … well … if they didn’t cut his head off – depending upon the size of the raghead or Ecuadoran population.
izlamo delenda est …
Tim, your optimism is so bracing.
pbird,
Thank you! I always try to look at the bright side of life!
And try to spread a little sunshine with every comment!
izlamo delenda est …