Yesterday morning I was heading down the A46 from Warwick to the M5 at Tewkesbury. As I got onto the first dual carriageway bit I stopped to let a Kawasaki bike over the roundabout.
A few miles after Evesham (at the BP garage and services) there was a small traffic queue going round a badly damaged puegeot car across the carriageway. I managed to squeeze past it but as I was doing so noticed the bike that I had seen earlier destroyed at the side of the road and the rider seemingly in the recovery position with people around them holding onto their arm. I just assumed it was a serious RTA and blessed my luck that I had got past before the road was closed. The people around seemed to be looking after the rider and everything would be ok.
When I went to bed last night I started to worry, had anyone checked to see if the rider was breathing, had they checked the riders pulse?
I have just found out that the rider died despite advanced resuscitation from the emergency services and now hate myself because I used to be a first aider and just passed by, maybe I could have made a difference (after all I am trained in resuscitation.
I will never pass an accident again without finding out if everyone is alright.
By the sounds of it there was already someone there who knew what they were doing (you said he was in the recovery position) so I’d not be too hard on yourself.
I usually stop where-ever possible, but that’s not always easy and if there’s already a few people there I’ll take it as in hand.
agreed dont beat yourself up mate, ask yourself this, “if youd have stopped, helped, and the rider still died,” would you go through the same feelings, thinking wish you could have done more?
As you stated, the rider was in the recovery position, so on that note, id assume someone there must have dont that, so that same person must have had some idea of first aid.
No amount of first aid training can detect internal injuries.
sometimes too many people around a situation can be make it worse.
have a beer and chill out, just think no matter how bad your day/week has been, its nothing compared to that poor riders family.
Can understand you must feel proper ■■■■ but ultmately you didnt cause the accident so you shouldnt feel any quilt. You feel like you have some kind of connection because you let him pass on the roundabout then saw him again up the road but had you not have seen before you possibly wouldnt feel so bad.
Don’t let what ifs and maybes control your thoughts.Easy to say,but we all do it because we’re human,and can’t help it.Hopefully the support you’re getting here helps to put things into perspective.Take it easy.
Thanks for the support , but when I said apparently in the recovery position she was up against a signpost so as an afterthought and I did a LOT of afterthought last night (even before I found out she’d died) she may just have ended up there. As I drove away, just after the thank God I got past thought, I thought to myself, was the rider being properly looked after? then ahhh well theres other people there, they’ll sort it out, but were they just there holding her hand but not helping her? Even last night before I knew there was a death involved I was thinking I should have stopped, maybe I would have made no difference but maybe I could have, I will never know…
What I now regret is not knowing whether I could have helped, and that will never leave me.
I will now refresh my 18 year old first aider at work training and man up and do whatever I can.
I’m not looking for sympathy.
Maybe pledges from other drivers out there to learn first aid and use it when they need to would be bloody good. Maybe if firms were to teach first aid to drivers, that would save lives.
I can undertand what you’re saying but it might actually have been the case that sadly there was nothing anyone could have done anyway. Stopping in fact may have put you at risk of injury from collisions with rubberneckers etc.
There are a suprising number of people who have first aid training nowadays so even if there was no one trained there during the few seconds you were near the scene someone may have pulled up behind you eg; a doctor for instance.
You can’t live your life with what if’s, i’m sure someone will be grateful for your first aid knowledge in the future.
its just “sliding doors” that you let her out and then what happened, happened. I have no idea about first aid but its something ive often thought about, after all we are on the road more than anyone else.
I would look at it in the case that isnt resuscitation mostly used for when the body fails? and not so much when the body goes through such trauma like a motorbike crash? She probably had a lot of internal bleeding and all sorts going on.
Your not an angel mate and its not your fault.
schrodingers cat:
Maybe if firms were to teach first aid to drivers, that would save lives.
Unfortunately in today’s litigious society that won’t happen. Christ sake at most places they won’t let you change a lightbulb!
I’m not having a go, just saying its a shame it’s now got to the point where we aren’t allowed to try and help and possibly fail because then someone WILL be to blame. As they say, where there’s blame there’s a claim.
Don’t carve yourself up over it, there would probably have been very little you could have done. Sad to see and hear of.
This guilt is strange, but normal. There will be people working on the Costa Concordia on the night it capsized, whose job was to peel potatoes or clean cabins, and they will be feeling guilt and wondering if there was something they could have done to prevent the incident.
It’s sad but it’s happened and you can’t un-ring a bell so the best thing to do is just get on with your life and not dwell on it
schrodingers cat:
Maybe if firms were to teach first aid to drivers, that would save lives.
Unfortunately in today’s litigious society that won’t happen.
I did an A level in Law at college many years ago,this was something covered in great depth on the syllabus, and unless the law has changed since then, and I don’t think it has, you cannot be sued for attempting to perform first aid on somebody, even if you get it wrong and they die or end up with worse injuries as a result of your attempts to help them.
i think it’s probably quite normal to think what you’re thinking in this type of situation. easy to say, but try to not beat yourself up over it, you’ve done nothing wrong.
schrodingers cat:
Maybe if firms were to teach first aid to drivers, that would save lives.
Unfortunately in today’s litigious society that won’t happen. Christ sake at most places they won’t let you change a lightbulb!
I’m not having a go, just saying its a shame it’s now got to the point where we aren’t allowed to try and help and possibly fail because then someone WILL be to blame. As they say, where there’s blame there’s a claim.
Don’t carve yourself up over it, there would probably have been very little you could have done. Sad to see and hear of.
i work on a farm and they put a few of us on to a basic 1st aid course, because as far as i know they need x mount of 1st aiders and or 1 in each area / department
Apart from CPR, most first aid seems to be stopping other people, including plod, from doing the wrong thing. Like trying to pull an injured driver out of his car after a motorway smash, or like trying to interview a truck driver after his truck had run off the road and he was trapped in his cab with diesel all over the ground.
Police are appealing for anyone who saw the crash or the vehicles involved on the A46 beforehand to come forward by calling the non-emergency police number on 101 or information can be passed anonymously through Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Maybe worth contacting the police to tell them what you saw as she passed you, as for the poor womans injuries I doubt that the best first aid in the world would have lifted her chances so much if the report in the link is true. As others have said you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, it’s sad but [zb] happens sometimes.