Preparedness To The Rescue

I am sure everyone remembers (from my Canada thread) my recent change in vocations; and all the preparation I went through to leave for Canada, only to wind up in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Turns out the winter preps stood well in both states, since it was actually colder there than in Canada during that time.

I also bet some folks remember all of my First Aid preps due to the nature of the business, and the remoteness of most job locations. Seems those preps have also paid out in spades. Some times (three to be exact), all the medical help in the world could not have made a difference (if you fall 285 feet, even landing on the trauma table at Johns Hopkins won't help), but today was different.

Now that I have been transferred to my hometown, and was in my office, I had to treat and transport a co-worker/patient that fell over a three-inch gap in the sidewalk leading to our building.

As I pulled up to the office this morning, I found a crowd standing around a lady lying on the ground. Everyone had the “Deer-In-The-Headlights” look, except the patient. She was the only one at the scene doing what was to be expected…. SCREAMING!

After getting to the patient, I asked for the First Aid Kit that is required to be in our office, only to discover it was a really nice metal box affair that CANNOT BE REMOVED FROM THE WALL! Once I went to the really nice metal box, I found it EMPTY except for a few Band-Aids!!

I had someone stay with the patient, and recovered my field FAK/Medical bag from the truck and started helping her. After getting things calmed down and iced down, I immobilized the leg with a SAM splint and transported her to the local ER. (She didn’t want the ambulance ride, and really didn’t need it.)


On my return to the office, the director of the division, plus the patient’s immediate supervisor thanked me for taking action. One also commented that they really never had witnessed someone stepping in to help another like that.

In return I asked for a meeting with the division director, our local safety officer, and the heads of both HR and Safety.

After I finished my short diatribe regarding the lack of training (EVERY employee, from office worker to tower climber, is required to be CPR/AED/First Aid certified within 30 days of employment.), and the lack of adequate safety & First Aid supplies everyone was speechless. I will either be getting a new responsibility, a promotion, or fired.

Lesson learned:
That First Aid kit on the wall is probably empty, so you better be prepared yourself!

Desperado, great job stepping in and helping. And even better job stepping up to point out to management the shortcomings you identified. You helped far more than one person by going to extra mile.

Monday morning I'm going to walk up to my office FAK and open it. I wonder what I'll find inside. I always have first-aid supplies in my office, so I've always just walked past it.

I'm amazed at how often people just stand around gawking when someone's hurt. Bystanders have asked "Where did you learn that stuff." I answer "Boy Scouts."

I hope you pointed out what a decent lawyer would do to them if somebody was injured and their lax approach to safety made things worse.
Even with worker's comp there are still some legal responsibilities.

Especially since we have a huge warehouse operation in back.

Good for you!

Brings back memories. There must a million nice metal boxes across our fair land housing nothing but a few band aids. I have seen the same situation in most offices in which I worked. One thing I did (I did side duty as safety officer for a while) was to organize the kits with real equipment and then place a box of band aids and a bottle of aspirin next to the box so that the box contents would be available for more serious emergencies.

My office had a warehouse operation, and, yes, we eventually had to deal with a broken leg.

Glad to hear that your company at least has a universal first aid policy. Great idea that should be more common.

Good job, Desparado!

Both of the FAKs on the walls at my job are like the one you described. Discovering that was a big motivator for putting a decent FAK in my car (which is less than 30 seconds away from anywhere in the building).

Mentioning the condition of the FAKs at work to a couple of different managers had no effect, unfortunately.

Well done! That's why I carry a small FAK in my briefcase and keep a larger one in the car.

We just cannot assume that "somebody else" took care of preparations. Besides, why pass up an easy chance to be the hero for a damsel in distress?

part of my job includes tracking all of the injuries reported in our store's across North America. You would be AMAZED at the amount of ingenious ways people manage to hurt themselves on a daily basis.

dropping stuff on their feet, tripping over parking lot bumpers, lacerations from broken glass, kids falling out of shopping carts, ad nauseum.

thankfully, we're VERY safety-oriented, and our office takes it VERY seriously...unfortunately, I can't say the same for other retailers.

oh and regarding the 'bystanders' comment; it has been my experience that you absolutely CANNOT rely on others to get involved or to help out. People have been socialized - it would seem - into being 'good witnesses' - watching people bleed out or get beat into a pulp - all because they cannot or will not jump in to lend a hand.........makes me sick, really.

I also have worked in many many offices where the first aid kit was an empty shell, whether it was attached to the wall or a box in the supply cabinet.

That is, except for one company. They had a huge well equipped first aid cabinet attached to the wall in the shop, and monthly a service restocked whatever had been used or had gone out of date.

I think this is really the only way to be reasonably sure that the kit will have what is needed when it is needed. Problem is getting the boss to understand that it is a cost that the company should pay.

We are pretty well stocked for FA supplies at work, but they are not in something you can grab if you need them. Some are just stacked on a shelf in the office supply cabinet and others are sitting in a multi drawer cabinet on a table. Each drawer is neatly labeled, but on the whole it is not real practical to pick it up and carry it where it might be needed.

I once pointed this out to the guy who is more or less in charge of such things. I am not real sure he thought it was all that important that a FAK be able to be brought to were it is needed.

I do know there is a tendency to bolt them to a wall somewhere on the theory they will get legs otherwise.

One place was so paranoid about their FAKs that they put padlocks on them and only gave the keys to members of the safety committee. Initially they had FAKs w/o locks. But people would actually use the items in the FAKs from time to time, and that somehow offended the safety committee so they put up signs next to all the FAKs all but prohibiting people not on the safety committee from accessing the FAKs. Apparently that did not dissuade people from taking a band-aid now and then, hence the padlocks. The same place sent a memo out about who was authorized to give first aid that all but prohibited people who were not on the safety committee from giving any first aid at all.

The worst FAK I've used was from the school where I teach. Let me preface the story by stating that it's an "all-girls" school.

We took the girls out on retreat which involved an overnight cabin stay. I twisted my knee in the afternoon and looked for the FAK bag to find an emergency ice pack and an ace bandage. I was handed a gym bag that was empty save for about 250 tampons.

When we got back the next day, I met with the school nurse and our safety committee and made certain we had professional kits.

I am not aware of any studies, rigorous or otherwise, but I strongly suspect that the "cost" would be more than compensated by fewer sick and lost time hours. It wouldn't take much of a savings in sick time to buy a whole passel of first aid supplies and training.

Good job! I've become throroughly disgusted with any blue metal box'f "FAK" with a red cross on it (I'm guessing Johnson and Johnson?). They've ALWAYS sucked, IMHO. In fact, if you look at the contents when NEW, they pretty much have bandaids, a couple of 2x2s and a couple 4x4s. With some mediocre 1/2" tape. It's a scam, and they make out big time.

Having worked on ambulances and hospitals, I never had an FAK issue. Certainly some of the ambulances have been less stocked than others, but nothing 15 minutes before a shift didn't straighten out.

Way to step up. Do you still have a job???

One of the issues with FAKs is things tend not only to be used (no problem) but tend to "walk". For a while, at one company, we did a quick check because we thought this might be the case - sure enough - You'd check the kit one day in the AM - full, fresh box of bandaids, the next day, the ENTIRE box would be gone - someone was taking them home.

We eventually caught one guy at it(BTW, he even used to steal rolls of toilet paper - it's how we caught him), but he wasn't the only one

HHHOOOLLLLYYYYY CCCOOOOWWWWW!

You ain't gonna believe this stuff!

The other male employee that helped me to access the FAK and to transport the patient both directions was reprimanded today via email! His boss thinks he either should not have been involved, or at least left the clinic immediately upon helping our co-worker inside.

I intervened on his behalf with his boss (Totally professional, and polite.), and she told me this was not my business and asked if she should call my boss. I then offered to email his name, both telephone numbers, office address, and his email to her if she did not have them already. I had been warned she was a Sea Hunt, but I was not ready for the deep sea diving of that nature! This "lady" did not even understand that the efforts of the two of us save the company the cost of the Fire/EMS call out, and the ambulance ride. Not to mention the risk I took transporting her. What if the "One Time" something went really bad had happened in the back of my truck. She codes out, and I am left holding the bag!
Next time someone at my work gets a hang nail, and it is Fire/EMS please and send 'em CODE3!

By the way, I weigh 230 - 240 lbs., and my patient out did me by at least 40 lbs. I could have carried her by myself, but I would have hurt the both of us in the end.


PS. This has been edited 4 or more times. I kept finding the my original vocabulary choices were making it onto the screen somehow.

Least yours has some band-aids, our kit has a half empty tube of antibiotic cream, a roll of first aid tape and some 4x4's that nobody knows how to use. I stock my own kit in the truck along with a boo-boo kit in the man purse.
Sadly, we too are victim to our supplies growing legs and walking off so the boss hasn't or won't restock except for a box of band-aids when he thinks about it.

Sadly, I have seen many, many FAKs on walls depleted. There is even one here where people hide food in-AND, we dont have a safetly officer on site (that I am aware of). Years ago, I decided to take matters into my own hands, and pack a small FAK in my backpack for work, and a larger, more comprehensive one is in my jeep, close by. Never, ever, EVER depend on those kits on the wall-they likely stock them for inspections, which is maybe once a year-other than that, they arent touched. They are pilfered, but never restocked.

I just went through and refreshed some supplies in ours. I keep a small FAK in each vehicle, a large on in the garage/camper, some in my bob and a small kit with our bicycles as well as those in the medicine cabinet at home. I noticed that even simple band aids the packaging turns yellow and gets old after sitting in a FAK for a few years, time to throw them all out or let the kids play doctor with them.

Words fail me. If I received such a reprimand, I'd be polishing up my resume before heading to HR. Of course, where I work now, there is no HR and I'd just be polishing up my resume.

Perhaps you could ask for a written policy permitting employees to render aid if they can do so safely?

So if someone is dying you are to just stand there and watch? Guess who could get charged with murder?

I suggest that you speak to your boss before she does. Point out she does not have the power to subject an employee who is rendering such aid as may be practiable to reprisal. Point out the ramifications. Make it clear that your worried about the legal issues, effect on staff moral, esprit d'corpes etc.

If all else fails, approach a Director.

Sounds like someone was looking out for the company's interest. Look at it from their point of view, 2 employees treated and transported a patient that didn't need to be. On company time.

You set your company up for a lawsuit if things had gone wrong.

It's always nice to help other people out but if the patient needed to be transported then you should have called for an ambulance. You treated and transported someone in a private vehicle against her expressed wishes, you could have been charged with a crime. Who's going to pay her hospital bill? Who would the patient blame if she'd been further injured due to you getting involved? Simple answer, whoever's got more money, you or the company.

Craig, the problem with you is that you are totally professional and you always seem to be working with large bunches of total idiots.

It certainly would be a beautiful thing if Miz Boss was the next one to be injured! Step over her and get on with your own work.

This total, all-pervading fear of lawsuits is getting unbelievably annoying! Don't help an injured person, don't try to get someone out of a burning car, don't try to catch hold of a child being washed downstream, just stand around and explain to everyone how you just didn't have the cajones to do what needed to be done, and use the fear of a lawsuit as the excuse. (Sneering? I'm sneering? ME??? -- looking in mirror --- oh, yeah, well, I guess I am...)

No matter what your idiot associates did, didn't do, or said, thank you for doing what you did. We need more people like you and far fewer of the gutless wonders who make up the majority of our population.

Sue

> Once I went to the really nice metal box, I found it EMPTY except
> for a few Band-Aids!!

I've never seen a wall-mounted first aid box that wasn't as you describe it.

I actually have seen a Good not Great but good Wall mounted FAK in school! It ghad stuff that the school is supposed to handle, not like sutures or anything but it was fairly sufficient for its purpose!

From the OP:As I read the OP's quote, it seems the patient didn't want an ambulance ride; it didn't say she didn't want to be transported someone in a private vehicle against her expressed wishes.

Sounds to me like everything worked well. Fortunately, Texas isn't in Southern California.

I misread the original post, I apologise for my inaccuracy about transporting someone against their wishes.

And if they DON'T want to be transported, just thump them on the head to quiet them down a bit. When you drop them off at the ER, be sure to mention the 'head injury'. ;-)

Sue

The last person I transported that did not go willingly had already had several "thumps" to the head and other various regions of their body. But that was as a military cop

I have - the first few minutes after I finished restocking it

I doubt anyone would be charged with murder. I mean, he didn't actively contribute the the cause of death.

Failure to act or something along those lines, sure.

Sorry, beg to differ. If it is within your power to assist, and you refuse to do so, then that is, by any moral standard, murder. In much the same that, for instance, you are standing on the pier. Some one is drowning right in front of you. There is a lifesaver ring next to you.

You look at them, Look at the ring.

And walk away.

To me that is deliberate murder.

I understand what you're saying Leigh, but by that "stand by and do nothing" standard, you're pretty much saying that any failure to act is murder.

So everyone out there with a DNR or hospice patient is murdered? Search And Rescue pilots "murder" people at sea cuz they don't ditch their aircraft into the water in order to be hands-on with the victim? Did all the folks in NYC "murder" the folks in the Trade towers because it was the FDNY, not them, that went into the towers?

Certainly I've made up pretty extreme examples, but I'm trying to prove my point - Failing to attempt to SAVE a life is not the same as ENDING a life.

Anyway, this will go way off-topic fast, so PM me if you want to continue (or make a new thread!)

Yes. We used to put the small stuff that people used up fast in a box in the supervisors or safety officer's office.
If you needed a bandaid or aspirin you went to the office and got one.
It solved the worst part of the stuff disappearing because people didn't steal trauma supplies as fast as they took minor cut and scrape stuff.
It also let us track who was getting minor injuries. This was not to punish with. It gave us a sudden picture of the small hazards (like sharp edges on steel being handled with bare hands).

Not Failing . Refusing.

What I am specifically saying is that making a deliberate decision not to render aid, presuming that all other things are equal, is immoral.

I do not expect people to hazard their own lives to help, nor do I have any time for those who expect others to do so.

However I am saying that deliberately refusing aid when it is safe to do so is outright wrong.

I think that most participants on this forum would agree with that.

That woman who has disciplined that co-worker for helping should be dismissed.

Not to pick on you or your fellow employee, but virtually all companies forbid what you did for liability reasons, or have employees designated for this purpose. There are some serious liability problems with having an employee who is "on the clock" doing things like this. It is the same reason why people who clock in and out are required to clock out if they leave the premises for lunch.

Good Samaritan laws generally provide decent protection for first aid, but not for transport in the kind of situation you found yourself in. The company is right to protect itself from the hordes of lawyers waiting on the sidelines.

The two of you may have meant well, but your actions put the company at risk for no good reason.

The new rules we have mean the first aid box is useless - it can only have trauma supplies.
The idea is that the first aid is trauma until the paramedics arrive. If you have band-aids/aspirin etc then that is treatment - and you aren't qualified to decide that a band-aid is all the treatment that is needed!

Same logic removed the burn gel from the only source of burns (you might be alergic) and the oxygen masks from the only place they are needed (a member of the public might break into the lab and need oxygen then sue us when we administer it!)

Result of course is everyone's desk is stuffed full of band-aid aspirin and burn gel.

My understanding from my first aid training is that application of any gel to burns is not recommended (cool water for moderate burns is OK). I am out of certification right now. Is gel currently recommended by a recognized authority for burns?

It would seem only logical that the kit would be equipped with materials commensurate with the training of those using it.

Of course, in most offices, most people have no training at all. Now we see why the FAKs are all empty!

The legal repercussions of helping someone is just one more reason why we need more fully-informed and willing jurors, rather than just a bored bunch of dummies who weren't smart enough to escape jury duty.

Most people who end up in a jury box don't realize that not only can they decide whether or not the defendant is guilty, they can also try the law that the defendant's "crime" is based on. The jurors can vote to acquit if they feel the law is wrong, or they may vote to acquit because they believe that the law is being unjustly applied.

This is a Constitutional right. See http://fija.org/

Sue

Maybe, and only maybe, would it be voluntary manslaughter here in the States.

Of course, I did not finish law school.

Good read here
http://www.agulnicklaw.com/articles/duty.html
Criminal Liability for Failure to Rescue: A Brief Survey of
French and American Law

Like Batman said "I don't have to save you" unless I own the property you're drowning on, or I pushed you in, or I'm your parent, or I'm your lifeguard, or I started to rescue you, or I'm in Vermont or Massachusetts and I can help without exposing myself to harm.

Don't know about recommendations, but my understanding is that excess application of burn gel can cause hypothermia: Used without caution it just is too effective cooling agent.

Plain old good water is simple and effective.

Guys - Lets keep the law stuff (Jury Nullifcation, calling things manslaughter etc) off the thread - too much chance of getting way off topic and the subject locked

Thank you. Very nice article. I particularly noted the common law obligation that apparently exists between "mountain climbers, journeying together."

With or without a legal duty to act, I have been motivated by the higher moral obligation to come to the aid of someone in distress.

Your 'higher moral obligation' is the only true civilization that Mankind has. 'Tis a pity it's such a thin veneer, though.

Most people know what the right thing to do is, and some even do it. And sometimes it costs you, which stinks. But the cost tends to be due to other peoples' lack of morals more than it was a bad decision on your part.

And a lot of people think technology is civilization. *sigh*

Sue

Its my understanding that if a person is conscious you must always ask for permission before rendering aid. If they refuse you're not allowed to touch them. Is this pretty much standard everywhere?