Well a interesting topic. Now I must start off with My first aid, aed, and cpr certification has slipped and at the moment I am not in the postion to have it renewed anytime soon.
The last time I went through the course we were told some of the most foolish things. The first beign that if I stumbled across War Beauty who was laying in the street and wanted to offer her aid by law if she was conscious I would need to ask her if she needed assistance and if so may I prefer first aid on her. If she said no then I would have to walk away. If she was unconscious and I performed chest compressions and cracked her sternum or ribs(which is not uncommon or difficult to do) depending on the state I could be fine, however in some states she could sue me for assult and battery. Now at this point since my certification has expired if I did CPR, or performed any form of first aid on her I can be sued for a few other things.
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An example of being a first responder. A number of years Jennifer (my now exwife) and I were driving from walmart to home in the early morning hours. As we were driving down passed the Y I worked at we noticed something very large in the middle of the road. (thankfully not that busy of a road but still in the middle of the road) As we got closer I noticed it was infact a body. As soon as I saw this 2 things popped into my mind. The first was telling Jennifer to pull about 20 yards away and turn on high beams and hassart lights. The second was to call 911 and relate everything I was saying to her to them. I was unsure of the scene. I did not feel danger, or a trap so I was good enough with it, however I still wanted some safty for my ex wife should something go down.
As I approached the body I was talking loudly for both the body to hear me as well as my ex wife. When I got within 10 feet of the body it finally responded with the worse drunken slur I had heard in my life. My first response was well at least they are alive, however there was still some danger in what i was doing. It took a few moments to convince this person that they were laying in the middle of the road and not all Wichita KS drivers were as careful as my ex wife and that it would be wise to move to the side walk and that perhaps it would be a great idea not to lay on the side walk during winter months so he did not lose all his heat and die. For the next 30 minutes the person finally become more and more aware of what was going on and I was growing less and less patient waiting for local law enforcement to get to the scene to deal with this individual.
By this point I had the persons story, why they were so intoxicated, their name and most importantly where they lived. We called 911 on last time and asked them if they were sending someone and if not what legal ramifications we would face should we put this person in our car and drive them up the road to their apartment. After the 911 operater told us that odds are no one will be there for a while and we should just leave the scene we decided to act as jedi should. I stuffed this person in the back passanger side of the car and we took him home. I left myself behind Jennifer since if something would have gone done I would have been able to restrain this individual. Upon getting this person to their home, making sure that if they got sick they would not drawn in their own vomit we went home and slept. The next day on my way to work we checked up on this individual and almost laughed when he opened the door having no clue who we were.....
The point of the story? As a first responder such things can come up and you need to know right now what you are prepared to do to help others. You can end up placing yourself in a semi potential situation to assist others as we did with the drunk guy laying in the middle of the road, or you may face something as easy as legal bs for assisting a person. Is it worth it and are you willing to take the risks are things that you need to consider in your head.
Disclaimer I do not suggust that others stop on very dark roads to help others for many bad things can happen with that, however should you do such a thing I strongly recommand that you truly are feeling everything about the situation and if you get that bad feeling get out asap.
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