Have You Ever Been The First Person To Happen Upon An?

Question

"accident" scene ? Were you able to assist or was it too frightening to get involved ?
(For the ones that were unable to get involved...take heart...it is a scary event to cope with)

Yes "ndnqauh", I use to be an EMT. However, I have come upon 5 seperate accidents while not on duty, to where I was the only one there for a while. Even with the training, it is a scary thing to deal with.

Answer 1

Yes, an auto accident. I am a trained medical person so it really wasn't a problem. The only times I was truly afraid was when I was driving to the west coast of Florida many years ago, a car had somehow ended up under a truck and they were using the jaws of life to extract the person. I really wanted to just go home and never drive again, totally freaked me out.

A friend of mine is a paramedic, she was driving and saw an accident, apparently she was a little too interested in what was happening on the other side of the road and plowed into the car in front of her.

Answer 2

Great question . I've been the first several times .
Once while riding with a friend we saw a terrible accident happen in the intersection where we were waiting for a red light to change . I jumped out and immediately found one driver in unconcious convulsions and immediately rendered what aid I could . The woman driver was unconcious but had a child in the backseat screaming and a friend in the passenger seat in a state of shock . I knew there were many many other people on that corner but I suddenly realized that I was the only one rendering aid . I looked up to see about 15 people just watching. . . I couldn't believe it . I yelled for them to call 911 and asked if any were doctors or nurses . Nobody responded !!
I calmed down the passenger and the child(not totally but the best I could) and EMT's arrived very quickly as the Firehouse and Police station was only 4 blocks away . Maybe 5 minutes at most .
My friend and I got back in our car and drove on . It was then I realized that my friend didn't help either . He told me he was way too nervous(not a nervous or squemish guy) and didn't know how I remained calm . I had military training and then understood for the first time ever that some people panic and can't think in an emergency . I know my friend and know he's a great guy , but that day was the first time I understood that some people just can't react when there's trouble .

Answer 3

It was about 21 years ago and I had gone to Scotland to visit with my parents. I took my daughter to the park (she was 3 yrs old at the time) and on the way back to mum and dads house we were waiting to cross the road when a motorbike got hit sideways on by a woman in a car coming out of a junction. She didn't look to see if there was any traffic coming and walloped into the motorbike so hard that the bike went under her car and the rider, a young girl, flew what seemed so high into the air and landed in a crumpled heap a good distance away. I told my daughter to stay on the path and rushed to the girl laid in the road. Another motorist had stopped and he restrained the woman driver who was trying to drive away with the motorbike stuck under her car!
I checked that the girls airways weren't blocked by anything and as I knelt there trying to make sure she was ok and not dead someone else came over and said they'd called 999 and to wait til they got there. The guy wanted to take her helmet off but I knew we shouldn't do that and made him stop trying to undo it. A woman came running out of her house with rollers in her hair and wearing a bathrobe! She was a trained nurse thank goodness and I said about what the guy had said about the girls helmet which she confirmed it should be left on til the paramedics arrived. By this time the girl had regained consciousness and had grabbed my hand and wouldn't let go. Her other hand was a mess and all her fingernails were broken. Her thumb was bent right back and obviously broken. The one thing I remembered the most about her was that she had had beautifully manicured fingernails and every single one of them were broken. She asked me if her bike was ok and I lied and said it was. She'd only had it a short while even though she'd been riding motorbikes for a while. I had covered her with my coat to keep her warm and when she was finally taken to the hospital I never saw that coat again coz it went into the ambulance with her lol. Don't think I would have wanted it back anyway coz it was a bit bloody. All the while this was happening my little girl was stood on the pavement as good as gold. It was pretty scary but it wasn't until the girl was safely being taken to the hospital that I realised just how scary it had been. I had to give a statement to the police. The woman in the car was suffering from shock but wasn't hurt in any way. I have always wondered what happened to the girl on the bike and had to return home to England not knowing if she was ok or not. But a couple of months later my parents told me that the woman driving the car who had caused the accident had had her license taken off her for dangerous and drunken driving. Imo she should have gone to prison.
I've helped out at other accidents too and me and Tc have helped with a woman choking to death and little accidents involving kids. Where we used ot live a little boy was knocked down by a car and we had to help the kids who had witnessed it. We have often said what would we do if we witnessed an accident on the road when we are driving somewhere and we've both said that we would always stop to help no matter how scary it is. Good question.

Answer 4

Former EMT so most accidents I arrived at was via Ambulance. There was one accident, where I just missed a car stopped in the middle of a road, but the second car couldn't stop in time. It was overwhelming being alone with everyone until the crew arrived. Two car loads of teenagers. Seeing the ambulance lights coming down the road was a huge relief. Hope all was well with your first on-scene incident.

Answer 5

This has only happened to me twice, and praise God that in both instances there were no serious injuries. The first time I was walking and a car driving past me ran a stop sign and t-boned another - it really frightened me because of the noise of the impact and the fact that I was nearly hit, as well. The drive of the car that nearly hit me was a teenage girl that I knew. She had a little bit of blood on her face, but wasn't hurt very much. Mostly she was just terrified and upset; I calmed her down and called her parents, then stayed with her til help arrived. It wasn't a huge deal, but she and her family appreciated my presence. The second time, I was again walking when a teenage boy ran his motorcycle into a car. Again, no one was really hurt, but the boy was upset, and when I called his mother, I had to be so quick to reassure her, because her older son had been killed in a car crash. Again I felt as if I had given some comfort.

Answer 6

I was sitting on my balcony in my apartment and watched 2 cars come racing down First Colonial Rd. One hit the curb and rolled 5 times. The other took off. I called 911 and explained what I saw. The person asked, "Are there any injuries?" DUH. I could see the driver hanging upside down. By the time I got to the corner the ambulance was there (we lived across the street from the hospital and I guess one was there already). Out of the 5 in the car, 2 were dead.

Answer 7

I was the accident victim. I had turned my truck over after my brakes failed. I was hanging upside down and a young man came to me off the highway and held my hand and talked to me. The first person on a scene can be an enormous help by talking to the person trapped in a car. His first question was what was my name and his second was did I have grandchildren. From there I calmed down, was in lots of pain but I will never forget that young man.

Answer 8

several times I have assisted at accident scenes and once when an elderly man who was walking in front of me keeled over with a heart attack, and twice in restaurants, once a mad fell off a bar stool and hit his head, and once when someone was choking,also I was at an exercise class and a woman who had just left,tripped and fell down 5 cement steps and hurt herself pretty badly. I am an RN so those things came second nature to just assist, but it is very scary for non medical people unless they know what to do and how to do it properly.

Answer 9

Yes ,twice, right in front of me a young man on a motorcyle crossed just a bit over the white line and was hit head on, he was killed instantly and the driver of the car nearly bled to death, the glass cut his jugler vein. It was christmas eve day 40 yrs ago. The accident happened almost in front of the building where I had taken first aid classes two years before. Sixteen yrs ago in front of us a plane crashed in the field, so sad, five people perished. There was nothing my husband and I could do except call the police and fire dept.

Answer 10

A couple of accidents have occurred in literally my front yard.
Was able to contact emergency units and render insignificant first aid and comfort to the victims -- emergency service was prompt (especially considering that this is a small isolated farm community) so I didn't need to hold the line very long. Fortunately, there were no life threatening injuries.