What you can do at a bike crash scene

[crazyhorse]

I've had to rescue two different riders - and one must not have done his helmet up - very lucky man - although his face was a huge mess!

The other - was not in a good state. I refuse to remove helmets - let the experts deal with that one! You can do far more damage by removing a helmet. Just make them comfortable.

And make sure the bike engine is off - esp if petrol is leaking!

[mikeey01]

Frosty, hats off to you for driving this thread and getting a list up. Good on ya dude.
I myself have learnt several things from that list alone. Good on ya dude.

[FROSTY:Me]

Hey folks A west auckland fire crew put a few hours into their response to my question --THANK YOU GUYS
Below is their response

Talked to the guys, even had the boss put some in.

Basic prompts to follow was the general consensus, due to tunnel vision etc too many words make things difficult.

1. Secure Scene/Position vehicle in fend-off position
2. Call 111. Ask for FIRE if persons trapped
3. Stop and take a breath, take in scene, be calm
4. If you have rubber gloves put them on
5. Start Basic Triage (if more than one person injured)
6. Administer first aid, loosen collar/helmut strap
7. Keep patients warm/cool
8. Take down notes (use bystanders if available)
9. Ask questions from back of card, write down all answers.
10. Ask their age, name, DOB, address, next of kin, phone number
11. Handover

Do not move anyone unless they're in danger

Do not take off helmut unless CPR required

Keep clothing on unless you need to stop major bleeding.

Then some acronyms on the back of the card:

S-Stop
T-Think
B-Barriers
M-Move

Breathing
Bleeding
Burns
Breaks

Level of conciousness
Alert
Voice induces response
Pain induces response
Unresponsive to stimuli

Head injury
Pupils
Equal
And
Reacting to
Light

PAIN
Provocation
Quality (stabbing, burning, sharp)
Radiation (does injury make another part of body hurt)
Severity (1-10)
Time - (intermittent/constant, when did it start)

Signs/symptoms
Allergies they have
Medications they are on
Past history
Last meal/liquid taken? how long ago?
Events prior

[FROSTY:Me]

Um folks Im S### scared Im gonna stuff this up.
What I would like to do is take alll the bloody great advice that now looks like a friggin big mess and as MDU suggested get it to a nice simple to follow list.

[caseye]

Hey Frosty, so far so good man and I'm certain you are not going to drop the ball.
So go on make that list and lets get somehting definitive for the KBer's to see and learn.

[RAC]

in all honesty its a bloody difficult ( borderline irresponsible almost) subject to try and teach through a forum, and all the learned book knowledge in the world wont sufficiently prepare you for the real thing. the best and most effective option is to do a first aid course where you can be taught effectively:
http://www.stjohn.org.nz/education/course.aspx?cid=106

if you want to go further and get some experience (and do the courses for free) then become a St John volly:
http://www.stjohn.org.nz/volunteer/ao.aspx

the previous posts are on the right track with KISS tho,
above all keep yourself safe, stop and count slowly to ten (or 100 if needs be) in your head, observe the scene, work out where you are geographically, and use your cell phone to call 111 before you even walk over to the patient (Remember You can always cancel an ambulance if its not needed, and nobody will criticise you for being safe).
111 and ask for ambulance, they can co-respond fire/police from there and ideally you want them there the fastest, there is always confusion and delay when 2nd/third hand messages get passed between services (besides fire will be asleep or watching sky...).

keep them still if possible unless safety is an issue, if it is YOU SHOULDN'T BE THERE.

ABC:
A and B: if they are unconscious and have "noisy" breathing (gurgling, choking etc) then the easiest and most practical way to resolve this is by placing them in the recovery position (on their side). This will generally allow any gunk in their mouth etc to drain out the side, although sometimes you need to do it manually with your fingers.

"what about helmets and moving them around?" i hear you cry? if A and B isnt working then all bets are off, if you cant move air in and out you die. few people have injuries of this nature (20% have some sort of spinal, and 10% of these have c-spine injury, most (50%) are actually around the chest area) and even less are made worse by helmet removal. get it off as quickly and smoothly as you can and carry on. There was a forum about this subject that had some good pics on how to do this.

C: open up clothing as much as possible and look/feel for wet stuff. If you find some then keep looking untill you have had a whole body look. If you find any that is actively bleeding then put direct pressure on it and keep it on, don't be tempted to pull your hand away and "just have a look coz i think its stopped".

keep them company, reassurance plays a huge and often understated role in patient care, keep their chin up, and be positive regardless of the circumstances!

as stated, near impossible to teach without demo and practice
so do a course or get someone to give you some hands on.

[FROSTY:Me]

sticky anyone??

[Macontour]

If someone is bleeding badly, use direct pressure or whatever you have to stop the bleed. A mate years ago collided with a van near Blue Lake in Vegas, got a major cut(imagine a machete chop!!!) to his right shoulder. As he got to the side of the road the blood was already covering half his chest and visibly flowing through his jersey. I was just expecting to see some gravel rash! I ended up putting 2 handkerchiefs and 2 t-shirts into and over the cut(his shoulder had dislocated and was pulling the wound apart as well). Blood still flowed out if I released pressure on it.

A local doctor came down and had a look as we waited for the ambos and commented that "you have a little laceration there". He is obviously used to seeing more trauma than most of us.

2 points.. 1. It may look life threatening to us non medical people but the human body is pretty resilient and the medics are bloody good so don't panic.

2. Even using a dirty t-shirt to stop bleeding and having the potential of infection is better than the victim bleeding to death. The Doctors can treat the infection...if the victim lasts to get to the hospital.

The point about doing "something" is good too. At that particular accident, a mate couldn't really face the blood but he did a great job of waving down the traffic keeping the scene, and us, safe.
If you need help and people are standing around doing nothing, tell them what you want them to do. Many people will be too scared or stunned to help out but just need a push to get involved.

Ensure that someone has called the emergency services!

[enigma51]

1. Secure Scene/Position vehicle in fend-off position
2. Call 111. Ask for FIRE if persons trapped
3. Stop and take a breath, take in scene, be calm
4. If you have rubber gloves put them on
5. Start Basic Triage (if more than one person injured)
6. Administer first aid, loosen collar/helmut strap
7. Keep patients warm/cool
8. Take down notes (use bystanders if available)
9. Ask questions from back of card, write down all answers.
10. Ask their age, name, DOB, address, next of kin, phone number
11. Handover

Do not move anyone unless they're in danger

Do not take off helmut unless CPR required

Keep clothing on unless you need to stop major bleeding.

Then some acronyms on the back of the card:

S-Stop
T-Think
B-Barriers
M-Move

Breathing
Bleeding
Burns
Breaks

Level of conciousness
Alert
Voice induces response
Pain induces response
Unresponsive to stimuli

Head injury
Pupils
Equal
And
Reacting to
Light

PAIN
Provocation
Quality (stabbing, burning, sharp)
Radiation (does injury make another part of body hurt)
Severity (1-10)
Time - (intermittent/constant, when did it start)

Signs/symptoms
Allergies they have
Medications they are on
Past history
Last meal/liquid taken? how long ago?
Events prior

You forgot the dont phone families and friends wait for the emergency services they will deal with it.

I know it sounds "what the fuck" but if you start phoning family and friends you are going to have to deal with people on a phone as well as the person/s injured.

[enigma51]

Frosty i would not keep this to just bike crash sites but if you can have it more general it will help.

[Jonno.]

Just add my 2c
1. CPR isn't meant to revive people, it's meant to imitate breating and circulating blood around the body. Keep it up until the ambos take over.
2. 30 compressions, 2 breaths, 30 compressions, 2 breaths etc.
3. Take a first aid course.

The ambos need to do cpr for 5 minutes (?) if no one has done it before using the defrib (the shock thing).

[firefighter]

Why is everyone making this so complifuckencated?

1. Do a first Aid fucken course.
2. Follow the 10 point fucken plan, print it, laminate the fucken thing, put it under your fucken seat until needed, follow the fucken steps and hand over to the fucken ambos.

Fucken hell. Too much info in here to follow that's for fucken sure.

FFS.

Follow this and I promise you will be O fucken K.

Jesus.

Don't you dickfaces think there's enough repeated advice in here already? Real fucken helpful.

[enigma51]

Why is everyone making this so complifuckencated?

1. Do a first Aid fucken course.
2. Follow the 10 point fucken plan, print it, laminate the fucken thing, put it under your fucken seat until needed, follow the fucken steps and hand over to the fucken ambos.

Fucken hell. Too much info in here to follow that's for fucken sure.

FFS.

Follow this and I promise you will be O fucken K.

Jesus.

Don't you dickfaces think there's enough repeated advice in here already? Real fucken helpful.

Now you just being fucking silly.

[Road Guardian]

Is this something that could be placed on the wiki, but in a really really simple version, so that nothing is too confusing to remember when you are at a accident scene are you are running around like a headless chicken????

[scumdog]

My two-cents.
Make great efforts to make the scene safe - get other people up the road to slow traffic well before the scene.

Too many secondary crashes happen because everybody is crowding around the crash scene looking at the mess instead of doing the above.