First aid for pedestrian struck by car?

Quango

I have a question that any paramedics on here might be able to help me with. I was on holidays in Italy recently when I witnessed a man being struck by a car on a busy road. It was reasonably high speed and he was knocked to the ground. Nobody nearby seemed to know what to do so being reasonably knowledgeable about first aid, I went to see if I could help.

He was drifting in and out of consciousness and was at best probably verbally responsive. Given the mechanism of injury and his level of consciousness, I was worried about a spinal injury and so I stabilised his head/neck manually for about ten minutes until the ambulance arrived. However the paramedics who arrived basically pushed me aside leaving him to shake his head around and he was more or less tossed up on to a stretcher and put in the back of an ambulance. They didn't seem to assess him at all from what I could see before doing this.

So my question is simply did I do the correct thing? What would be the appropriate first aid to provide to someone in this situation? How would paramedics manage someone like this in Ireland? I presume it wouldn't be like that!?

carav10

You did the correct thing (not a paramedic but do have a good level of training). If they didn't even stop to ask what happened, then as for their actions? well, remind me to try and not have an accident in Italy...

Standards of paramedics are different in many countries in Europe, e.g. I heard of a case from a friend who was in Portugal where an elderly lady in their party dislocated her hip and the Paramedics who arrived couldn't give any pain relief (at least nothing beyond paracetamol from what I can remember), not even Entonox which EMTs here can even give. The friend was told that if pain relief is to be given, they have to call out a doctor and none was available. Might have been that particular area, who knows, but the poor woman...We should feel blessed that our Paramedics are trained to the level they are.

civdef

Levels of pre-hospital care vary widely around the world, even among developed countries. Some places you get physician / advanced paramedic led pre-hospital care, other places scoop & run with essentially no pre-hospital treatment.

TallGlass

carav10 wrote: »

We should feel blessed that our Paramedics are trained to the level they are.

Services here in Ireland are high and its great, it would be a terrible waste to see them drop to the likes of what we have here. But in my eyes that's what the overlords over our government want. Maybe there a little jealous themselves, that there systems are not as good.

ectoraige

Yes, well done, you did the best you could for that person. Your response was wholly appropriate response and is inline with the PHECC guidelines. In a trauma incident like that, assuming there's no cardiac arrest and airway is okay, there's really nothing else a sole rescuer can do other than provide spinal immobilisation, and wait for help.

Don't mind what the ambulance crew did, different countries have different procedures, in some the crew are little more than "ambulance drivers", with care given in-hospital, others such as France are very focused on treating on scene, getting doctors and other specialists on scene when needed. Italy, I believe, follow the latter model, but implement it with mostly volunteer services so actual outcome is widely varied. I'm taking the family on holidays to Italy next year so I'm planning on only having an accident on the way to or from the airport...

ectoraige

Oh, and concerning what paramedics here would do, I believe they would have collared the casualty and put them on a spinal board/vacuum mattress prior to transporting them. There is some debate ongoing at present as to whether the Irish system goes overboard with spinal stabilisation, and protocols are being examined to reduce the number of people brought into EDs on boards, but definitely in the case you describe they would be required to collar and board the casualty.