Removing accident victims from scene more harmful than helpful

Removing accident victims from scene more harmful than helpful — GMO

Nov 16, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – Public-spirited citizens can actually cause more harm than good by transporting accident victims with spinal injuries which can cause them to become paralysed or even die, as a result of them trying to assist.

Govt. Medical Officer, Dr. Elber O. Borrego Almaguer

This, according to Government Medical Officer GMO), General Practitioner and Acting Medical Superintendent at Upper Demerara Hospital/Linden Hospital Complex, Dr. Elber O. Borrego Almaguer, who told this publication in an invited comment recently, “the most common injury that people get in an accident is called spinal injury. [So] when a person gets a spinal injury mostly in the back or in neck; when moving those people from the accident, we need to use some specific techniques, because we need to avoid producing more injuries in these people that already got trauma,” Dr. Almaguer explained.

Force’s Corporate Communications Unit (CCU) Public Relations Officer, Stan Gouveia

As such, he cautioned that persons who are not trained to handle these types of situations must avoid removing the injured victims to another location.
He said, persons should instead wait until trained Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) from the hospital or the fire department arrives, to remove the injured person.
Dr. Almaguer, highlighted that Guyana and other lesser developed countries in the Caribbean have a shortage of providing sufficient medical response vehicles.
Additionally, it was noted that victims can very many times “sue in millions of dollars before the court of law.”
As such, he was adamant persons should wait until the EMTs arrive to render medical assistance to the victim.
Guyana Police Force’s Corporate Communications Unit (CCU) Public Relations Officer, Stan Gouveia, in an invited comment corroborated, that persons usually remove injured victims from accident scenes, which is proving to be both helpful and harmful.

Dead, 17-year-old Romeo Edghill

One such instance illustrated recently, involved a 17-year-old youth who was employed as a construction worker, and was reportedly struck off his motorcycle along the East Coast Demerara, Railway Embankment by a white Spacio motorcar.
The teenager was subsequently picked up in a conscious state, with help from public-spirited citizens, and placed in an ambulance which rushed him to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC). He was examined by a doctor on duty who pronounced him dead on arrival.

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