From: John K. Seidts (john@astory.com)
Date: Tue Jan 07 2003 - 07:53:30 PST
Maybe not the best post I have made here, but here's why I posted it.
Back during the "Sniper" business here in Maryland, there were two brothers
and an uncle going home from a re-enactment. Near their home (in
Pennsylvania), the driver fell asleep at the wheel, and crashed their van.
They happened to be owners of Class III weapons, and were dressed in WWII
clothing. After the accident, the one brother (the only one who survived),
walked back through the path of the truck, picking up weapons. He was
seriously injured. When police arrived, of course their first impression
was that they had the snipers in hand. They took custody of the survivor,
and then denied access by the Fire Department and EMS for over 1.5 hours.
The one brother and uncle died. (Shameless plug for my profession) Finally,
a paramedic on the scene demanded that the police allow him to attend to the
survivor (who spent some time in the hospital).
My point- I don't know if I have one. I don't blame the officers in
question for having taken the person in custody, but denying EMS care for
the sake of a clean investigation is NOT a police principle I am aware of in
current practice. I have been assaulted by patients, and really needed the
help of the police officers on the scene. But I have also witnessed some
times where the police did not exercise judicious restraint in dealing with
hostile or troubled people, thereby escalating a situation. It happened to
me late last year, and I had to sweat out four weeks waiting for HIV tests
to come back negative because the officers on scene DID NOT do an adequate
job of handling the person I worked on. This situation in Tennessee and the
one in Pennsylvania sounded troublingly similar in procedure, and it makes
me wonder, speculate, as a private citizen, if a better job couldn't be
done. I don't ever want to second guess a person who thinks his life is on
the line. But I definitely want a VERY WELL trained and seasoned person
making the decision THAT HIS/HER LIFE IS ON THE LINE...
Okay- second try at my point. BE CAREFUL. There are terrorists lurking out
there, and we sometimes look like them.
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