Unwitting bystanders.
April 28, 2010 10:17 AM   Subscribe

 
people attack paramedics?? wtf
posted by desjardins at 10:21 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


Yeah, that's pretty crazy!
posted by Mister_A at 10:22 AM on April 28, 2010


So it's a training video on how to treat on-street aggression as a TV show?
posted by DU at 10:22 AM on April 28, 2010


Truly good stuff.

I was an EMT for 5 years in Sterling, Virginia.


Often the folks who assault a paramedic or EMT are undergoing serious psychological difficulty, drug induced or not.

I can't count the number of times bystanders endangered themselves.

Here in the states I would add: "Medical personnel are not police." and "Stay aware of the danger in your surroundings."

When you see firefighters running away, you should run away, too.
posted by poe at 10:30 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


people attack paramedics?? wtf

In the UK people attack firefighters. God knows why. It almost redefines mindless stupidity.
posted by MuffinMan at 10:30 AM on April 28, 2010


It happens here (in the UK) too. People attack the police, ambulance personnel. paramedics, fire fighters, RSPCA officials....the list goes on. I think this video/billboard is a GOOD IDEA. Well done, them.
posted by JtJ at 10:31 AM on April 28, 2010


Wow that is pretty cool. It seems to be attracting attention, based on the rapt eyeballs in the video, but I wonder if the point is also getting through. The behavior of standing around and watching is what the campaign is seeking to avoid. Do people really get the message that they should be, well, doing something when public service employees are assaulted.

For that matter, I'd like to think that we should be encouraging folks to call the police whenever anyone is being assaulted in public, civil servant or not, but what do I know?
posted by zachlipton at 10:33 AM on April 28, 2010


Bus drivers regularly get assaulted here in Minneapolis. I witnessed it happen a few months ago when a drunk punch his driver for not letting him ride for free. His behavior had been so aggressive and belligerent that, without him being aware of it, a collection of three other bus drivers had made their way to the front, and, the moment he struck the driver, they whisked him off the bus like a cyclone.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:35 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


In the UK people attack firefighters. God knows why. It almost redefines mindless stupidity.

Given the over-policed nature of the US, and from my understanding the UK as well, I can get people having GRAR toward cops. I can get people experiencing psychosis or illness freaking out on EMTs. I cannot wrap my brain around attacking firefighters. Nope. Just can't do it.
posted by bunnycup at 10:36 AM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]


a collection of three other bus drivers

Wow, it's so bad the bus drivers ride in packs!
posted by abc123xyzinfinity at 10:39 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


Do people really get the message that they should be, well, doing something when public service employees are assaulted.

I think the idea of the ad is a bit too abstract. Yes, they are standing around, but they aren't ignoring an attack since it isn't real.

OTOH, it does get people to look at the billboard and see the list of things they do if they see this happening, so it's effective in that way.
posted by smackfu at 10:45 AM on April 28, 2010


It's a pastime of youths and adults alike to throw stones at fireman here in Glasgow.
posted by jpcooper at 10:46 AM on April 28, 2010


I think the funniest assault I experienced was when some beefy guy returned to consciousness and punched my glasses off of my face. They flew under the cot in the ambulance and I couldn't retrieve them for the whole ride. The guy eventually apologized. I restrained unconscious people's arms after that.

Most of the worst stuff is diabetics who take too much insulin. I've seen them punch through drywall and throw furniture across the room.

PCP guy was pretty interesting, too. He had superhuman strength, but mostly he used it to pull out his own dreadlocks. We got to borrow the biggest cop they had to watch him on the ride to the hospital.

EMT stories are the best. I highly recommend buying emergency services personnel a drink. Lots of good stuff.

Sure, some of the dark humor is stress relief on the job, but dead people farting is always funny.
posted by poe at 10:47 AM on April 28, 2010 [6 favorites]


> I cannot wrap my brain around attacking firefighters. Nope. Just can't do it.

Maybe some of them just want to go back to the days when the private sector handled these sorts of problems.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:48 AM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]


Assaults are fairly common in emergency departments. It always makes the news when doctors start getting punched but for every doctor that's assaulted there's about 200 nurses who get hit. It's usually waved away as psych patients or drunks/druggies but in my experience the people at highest risk of being assaulted are small females because they don't look like they'll fight back. I always make sure that aggressive patients know I hit back and consequently am almost never hit.

EMTs will often refuse to get out of their ambulances until they've got a police escort, and with good cause, too!
posted by Silentgoldfish at 10:49 AM on April 28, 2010


The behavior of standing around and watching is what the campaign is seeking to avoid.

I agree. By watching it I learned (again) that people love to look at themselves. Not sure whether the larger point would be getting through here, though maybe the emergency numer will stick (I even remember it, 112).

I cannot wrap my brain around attacking firefighters.

I could see this happening if there's someone or something you want to go into a burning building to get, and you are being prevented by the firefighter.
posted by Miko at 10:50 AM on April 28, 2010


This is mind boggling. I can understand crazy people or drug addicts attacking EMTs, but bystanders ambushing them and fire fighters?
posted by clockworkjoe at 10:51 AM on April 28, 2010


I could see this happening if there's someone or something you want to go into a burning building to get, and you are being prevented by the firefighter.

What if you really, really hate socialism?
posted by DU at 10:53 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


> I can understand crazy people or drug addicts attacking EMTs, but bystanders ambushing them and fire fighters?

It apparently happens all the time in England ("As many as 40 fire crews a week face serious attacks from gangs of yobs").

People are dicks. It's that simple. The reasons for many of humanity's problems can be boiled down to: People. Are. Dicks.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:56 AM on April 28, 2010


I'm not an EMT, but I was thrown into a row of lockers in high school attempting to render assistance to a diabetic friend. I was 5'6" and 135 reasonably-sturdy pounds; she was 4'10" and 100ish. Right up off the ground, entire side right into the locks and latches, right back onto the ground.

The paramedic who taught my first responder class in college warned us, too: "Most of you will probably never be in this situation, but if you push Narcan in the field, you should get the hell out of the way. The junkies don't like it when you waste their money."
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 10:56 AM on April 28, 2010


People are dicks. It's that simple. The reasons for many of humanity's problems can be boiled down to: People. Are. Dicks.

And yet, some people have decided to pursue into careers where they run into burning buildings to pull people out, and do their utmost to stop fires from wiping out entire city neighborhoods or more.
posted by bunnycup at 10:59 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


The junkies don't like it when you waste their money.

Yyyyyyup. When they wake up in emergency (on the rare occasion that they don't wake up in the field) they are the crankiest people ever and it's always a case of getting security to throw them out before they get violent.
posted by Silentgoldfish at 11:09 AM on April 28, 2010


Around here we have the opposite problem with firefighters. Sometimes you wonder if there are enough of them left out of jail to fight fires.
posted by octothorpe at 11:12 AM on April 28, 2010


> And yet, some people have decided to pursue into careers where they run into burning buildings to pull people out, and do their utmost to stop fires from wiping out entire city neighborhoods or more.

Point conceded. Many people are dicks.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:14 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


People are dicks. It's that simple. The reasons for many of humanity's problems can be boiled down to: People. Are. Dicks.

Honestly, I'm not sure that quite does it for me. I mean, I get what you're saying, but attacking EMTs and firemen? That rises to a level of dickishness that I can't write off as mere dickishness. I could see it as a random happenstance sort of thing, once in a very rare while, followed by said Dicks being hunted down and shown the error of their ways, but as a pattern of bad behaviour, I don't understand.

Police, sure, I get that. I don't condone it, but I understand it.

But does Britain have a fundamentally different relationship with firemen than we do here in Canada? Are they considered incompetent or spoiled or something? Because, I mean, here, they're FIREMEN! People who run INTO burning buildings to save lives! You don't mess with that shit.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:20 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


It's a pastime of youths and adults alike to throw stones at fireman here in Glasgow.

What? Why?!
posted by heyho at 11:36 AM on April 28, 2010


Sorry, I have preview button issues.
posted by heyho at 11:42 AM on April 28, 2010


It's interesting that the fourth talking point on the Dutch billboard is basically "take pictures of the scene for the police."

Meanwhile, in the USA, taking pictures of (or around) the police themselves can often lead to questioning, detention, or arrest.
posted by Dimpy at 11:53 AM on April 28, 2010


Meanwhile, in the USA, taking pictures of (or around) the police themselves can often lead to questioning, detention, or arrest.

So can using your cell phone in a public park.
posted by bunnycup at 11:55 AM on April 28, 2010


I got the impression that the people attacking firefighters were the ones who had set the fires. I'm picturing a gang of toughs lighting a trash pile on fire, then attacking the guys who come to ruin their fun. Still ridiculously stupid, but maybe not quite as random as it sounds.
posted by echo target at 12:01 PM on April 28, 2010


When you see firefighters running away, you should run away, too.

My philosophy has always been; if the firefighters are running away, I may have gone too far.
posted by quin at 12:02 PM on April 28, 2010


I remember reading about the attacks on firefighters in the UK a couple of years ago. I really can't fathom the mindset of someone who would want to do that.

In Britain, attacks on a surprising group - firefighters
posted by dabug at 1:40 PM on April 28, 2010


It happens in Denmark as well.

The most reasonable explanation I've heard is that all uniformed representatives of the government - from police to firefighters to ambulance drivers to parking wardens - sort of get rolled into the ACAB mindset (no English wiki page, sorry) and are thus targeted as an outlet for some people's grievances against society.
posted by brokkr at 2:53 PM on April 28, 2010


Ok, been waiting to watch that all day. Very cool.

Did a few police ride-a-longs and we were constantly attending paramedics. I'm not surprised that they are subjects of violence, though I would assume it's from disturbed/medicated/stoned people and not just hooligans. Violence against aggressive police is understandable. Violence against random police is understandable but sad. And violence against firefights, like others here, I just do not understand.

I will say that now that I've seen the blue screen process used here, that could be used for some funky-freaky-horrorshow type shit. (aren't there a thousand horror flicks out there where something menacing is next to you in the mirror but you look over and nothing is there?...)
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 3:45 PM on April 28, 2010


Bah, firefighters, that is.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 3:46 PM on April 28, 2010


Lousy no-good firefighters, trying to prevent me from saving my flatscreen from a raging inferno.

I could have done it.

Famous last words.
posted by bwg at 5:40 PM on April 28, 2010


[Genuinely not trolling here.] I saw this mentioned on *ahem* reddit, and there was a limited agreement that this phenomenon had some racial aspect to it. I basically assumed that it was just another case of European right-wing types being drawn to American sites that are mildly amenable to the libertarian perspective, but there was no one there to really counter that claim. I figure MetaFilter would be a better place to seek a level-headed view of the issue, if you all are wiling to broach the subject at all. Thoughts? Really, I'm not trolling, just curious.

Oh yeah, and fuck anyone who would attack emergency responders, no matter what the reason. Unless you're living in some kind of Children of Men dystopia or something. Even then...
posted by viborg at 11:33 PM on April 28, 2010


And why the hell can't I get the font size thing to work for me? It worked on preview. Probably not the right place to ask, is it.
posted by viborg at 11:34 PM on April 28, 2010


You use <small>tiny text</small> to get

tiny text
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:36 AM on April 29, 2010


Thanks!
posted by viborg at 6:24 PM on April 29, 2010


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