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I saved someones life
entry by IIVQ
9/29/2005 10:44 AM
| Yesterday, I was walking along the canal with my girlfriend when I saw a man lying on the ground. I at first thought he was sunbathing and my girlfriend said as a joke "Hey, a dead body!"*
A quarter of a second later it kicked in and we saw he was covered in blood. At first it looked as if he was fallen from his bike, but his bike was neatly parked against a fence some 20 metres away. I quickly dialed 112 (The european 911/999), but as I was very close to the Dutch border I had Dutch cell reception. The emergency dispatcher didn't understand me, connected me to the police dispatcher in Genk (about 50 km away) who contacted me trough to ambulance dispatcher. It took me some 5 minutes to tell the man where exactly the incident happened as it was on a no-name back road. In total, I was on the phone for over 10 minutes. The required drive time is 15 minutes, so they had 5 minutes left. Of course it took some 20 minutes, as they had dispatched an ambulance from Bilzen, not Tongeren. (Tongeren is a bit further away, but it's basically one long 70 km road from Tongeren where an ambulance would be able to make 140 km/h. From Bilzen it's all back roads.)
In the mean time, my girlfriend comforted the man a bit, find out that he had cut his wrists and had also called the man's wife who reacted really weird. The man was dazed, covered in dried blood but not bleeding not anymore and his reactions were ok. He tried to sit up but I told him to keep lying down, trying to remember my first-aid course. I'm thinking I'm going for a fresh-up course.
After a while some bikers passed by and some of them knew the man, but instead of helping (nothing much they could do) they started gossipping while almost standing over him. I said they should go back a few metres, last thing the poor man heard was hearing ppl gossipping over him. The only nice thing the people did was asking whether I was cold, as I had put my jacket over the man. Hell I was cold, but I denied it to them. I think the man needed more care than I...
After a time finally, the ambulance arrived, and they started helping the man. After some checks they put him in the ambulance and called the police to come and check out his bike. After that, all the bikers left and my girlfriend suddenly started crying, the emotions coming loose.
I then quickly went to my work, where I was 40 minutes late, washed my hands and face and answered the phone. A little shaky at first, but it was ok. Only when I got home and was in bad, the emo kicked in with me and I cried, but after that I felt really relieved.
What angers me most about the whole story is the fact that before we arrived at the scene, we saw two bikers stop there, and then move along. They must have seen the man, wondered what to do, and drove off. They might've been scared but then you should do your duty and at least care for him and/or call an ambulance. Actually, they are punishable under Dutch law, I think the same would hold for Belgian law.
But, the positive moral of the whole thing is now that I know that I would select shutter speed 112.
Tijmen
*At the time she thought it were some plastic bags.
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Comments: (use Reply to add a comment) |
Wow, it sounds like you did the right thing. You never know what can lead up to these sorts of desperate actions that people take, so your best bet is just to help the person as much as you reasonably can and pass them off to those who are trained to deal with these situations (in this case, the EMTs).
I hope you were careful when dealing with the blood, though. It's all well and good to help someone else, but there's no sense in getting AIDS for your trouble. Also -- unsolicited tip of the day for anyone dealing with car accidents: make sure you pull your car WAY off the road before trying to help. An inordinately large number of secondary accidents occur because someone driving by hits a bystanders' car.
Again, congratulations for doing the right, human thing.
-- Mat
"We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time."
- T.S. Eliot, excerpt from "Little Gidding" | |
Thx, but I was hauling my broken bike to the repairshoppe. So, no cars involved.
Posted by MapMan | 18/9/2005 19:25 | Hedy Lamarr made porn?
Posted by turbozutek | 20/9/2005 2:29 | Dude, educate us! |
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