Hey Skater,

I work in NYC and EMTs are very against others helping them. Why? Law suits. And I’m not even talking about patients suing me. I am protected under Good Samaritan Law unless I abandon or neglect the patient. I’m talking about you (helpful bystander) suing me. Sleazy NYC lawyers want to get chunk out of everything. As a helpful bystander you are not trained in Body Substance Isolation or lifting techniques. There is a potential of you being injured. If something happened to you (hepatitis infection/thrown back) at the scene maybe later if medical bills escalated you decide to sue me. As the highest ranking and most qualified "official" figure on the scene I have to make the call of what to do. When right moment comes people rush in to help, sometimes all the reason goes out of the window. And later on when reality sets in everyone is looking to “get paid” and it’s very hard to prove that you do not have back injury or that you didn’t suffer from psychological trauma.

Now before you tell me that you would never do such a thing I will agree with you. But in NYC a lot of people look out to make a buck even if that's thru human suffering and trampling fellow man. I lived in Georgia and such thing would never cross anyone’s mind unfortunately this is Big Apple. I saw what people did after 911 and I don’t think that human beings can get any lower than that.

But if you and I found ourselves on the accident scene and it was serious I would be glad to have you around. Even for such things as monitoring the patient for signs of deterioration, keeping traffic clear, help in splinting, holding, etc etc...

Matt