Saturday 17 July 2010

What if...

Do you ever wonder how your day would have gone if you'd left home 5 mins later, or taken the long route instead of the short? Or had the cheese sarnie instead of the steak pie? Well a few days ago, Mrs BC and I nipped into town in the truck and trailer to drop some stuff at the skip, I then had to wait while she 'nipped' into the Post Office, although if that's 'nip'.... Anyway, turns out it was lucky that she took so long as on our way home, we were about 3rd on the scene of a serious bike crash. As we pulled up to the scene, we could see a biker laying across the road, the bike mangled some feet behind him, and a car with a huge dent in the front wing. A guy was with with him, and a lady from the first car that arrived was looking after the driver of the car involved, but it appeared that nobody had phoned 999, so I did. After sprinting back to the truck for the map to give them a road number, as it seems you can't just say "we're on the road from Turriff to Cuminestown about half a mile from the castle by a house called whatever it was called, oh and here's the exact postcode", I was instructed to stay on the line (good job I'd charged my phone the night before) and report on his condition. He was out cold, literally, sort of a pale shade of blue, so it was just a case of monitoring his breathing and the blood loss from his mouth and nose until the ambulance arrived. The second thing we did after calling 999 was to get blankets from cars and keep him warm. Then it was just a case of waiting. And waiting.

The police turned up, eventually, and proceeded to display an amazing lack of intelligence and coordination. Six of them spilled from two cars, one marked and the other, a fancy unmarked silver BMW - I made a note of the number of course. They marched around, ignoring the poor bloke laying motionless on the ground. They tried to send Mrs BC off home (big mistake for a 12yr old with a funny hat!), and it was only after she pointed out that she was with me, and the fact that I was on the phone reporting back to the control centre, that they even noticed me!After about 20mins the ambulance arrived, just split seconds after a medic turned up and then the cops kicked us out. Call it gory, but what we really wanted to see, was how, and if, they did anything with his helmet because obviously, we didn't touch it. We've had first aid talks and demos at the bike club, but it's one thing practicing on someone who has the giggles and quite another to witness it first hand. It got me to thinking, when would a member of the public who arrives on the scene ever have to decide whether or not to remove the helmet? In this case, the way the guy had landed was almost in the recovery position, and although he was bleeding from the mouth, his breathing wasn't obstructed. I think it's time to refresh the first aid skills.

You wouldn't believe the amount of idiots who tried to get past the accident. With a police car blocking the junction and an 'accident' sign, there were still people driving up to the back of the unmarked cop car, wondering why they couldn't get past. Numpties.

Anyway, I'm up at 6am tomorrow, so this'll do you for now and I'll put a Skorpy update here as soon as I can.

**I should have added that the guy was whisked away in air ambulance to Inverness hosp suffering from serious chest injuries. I haven't heard any more news yet.

10 comments:

The Chief Bodger said...

Good thing you happened by when you did. Sounds like you and Mrs BC were the ONLY ones who knew what they were doing there. Well done both of you.

It's amazing the number of prats you see at accident scenes that come close to causing ones themselves from staring at the goingson while driving by and not paying attention to the road or as you say about not even seeing that somethng is going on and start to get impatient.

tonuptony said...

Like you say time to brush up on first aid skills WE ALL OWE IT TO EACH OTHER,I personally haven't for some years something I must sort.

Like Bodger says good job you & Mrs BC where on the scene

Anonymous said...

Yikes....hope the biker came out alright. Having been the one on the ground myself a few times, I've pondered the question of fateful decisions. Got run down by a fool who ran a stop with a large van. I was driving a side car rig that day. He clipped my front wheel with his bumper.The rig behaved like a small car and spun around and out of the way of the van before I was thrown off the bike and against the front fender and bounced to the ground.
He ran from the scene. Lucky for me a nurse was first on scene and checked me out . No broken bones or bleeding.Lots of pulled and twisted parts that still bother me to this day. I wonder about the outcome if I'd been on a solo bike, or if the van had been going a few miles per hour faster, or if I'd been wearing no leather and a cheap helmet. Yep, so unlucky that day, but so lucky too. We should all study first aid and know what to do ,or not do in case of emergency.Unfortunately too many numpties out and about. Hairy Larry

Anonymous said...

Well done GBC. I came across an accident a few years back, rider lying in the road injured but conscious. And no-one had phoned for an ambulance (too shocked maybe?). Before the days of mobile phones so I found the nearest phone box, the ambulance came to the box and I directed them from there.

Hope the chap you helped is ok. Give us an update if you can.

Ok, so I've got a mobile phone and break down cover. But, but, but .... could I give directions to where I am when in the middle of nowhere as often happens? Anyone know of a simple, cheap device that gives a latitude, longitude of where you are (and nothing else, don't need sat nav or anything)

Graham B

Darrell said...

I've been on both sides of that situation and it always amazes me that cops in general seem more interested in crowd control than in actually rendering aid.
And unfortunately too many riders (and others) just don't know enough basic first aid to be able to render aid to someone on the ground.
Do you have any follow up information on the guy?

U N said...

Well done GBC, knowing what to do and not standing about like an idiot gawping at the situation (like most people would). Let's hope the rider makes a full recovery.
The report made me think about a couple of things:
We should all be able to do some basic First Aid. What happens in the first few minutes is critical and could make the difference between someone surviving or not.
Also, if any of the cars that stopped had Sat Nav, these have a function to display map coordinates of where you are. If you can relay this to the ambulance driver, he can punch that into his Sat Nav and it'll take to the exact spot. Useful in rural areas where it would be hard to describe a location.
I've heard of riders having their injuries made worse by well meaning people removing helmets incorrectly. Stickers telling people not to remove your helmet used to be quite common 20 years ago, and I found some here: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130318889700&_trkparms=tab%3DWatching
Only £5 for four stickers - sounds like a bargain to me.
Whilst looking for stickers on the Web, I found mention of riders donating old helmets to ambulance services to train paramedics on how to remove each type. Anyone got any contacts in ambulance services that could ask if they'd like some? We've probably all got some old helmets lying about, so it might be worth donating them to a worthwhile cause.

U N

U N said...

To answer Graham's question, I was in the Glasgow branch of Decathlon and saw this: http://www.decathlon.co.uk/EN/keymaze-quechua-100-gt-home-95794364/
It's a very basic (and small, c50mm diameter) GPS unit that'll display direction and coordinates. Ideal if you're phoning the breakdown people of an ambulance.
Also in the store was this: http://www.decathlon.co.uk/EN/magnum-shackle-lock-124195978/
It was marked down to £14 in their sale. A good lock for not much money.

U N

Gorgeous Biker Chick said...

Hi guys, thanks for the comments. On this occasion there was nothing else to do except keep him warm and phone 999. I guess if he had stopped breathing it would have been very different. The last we heard from the local news was that he was helicoptered to Inverness hosp with serious chest injuries, but no further updates so far.

Very good info there UN on the old helmets thing, I often wonder what people do with them. I'm gonna look into that one, thanks.

That GPS thing would be a handy little gadget too. Wonder if they or another company might do a -group buy deal'. Hmmmm.

Bantam Cub said...

Well done GBC!

We live next to a junction on a main trunk road. Every so often there's a crash outside our house. Mostly it's nothing serious, but once every couple of years there's a bad one. On separate occassions I've experienced local cops and even passing on-call doctors who have appeared totally clueless and have stood back to let us deal with it.

U N said...

Further to my post above, you can see a picture of the cheap GPS from Decathlon here: http://www.quechua.com/EN/keymaze-quechua-100-gt-home-95786871/

U N

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