Today on the way home, I saw a woman lying on the sidewalk in convulsions.

[mahina]

There were at least 30 cars stopped in front of her, as it was near a major intersection and the light was red. (Honolulu people, this was on the way from Costco Iwilei in front of the Kapalama Jack in the Box.)

I rolled down the window and called out to see if she needed an ambulance but of course she couldn't communicate, if she could even hear me. I pulled into the out lane of the drive through and ran over to her.

She was done with her convulsion, but was pale and shaking. She said she has a brain tumor and epilepsy. She asked if she had had a siezure, and I said I thought so. Took a moment and double checked she was ok, she said she was, and she seemd lucid. At least she was as ok as could be expected. I went on home, to ask you this-

What if she wasn't? What if I called an ambulance and she had no insurance and couldn't communicate, what would happen to her? Would she get a big giant bill? Why did so many people, local people who help others all the time, good people, keep on rolling?

-feeling sad for all of us, whose humanity now seems so thin.

[Traveling_Home]

1. Maybe she would sue them or you for stopping and helping ....

California Supreme Court allows good Samaritans to be sued for nonmedical care

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-me-good-samaritan19-2008dec19,0,6547898.story

[mahina]

2. Whoa.

That's amazing.

[EFerrari]

3. I found a man collapsed on the street near the curb one night,

and the cars were just going around him. Unreal.

I don't know why people do things like that, either. If she had been unconscious and you called for help, she would have been safe. That's the main thing.

[mahina]

18. Agreed,

safety is number one. I sure would never have left her there on the sidewalk, but you wonder, right? What if the need is more than I can fill. What if she turns out to be a crazy person and now I have a big problem.

I guess we just do what we can. It shakes me up to think it could be me lying there with everyone going by. My part of town, I like to think anyway it couldn't happen because we're a pretty tight community. But after today...I don't know.

[specimenfred1984]

4. If she had a seizure she was not OK

She'd continue to have memory loss for hours, very possibly have another seizure and stop breathing and die. She's needs meds for the seizures whatever the cause, brain cancer or not. I've seen lots of accidents and people just keep going, sometimes it's pathetic but other times the people just aren't capable of helping. It's good that you helped, it's what us humans are supposed to do for each other.

[DeepBlueC]

17. that is true

I have seen an epileptic friend who would get up after a grand mal and want to continue whatever he was doing. His girlfriend really had to talk him around because it was evident that his judgment was impaired and he admitted afterward that he had no memory of the seizure or his thoughts or actions in the aftermath. People who did not know him would pretty much have to take him at his word and let him be but we all learned that it was not wise to do so. It was a very sad thing because he was a young guy who could not achieve good control over his seizures and live life on his own terms ... he could not work, could not support his girlfriend, which he very much wanted to do, and he hated to have to be taken care of and he resisted it to his own detriment.

[elleng]

5. She'd go to ER, they'd have to attend to her.

Don't concern yourself with the bill; your questions are hypothetical. Call an ambulance. People are 'afraid to get involved,' or so it's said, for ? reason.

[dysfunctional press]

6. a guy had an epileptic seizure right in front of me when i was working at an amusement park...

(santa's village). it REALLY freaked me out, as i had never witnessed one before, and had no idea what to do. but- i was a "radio unit"(dept. head w/ a two-way radio) and was able to call the park paramedic, who DID know what to do. and once the guy was recovered, he(the epileptic) did treat it as though it were no big thing to him- he was more embarrassed than anything.

[Why Syzygy]

7. I wouldn't worry about the bill.

EMTs would know how to handle it.

[DeepBlueC]

8. I think I would have offered her a ride home

poor thing. The prognosis for brain tumors with seizures is grim. :cry:

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Why people don't stop and every time I do I fear for my future....

Mostly we live in a very law suit happy society... where helping others may put yourself at financial risk

Hell as a medic (south of the border) I faced three possible lawsuits in the US.

Lawsuit number one for practicing medicine sans license... we transported the kid of one of these leeches to a US trauma unit after he was knifed down in Tijuana... he crashed three blocks from trauma unit... to make a long story short... in the end he didn't since I was willing to call CPS on the kid's behalf... what the heck was he doing in a foreign country as a minor? Oh the kid is fine by the way and dad is no longer pursuing ambulance chasing. He got in trouble with multiple professional boards...

Second lawsuit, I stopped at freeway at four in the morning and ended up removing woman from car. Did not have a fire extinguisher and figured the risk of doing some damage was a better choice than burning to death. This one actually happened on local road. Family was willing to sue. She dropped it, bless her heart. She said she'd rather be on a wheelchair than six feet under.

The third, local school board... aparently 600 dollars worth of athletic equipment (which we cut in the field to properly remove and c-spine kid to board... one of the many reasons he walks these days), was more important than the kid's health... not shitting anybody here on this.

Suffice it to say, after that last one I let my EMT certs lapse... first time I actually had certs in the US... but I just didn't care for them anymore... and they put me at greater risk...

These days I stop and help people... but every time I wonder, will I be sued next week?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

12. A guy on a motorcycle

was sideswiped by a car changing lanes. The cyclist got knocked over, and skidded some, not far, but he was down on a busy local street.

I pulled up to him in my big red SUV, blocking the lane he was in, and got out to help him. There was blood, which makes me faint, and he was shaken, but he was sitting up beside his fallen bike, and he was all right, mostly.

What I could not believe was how people just drove around us. Traffic kept moving, slowly so that they could rubberneck.

I asked him if he wanted medical help. He said no, he just needed a couple of minutes.

I told him to take them, and stood there with him until he was able to get up and we both got his bike up. I got back in my big red SUV with it blinkers flashing, and waited until he was able to ride off . He waved to me.

Then I went on.

By the way, I'm a lawyer. :)

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. You know after having dealt with many of these leeches

I concluded that there are lawyers, and then there are leeches... small but critical difference

Lawyers are pros that try to do a difficult job with little apreciation, beyond the bad jokes, from society

Them leeches are the reasons for the jokes...

We went to the fair some years back and in one of the rides I got my shoulder hurt... something about bad safety standards. We stopped riding and went to medical to get it iced and a sling, but boy we got every ambulance chaser present at the show push their bidness cards on us. Those were leeches.

We went... no thank you.

By the way, good for you...

I always use my vehicle as a shield as well...

[Tangerine LaBamba]

20. Those guys,

the ones you characterize as leeches, are an embarrassment to an honorable and necessary profession. One of the best gifts I got for my law school graduation was a t-shirt that stated that I now owned the "Ambulance Chasing Rights To The Northbound Lanes Of The Fourteenth Street Bridge" (in Washington, DC, where I live).

To me it was funny. To others, it's a way of life. We call them "Ninth Streeters" here in DC, because the Superior Court, the local court, is on Ninth Street, NW, where so many of the leeches have offices.

After a lifetime of lawyer jokes and lawyer bashing, I'm not bothered by them anymore, but it still nags at me when I hear a story like yours, one for which there is no excuse. And, in this economy, I suspect the pursuit of potential clients is going to get a lot worse.

I never held with the ruling that allowed lawyers and law firms to advertise, and I still don't. The profession took a real downturn ethically when all that changed.

Anyway, I'm glad you're all right. And, yes, cars are sometimes very good shields...................

[mahina]

13. Holy Moses.

Thanks for doing all that good. Eesh, people!

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Not to say that there is no medical malpractice by the way

there is... but in the US, we have made the legal system an artform...

The school district backed down when I told them what my first move was going to be. It didn't involve the lawyer, but the local media. Let them get crucified in the local media

Volunteer medic... doing this while getting a college degree, for free in a developing country. Yep, that was going to look good for the school district

I hate the media... but boy it helps to know HOW they work!

:-)

Next time, call EMS. If this is a medical emergency medics will deal with it

As to cost... the downside of not having a national single payer system... the ride alone would have been close to a 1000 just for starters.

But if this is a charity case most cities (yes including Honolulu) have ways to help the indigent pay

[Tangerine LaBamba]

22. Our city

Alexandria, VA, doesn't charge for calls like this if there's no insurance. It just gets absorbed by the city, which is also known as "The People's Republic of Alexandria," and we're all very proud of that.

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. It depends where, Alexandria Va does not

Cleveland OH, where brother lives, does not

San Diego, on the other hand, does. One reason we transported more than one indigent patient who got in trouble medically in Tijuana. We knew that the local charge (service in the city) would be compounded by the International charges.

Back in the 1980s that could go into the tens of thousands of dollars

Hell, last year when my dad fell and broke his hip... he does not have insurance, the ambulance alone was 1700... and I had to byte me lips as I saw a very young crew do several no-nos, protocol wise, but fortunately they didn't do any damage... yes there are some things that have not changed in a long time... like oh decades.

I contacted, not a lawyer, but medical control... they were wondering why they were getting sued so often... and I was left wondering how many of the medics were taking excursions from protocols.

There are days I hate what I used to do... that was one of those days

[1]

26. true that. thousands of posts right here on du start with "sue the bastards" ...

without any facts what so ever about the particular case.

"sue" is what we do now i guess. every time for whatever reason.

so sad...

[Tangerine LaBamba]

28. GREAT screen name!!!

That's very clever! Well done!

But, to your point, yes, we've become a hatefully litigious society. I cannot tell you how many people came to me because, let's say, they found a large chunk of glass in their chili at Wendy's.

"Did you bite into it?" I'd ask.

"No. I saw it in the bowl."

"So you weren't hurt."

"No."

"Well, that's good, then. But if you weren't hurt, why are you here?"

These people were CERTAIN they were entitled to THOUSANDS because of their imaginary "pain and suffering." I always got rid of them, sadly knowing that they'd lawyer-shop and find a Ninth Streeter who would tell them they had a case, and then proceed to shake down Wendy's with threatening letters for the sake of a few hundred bucks.

[1]

29. heh. this joke was posted in the lounge a few days ago...

A duded-up city rider walks into a seedy tavern in Sturgis, SD.

He sits at the bar and notices a grizzled old biker with his arms
folded, staring blankly at a full bowl of chili. After fifteen minutes of just
sitting there staring at it, the newby rider bravely asks the old
biker,

'If you ain't gonna eat that, mind if I do?'

The old veteran of a thousand rides slowly turns his head toward the
young pup and says, 'Nah, you go ahead.' Eagerly, the guy wearing the shiny
new leather fashions reaches over and slides the bowl into his place and
starts spooning it in with delight.

He gets nearly down to the bottom of the bowl and notices a dead mouse
in the chili. The sight was very shocking and he immediately barfed up the
chili back into the bowl.

The old biker quietly says, 'Yep, that's as far as I got, too.'

[BlooInBloo]

10. Similar happened to me, when walking to the bus stop and I came across a dude in a wheelchair...

In obvious physical distress. Most just walked on by (downtown, lots of homeless-beggar-addict types, ignored by the working class dynamic) - but there was a couple standing there being all concerned and utterly ineffectual. I just called 911 and waited the few minutes for the ambulance to arrive. They determined he was mostly just drunk, and started to load him into the ambulance, and do whatever they do. I then continued home.

It is surreal though, to see everybody walking by such a situation. I ignore my share of addicts, but this was a clear health issue.

[mahina]

15. No joke!

I guess the kindness of others is one of those assumed safety nets out there. Except if you're lying on the ground, nobody knows if you're drunk or in trouble.

There are lots of homeless people in the neighborhood we were in too. Maybe that's why. I'm still really sad about it. Fortunately the woman was not in really big trouble, at the present time anyway.

Kind of surreal, that's exactly the word. Mahalo.

[democracy1st]

11. you should have called EMS

[mahina]

21. Hi,

she asked me not to, so I don't really think that would have been particularly helpful or appreciated. Thanks though.

[DURHAM D]

19. On another note -

A few years back I heard noises out in front of my house one night and watched as a van stopped across the street. There was all sorts of yelling and than the sound of the back door of the van being opened and then slammed shut. The van drove away rather rapidly.

I was then able to see that a guy was lying in the gutter. I called 911. I watched as two squad cars arrived to deal with the guy on the ground. They were yelling at him but he appeared to me to be drunk. I walked across the street to watch as the officers kept trying to get him to stand up and walk to the patrol car. Then they stood him up and he fell over - they tried this several times while still hollering at him. Finally, I walked up to one of the officers (which pissed him off) and suggested that perhaps the guy could not walk and might not speak English.

I then went in the house to get my partner - she speaks Spanish. Indeed, the guy was drunk, he did not speak English and he was paralyzed from the waist down. His friends apparently threw him out of the van because he was nasty drunk and they were tired of him. I understand their reaction but I think they should have thrown his wheelchair out as well.

[mahina]

23. ho, so dirts.

That's brutal. Good think you talked to the cop. I bet that was no fun. Did they take him in, or what?

[DURHAM D]

24. Yep - they arrested him for being drunk in public but

they did call EMS first to see if his legs were broken from being thrown out of the van.

I know I shouldn't but - remembering that night always makes me laugh.

[SmileyRose]

27. That guy is very fortunate

It's a wonder they didn't taze him 112 times for refusing to obey their command and walk to the patrol car.