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What would you do?????????????
Its Saturday afternoon and you get called out for a 2 car P.I. unknown injuries. Its on a very busy highway just over a hill, you get on scene and find no injuries and both cars are still in the roadway. Your the only person there and cars are coming over the hill @ 60 mph and have to either slam on their brakes or go screaming bye you. What do you do? I call for law but their 10 minutes out. Do you have them move their vehicles off to the shoulder of the road? Do you get the people out of the vehicles and to the shoulder of the road and hope no one hits the cars?
Well I did one of these steps and I'll tell you on Friday what all happened. I want to see what your answers are before I tell you the outcome.
You'll be suprised, I'm sure! So check back in on this coming Friday.
Well here is the rest of the story, I ask the 2 drivers to pull their vehicles off to the side of the road, and they did but one of the drivers decide to pull their vehiclesway off the shoulder and go up over the curb and parks on the grass. I ran up and asked him if he lost his brakes, he said no just getting off the roadway. Now we've got our rescue on seen an ambulance and law. The passenger then states she's got a lot of pain in her back, so we KED board her and remove her from her vehicle. Law was not mad that I asked for the vehicles to be moved. My Assistant Chief was mad that we moved the vehicles when a patient was injured. I told him that they were not complaining of any injuries at the time, and I thought it was to everyones best interests to get the vehicles to the side of the roadway. He was fine then, but still advised me of the risks when I do something like that. I agreed with him. I guess I'm writing this so that everyone else can think of this when they are going to move vehicles to the side of the roadway. Also the passenger that we KED boarded was fine later on, Thank God!
Well I did one of these steps and I'll tell you on Friday what all happened. I want to see what your answers are before I tell you the outcome.
You'll be suprised, I'm sure! So check back in on this coming Friday.
Well here is the rest of the story, I ask the 2 drivers to pull their vehicles off to the side of the road, and they did but one of the drivers decide to pull their vehiclesway off the shoulder and go up over the curb and parks on the grass. I ran up and asked him if he lost his brakes, he said no just getting off the roadway. Now we've got our rescue on seen an ambulance and law. The passenger then states she's got a lot of pain in her back, so we KED board her and remove her from her vehicle. Law was not mad that I asked for the vehicles to be moved. My Assistant Chief was mad that we moved the vehicles when a patient was injured. I told him that they were not complaining of any injuries at the time, and I thought it was to everyones best interests to get the vehicles to the side of the roadway. He was fine then, but still advised me of the risks when I do something like that. I agreed with him. I guess I'm writing this so that everyone else can think of this when they are going to move vehicles to the side of the roadway. Also the passenger that we KED boarded was fine later on, Thank God!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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Hmm, I guess my post was spot on by moving vehicles with possibly injured patients inside was one scenario listed. Just glad to hear everyone turned out OK but you can see how you and the town almost owned a lawsuit huh? Many good medics have owned a lawsuit similiarly but it was because they allowed a patient to walk around with a C-spine injury instead of controlling the scene until everyone is checked and triaged.
I can see your Chief's viewpoint. While your first thought was to move the vehicles to avoid a secondary accident. OK I'll agree with the concept of scene safety, but while doing that didn't you jepordized your own saftey by just pulling up and getting out? That goes for every other poster who said mark the tires, or move the cars because of whatever law says so... It could have been done the way I described by using the crest of the hill, firetruck, cones and signage. I understand your POV has lights and your appear ready to defend them TJ but it is now where as visable as a fire truck. Highway speeds are fast, too fast to see your POV not to mention it probably doesn't meet the visability standards of apparatus response units. You can't see a POV when going 65 mph (nobody speeds right so it is more like 70-75) with cars tucked in-front of each other... POV is too low, small and not enough lights to protect any scene.
I have seen the same accident in bad weather almost kill 6 fellow POV responders on an icy highway. Those POVs were tossed like little toys in the sandbox. firefighters running for the hillside. So my old department went to no POV response on the highway, after almost loosing 6 good intentioned firefighters. Your personal safety is the priority, and secondary accidents are not our liability until we arrive and secure the scene with the appropriate vehicles, equipment and attire.
And I bet you were wearing the new hi-vis vests that are required by law too?
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Permalink Reply by T.J. on
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No, on the vest but they where ordered and we now where them on any roadway incident.
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I guess so FETC, thanks for that info, I guess it's going to be up to use whether or not we want to respond down the hill to an accident (POV) or just wait for your engine to get on scene.
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Permalink Reply by Terri on
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I guess we would be totally screwed here. Most of the time the FD isn't toned out until AFTER EMS, so we are first on the scene, along with law enforcement. I have made it to the scene where the ambulance was the first there. The first thing I was taught (28 years ago) was scene safety. Is the scene secure? We are NO help to anyone if we are hurt or killed. If you know you have no backup for at least 10 minutes and it is a busily traveled road, moving cars might have to be done. Don't know about anywhere else, but in our community we always have 15 jillion onlookers show up, even before us. And they are SOOOOO helpful (more on this later). I learned early in my career that just because a possible patient says they are ok in the first 2 minutes, give it about 5-10 minutes and see what they say. Don't take anyone's word on the scene they are ok. First thing we do after checking patients is have them sign a no transport, explaining what could happen later and why. So while you have these patients off to the side, have some of those "lookieloos" move vehicles. The driver of the vehicle that had the wreck really doesn't need to be driving again right then anyway. I know we have utilized bystanders to block traffic a good distance away from the scene to keep anyone else from being hurt. A lot of places around here...the ambulance comes from one county, and the law enforcement comes from another. So we might have to wait awhile to get that kind of assistance. And if our dispatcher "forgets" to tone FD, our two man ambulance crew might be the only ones there for quite awhile. So you do what you gotta do...saving lives. After all...isn't that the bottom line?
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Permalink Reply by kimmieflirts on
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you where absolutely right to tell the people to move their cars, if they are complaining of no injury and the cars can be moved have them move it. god forbid they dont move the cars and then got hit and killed u may have liability there too. One thing that really pisses me off in the whole liability lets sue everyone craze is that people ie the drivers dont take personal responsibility for themselves and people fulled trained and able to help now have to think twice about stop or they might get sued.
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Permalink Reply by Eric on
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Logically, the most important person there is you, and in order for you to provide aid to victims the scene should be safe. If you try care for a victim while there in their cars in the middle of a highway that hasn't been secured there could be more casualties than there currently is, then add yourself to that list.
If you tell the driver to exit the vehicle so you could move it than they could suffer from spinal Injury, and now there on the roadway in a more unsafe environment than before. I think you made a wise decision based on the situation at hand that prevented the victims and any other people from being hurt.
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Permalink Reply by Ed Cunningham on
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SCENE SAFETY come before eval and treatment.
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Hey you never told me about this one
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Permalink Reply by Brian Dumser on
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If no one complained of any injuries, I say you did the right thing by moving the vehicles off of the roadway.
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Permalink Reply by Chad Furr on
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I am with you LT. COmmon courtesy should never die. I am reading about FF's and EMS personell carrying guns and bullet proof vest. Whta in the hell has this world come to??
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