You need to keep yourself safe if you witness one and want to help. Years ago another Marine and I ducked out of a class early on a Friday to get some extra weekend. Traffic started to back up as an SUV rocked to a stop on its side. It was going the other way and we were in the left lane. I pulled into the center divider and we jumped the center median to help.
We cut through traffic dogging cars like we were in the game Frogger. Looking back, not the smartest thing. When we got to the vehicle people where pulling the driver through the passenger window. I looked over the victim. She was in her late thirties, all her limbs were moving, and there was no severe bleeding. She was however falling into shock rather quickly. She was showing extreme signs of anxiety, uncontrolled shaking, and she was unable to look away from her arm. It had a good case of road rash, but didn’t look broken.
My buddy spent most of the time watching my back, very important because we were standing in the number 2 lane on a huge freeway in Friday afternoon traffic. Luckily the overturned SUV was working as a great traffic break and we were sitting in its shadow. The victim didn’t speak English so I found a man that spoke Spanish and asked him to start talking to her. He was a great guy and sat with her until help came. I just asked him to let her know it was only a flesh wound, she’ll be okay, and help was on the way.
I found someone with a phone and had him call 911. We were going to leave when I saw an ambulance trying to get through traffic. They didn’t have their lights on so I stepped out in front of the ambulance and made them pull over. I was really surprised when they didn’t want to help. But it’s amazing how persuasive a 6’2”, 245 pound, Marine NCO in uniform and his buddy dressed the same way and about the same size can be. They stopped and helped.
After that we hotfooted it out of there. We were supposed to be in class at Camp Pendleton, not out on the 5 Freeway in traffic. If any news crews showed up there was no way we wouldn’t have been recognized.
Lessons learned;
- Always work in pairs, one watching the others’ back in traffic
- Someone needs to step back and look at the entire situation, not just focusing on the victim
- Ask people to help that have skills, my Spanish sucks and I could have never helped that lady calm down
- Be assertive when something needs to get done
- When you have done everything you can, get out of the way
- (and stay out of trouble if you can).
We never did get in trouble for not being in class.
Stay Safe,
Ben