The most horrible car accident. Very GRAPHIC

[onearmedbandit]

Wow, a possible major head fuck in the future from your occupation. That is a decent old gamble.

[RT527]

when i said you deserve madals it was a figure of speech, I ment you guys and gals need to be better looked after by the powers at be,

Yup I new what you meant , i wasnt offended its just some people think thats what volunteers do the job for....if they think theres any glory in it then good luck to them.

And yep i agree that we need looking after, after that tanker roll over i didnt work friday as i drive for a living and didnt want to risk anyone elses life so in not working i lost a days pay( only been in my job just over a month, so no hols or sick days).having said that it was my choice to get on the truck, as they say hindsight is 20/20 vision.
mind you we were halfway to the job b4 we found out what we were dealing with .
Thanks Streetwise and all other KB`ers For your support in this thread to Police/fire/ambos.

[scumdog]

Yep, thumbs up to those that showed a bit of understanding and support.

All the KBers I have personally met fit the above type of person, glad to have met them.

BTW: Sure, we dish out tickets but thats not ALL we do!!

[mstriumph]

.....................
During time in job the mind has its own coping methods. To outsiders people in Emergency Services may seem calous, uncaring even joking about injuries etc ...........

have noticed on several occassions that "black humour" seems to be a method of choice in blotting out the horrible present ...........

interesting - wonder why that is so? it's as though SOMETHING non-pc HAS to be said to break the tension of the moment ?

[Krusti]

have noticed on several occassions that "black humour" seems to be a method of choice in blotting out the horrible present ...........

interesting - wonder why that is so? it's as though SOMETHING non-pc HAS to be said to break the tension of the moment ?

I think you're pretty right there, by turning something really horrible into something border line funny helps the mind cope. Trouble is that it is rather an in house thing and if overheard by outsiders can seem pretty uncaring.

Also training has a large part to play. You turn up to a scene and no matter how bad it is you revert back to your training, step1, step2, step3 etc. It is not till some time later that you have time to reflect on the full scope of what you experianced.

[spudchucka]

have noticed on several occassions that "black humour" seems to be a method of choice in blotting out the horrible present ...........

interesting - wonder why that is so? it's as though SOMETHING non-pc HAS to be said to break the tension of the moment ?

Can't really explain it but it exists in all emergency services world wide. I don't know about the military but I'd be willing to guess that they have their own similar form of black humour too.

[Finn]

Can't really explain it but it exists in all emergency services world wide. I don't know about the military but I'd be willing to guess that they have their own similar form of black humour too.

Black humour is rife in the military. Humans all deal with horrific death in differant ways, humour is one of them. The militray is especially challenging when it's your finger pulling the trigger.

[Lou Girardin]

Seeing it on a nice safe moniter is not quite like being there and smelling it
Two teens immolated were the worst I've seen. It's amazing how burnt people look like roast pork.

[spudchucka]

About two years ago I had to carry out the mortuary procedure on three bodies from the one smash. The smash happened near Hunterville so was miles away from emergency services.

One of the cars caught fire with three people in it. One person was pulled free, the other two were burnt to a crisp.

What I received was two lumps of charred meat, no more than about one metre long each. Neither was initially recognisable as human in any way, (no heads, legs or arms were visible). Eventually I was able to find a row of teeth connected to a partial jaw bone imbedded in one lump. The other lump had a part of a spine visible amongst the BBQ'd meat. Both had metal from the car seats imbedded in the meat taht I wasn't able to remove, (without the use of a carving knife).

The third body was from the second car involved. Initially he didn't look too bad. He had a neck brace on so he must have been alive for a while after the crash. When I got his clothes of I found he had a football size hole in his chest, no doubt caused by impacting the steering column. I couldn't help wondering if the Ambos would have bothered with the neck brace if they had seen the gaping hole in the dudes chest.

[scumdog]

. Both had metal from the car seats imbedded in the meat taht I wasn't able to remove, (without the use of a carving knife).
.

Had the same, needed to cut the seat-mount bolts off with bolt-cutters and take the whole black mass out of the car, seat and all to take to the mortuary. (and at least with the seat frame as a guide I knew where to look for the head bit)

[Ixion]

Well, I have a pretty strong stomach, and don't get emotional about dead people, but I reckon that would be more than I'd want to have to deal with.

Not sure if it would make it harder or easier dealing with a dead body that was no longer recognisably human.

Either way props to you guys that have to.

(Never realised until Mr Spudchucka mentioned it, somewhere on this site, that police had to do the laying out of body thing at the mortuary. Always thought it would be hospital or mortuary staff. Doesn't really seem quite to be a police responsibility . )

[Sniper]

Can't really explain it but it exists in all emergency services world wide. I don't know about the military but I'd be willing to guess that they have their own similar form of black humour too.

Some choose to be silent, others rant and rave like its the best thing since cut bread. But yea, I have seen more dead bodies as a civvie than military

[Finn]

It's amazing how burnt people look like roast pork.

But taste like chicken.

[spudchucka]

(Never realised until Mr Spudchucka mentioned it, somewhere on this site, that police had to do the laying out of body thing at the mortuary. Always thought it would be hospital or mortuary staff. Doesn't really seem quite to be a police responsibility . )

The police are involved because they firstly need to establish whether there are any suspicious circumsatances concerning the death. Also there are always items of property to be recovered from the body and returned to the relatives. Until the post mortem has been done the body is basically evidence for the coroner and needs to be properly secured.

Section 4 of the Coroners Act 1988 details the deaths that need to be reported to the coroner, basically they are:
Suicides
Cause of death unknown, (A GP will not sign a cause of death certificate)
Unatural or violent deaths
Medical misadventure deaths
Institutional deaths, (died in prison, police custody or mental institution)
Enactment requires an inquest, (some other act of parliamnet dictates that an enquiry must follow deaths in certain circumstances)

As you can see it is a SCUMIE job but somebody has to do it.

The police are the coroners agents under the act. Section 5 directs the police to report deaths to the coroner and to carry out whatever enquiries are necessary for the purpose of the act.

[Firefight]

Not that happy about seeing this sort of thing on the net(not a dig at you streetwise), but I guess in this day and age it's going to happen.

I don't think many people pay much attention to the warning, human nature being what it is, most are going to have a peek.

As for it being a deterrent for speeding/bad driving etc, I don't belive it has that effect on most people, (not in the long term anyway)

I have had 21 years in the job, and in that time seen just about every form of injury and disfigurment that I thought was possible, I have seen things happen to childern that should have scarred me for life...everything from MVA trauma, burns from house fire's, electrocution, burns from acid's, workers fatally trapped in machinery, some very imaginative suicides, the list goes on and on.

Everyone deals with it in different ways, when I started in the job many years ago "Critical Incident Stress" CIS, had not been heard of, we were just told to "Harden up " now days the services have recognised this very real condition, and have set up procedures for Identifing and dealing with CIS.
In my work place I am part of a group who specialize in CIS debrief/counsel.

Over the years many marriages of emergency service workers have fallen pray to the effects of CIS, in some case's alcoholism, drug abuse, voilence have become methods of dealing with/or side effects of the unpleasant things we have to deal with in our jobs.

For me, having a partner I can share these things with has helped me deal with the darker side of my job, that and the ability to share with co-workers with out feeling embarrassed.

We have an amazing sense of comradeship, and family between co workers with in our service and indeed with other emergency service workers from other organisations.(this may be seen on KB from time to time)

I have the utmost respect for my fellow emergency service workers, both guys and girls, be they paid staff or Volunteer's.



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