So, you’re the only person around to give first aid after a vehicle accident, what do you do? Is it better to wait until emergency services arrive or jump in and try to help anyone who has been injured?
If you have any first-aid training, you will be the one to deal with the emergency. What if you harm the victim?
What happens if you get hit by a car and don’t have any medical training? Will you be charged? These might be some of the concerns you’ll have if something like this were to happen. There is no legislation requiring you to give roadside first aid if you are involved in a motor vehicle accident or as a passer-by.
Do you find yourself passing out at the sight of blood? There are still things you can do to assist.
You can:
- If it’s an emergency, call 999 or have someone else do it for you.
- Make it secure – collisions and fire are just a few of the primary threats when there’s a road accident, but there could be broken glass or oil to watch out for as well.
- If you’re in a vehicle, turn off the ignition and put on your hazard lights to alert oncoming traffic.
- Avoid letting anybody in the vicinity smoke.
- Keep track of the situation and find out what occurred.
- Avoid allowing the victim to walk around at the scene in case they constitute a danger to other traffic.
- Keep the victim’s body temperature as close to normal as possible (e.g., by keeping them warm or shaded).
- Keep the injured person sheltered from inclement weather.
- Comfort the injured person. Try not to leave them alone, and reassure them with confidence.
- Try to make them as at ease as possible, however only if you are not sure whether or not they have any spinal injuries.
- Don’t remove anybody from a vehicle unless they are in danger of being run over.
- Removing a motorcyclist’s helmet unless it is necessary is not recommended.
- Never offer food or drink to the victim.
If you’re not a licensed repair person, you can also inspect the damage for:
- Responsiveness (signs of life).
- Breathing difficulties.
- Severe bleeding wounds (e.g. arterial).
- Spinal injuries.
Emergency care
If you can provide emergency treatment, follow these steps:
Danger: Verify that you are not in danger.
Response: If you can, check to see whether the individual is alive. If they are conscious, ask if they are all right by gently shaking their shoulder and enquiring whether they’re okay. Check for injuries if they respond.
Airway: If no one responds, open their airway by pushing your fingers under their chin and raising it. If the casualty is unconscious but breathing, place them in the recovery position.
Breathing: Check to see whether the victim is breathing normally. You should be able to observe their chest moving and feel the breath on your cheek, as well as hear them breathe. If you don’t detect any signs of breathing, begin CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation – a life-saving medical treatment for someone who has had cardiac arrest).
Be prepared: Always have a first-aid kit on hand. It’s something you never expected to need, yet it might be the difference between life and death. Also, learning how to give first aid is a fantastic skill to have. You can obtain first-aid training from a reputable institution, such as St John Ambulance, St Andrew’s First Aid, the British Red Cross, or any other suitable organization.
Am I liable if I injure a casualty?
If your intervention was deemed negligent and caused an injury that the victim of the accident hadn’t previously experienced, you could be held liable for significant damages. This isn’t just true whether you’re a layperson who tries to jump in; it’s also valid for healthcare professionals or non-professional first responders.
For example, if you were to give chest compressions in a scenario in which the victim was not in cardiac arrest and your actions caused harm to the chest wall or underlying organs, you would be causing injuries that would not have occurred otherwise and, given that the victim did not need emergency resuscitation, leaving them in a worse position.
If you did CPR on someone who was in cardiac arrest and the person would have died without your help, it’s unlikely that your conduct would be considered negligent.
There’s also a question of consent since, in the United Kingdom, any physical contact without permission might be considered a common assault. This is something to bear in mind, even though if you handled a victim who needed first aid but was unable to give their consent, it would unlikely result in a conviction.
Imagine if, without first obtaining consent, you were to hold the hand of a casualty to reassure them and then be charged with assault. However, if the first aider used any sort of force against the victim to administer treatment, it would be considered assault even though no consent was given.
There are a few circumstances where medical treatment is permitted even if the patient has not given consent, for example, if the person you’re attending to is unconscious and therefore unable to agree or if they had refused agreement only to become unconscious.
It’s also worth noting that, because of their diagnosis, you’re not permitted to perform non-life-threatening treatment like fixing minor injuries. A person is presumed to have the mental capacity to make personal decisions unless demonstrated otherwise under the Mental Capacity Act (2005).
If you’d like to learn more about the law and road accidents, please visit WaferPhillips, and they’ll be happy to answer any questions you have.
