First Aid

Around 4pm there was a sharp knocking at the lane window
It was Trendy Carol ( white blouse, natty informal skirt) who was all a bit breathless
Villager Susan had had a fall down the lane and could I come
" She's cut her arm rather badly" Carol reported before we turned the corner.

Susan was sat on the lane by Sailor John's house and looked rather shocked. Several people had already stopped to help.
There is a rule of thumb with any first aid " assessment"
Is the casulty conscious and rational?
Have they got pain?
and can they move normally?
Susan was apologetic, and had obviously banged her arm and shoulder. Her arm wound was bloody but superficial which I told her and she could wiggle her toes nicely.
People that potentially have fractured their hip can invariably not move at all and often have a shortened and rotated leg on the side of the fracture.
Susan's legs were fine.
I wrapped a tea towel around her arm and allowed her shock to dissipate and then
Carol and I stood her up when she was ready.

Over the years I, like most people, have been involved in scores of such situations. As a student nurse , I was always told to walk away from any incident if there was someone else who has taken charge but that takes a strong will as nurses have an ingrained pressure to go and help. 

I once saw a small crowd gathered around a large figure of a woman who was lying on the pavement outside Sheffield's City Hall. Several people were trying to take charge of the situation including a loud middle aged man who kept shouting " Rip her bra off!" somewhat unhelpfully.
Luckily the other bystander who had just started to administer CPR was stopped from continuing by the patient herself, as she let out a very loud "Get offfffffff" to all and sundry.

Thank goodness we don't really have to administer mouth to mouth anymore.
Ive done that several times in the past and I can tell you now that the casualties have never looked like Russell Crowe with breath as sweet as a nut.
I once had someone vomit directly into my mouth at an arrest situation in York and gratefully accepted the offer of a mouth wash gargle from a local sporting a bottle of Brandy!

Situations like the ones I describe, bring the selfless and the kindness out of people so very much.
Of course there is always a few people that walk on by but in the main, innate human concern and genuine selflessness take over .
A connection between humans I guess.

I remember, as a ward manager accepting an elderly spinal injury patient from our own hospital's
A&E dept. Getting a patient from our own hospital was a rarity, and the patent , who was in his
80s , had suffered a catastrophic paralysing neck injury following a fall in the street.
After several hours in the emergency department , the patient arrived, confused and incredibly poorly and I asked his daughter who accompanied him to wait in my office until we nurses took time to transfer him safely.
I noted his daughter had a large shopping bag filled with food.

The daughter wasn't a daughter.
She was just a passing shopper who had witnessed the man's fall some six hours earlier
She had sat with him as he lay paralysed in the street.
She had sat with him in the ambulance and  in  A&E
And she had accompanied him to the ward where he would eventually die of his injuries an hour after arriving .
The elderly man had no family and no next of kin
And that Stranger, a regular Yorkshire housewife, who had been out shopping for her family, sat with him and kept him company until the very end.
Now that's class....