Congratulations! If you are reading this, you are one of many Malaysians who are moved to stop and provide assistance to victims of road vehicle accidents! However, members of the public who are not well-versed in providing early and emergency treatment could worsen the situation.
If you’d like to help, are our recommendations as trained Assistant Medical Officers:
- Stop your vehicle if you are the first at the scene of the accident.
- There is no need to pull over and help (unless you are a trained paramedic) if there are already a lot of people surrounding the victim as it will only cause traffic congestion and impede ambulance access.
- Calm the victim(s) and family members as well.
- Help with traffic control to avoid congestion and ease ambulance access.
- Immediately call 999 and answer all questions calmly and in detail so the emergency response services can equip themselves adequately.
- If the victim is able to move but is weak, assist in moving the victim to a safe location.
- Remove any harmful debris.
- If the victim is unconscious, try to wake him up by patting both shoulders. Never attempt to move the victim as it may cause complications, for example in the case of cervical spine (neck) fractures.
- If the victim appears to be deceased, cover the face and body as a sign of respect and privacy.
- Once the medical team or emergency response team has arrived, make way for them to attend to the victim. Do not interfere as they are trained professionals who are proficient in what needs to be done.
- Assist the medical team only on instruction.
- If other services like the police or fire brigade are involved, members of the public will be advised to not intervene.
- If it is a fatal accident, members of the public are advised to leave the victim and surroundings untouched as the police need to take pictures of the area to assist in investigations.
- Do not touch the bloody areas of the victim (unless with personal protection) to avoid contact with bodily fluids as their health status is unknown. The victim may have infectious diseases like HIV.
- If the victim has active bleeding, try to apply pressure to the area to help stop/reduce the bleeding.
- Do not take pictures which may identify the victims and post them on social media as it could cause humiliation and add to the grief of their loved ones.
We hope the above recommendations will be able to guide members of the public who wish to assist accident victims, without compromising the victim or causing inconvenience to the emergency response teams.
Harith Baharuddin is an Assistant Medical Officer U29 from Hospital Melaka. This article was translated by Suzanna Zainal Abidin from https://www.mmgazette.com/kemalangan-orang-awam-apa-tindakan-anda-harith-baharuddin/
[This article belongs to The Malaysian Medical Gazette. Any republication (online or offline) without written permission from The Malaysian Medical Gazette is prohibited.]