What is wrong with people?

[alpinejohn]

Rant mode engaged...

I have just seen a really depressing "news report" on sky news - about an incident seemingly on the Circle line which seems so off target as to make me feel really ashamed to be a Londoner, and think the responsible news reporter should be equally ashamed.

uk.news.yahoo.com/tube-passengers-ignore-man-collapsed-floor-185636375.html

Basically the "helpful" person posting the video was evidently more concerned to capture a full video record of someone who was obviously unwell - than actually put the camera down and actually go over and offer help. What is wrong with people? I think they should all be very very ashamed. How hard can it be to dial 999?

Then there is the wholly stupid and unnecessary media spin in the article which appears to suggest that LUL staff actions were deficient in some way. Right the first LUL knows is presumably when someone finally gets around to activating an emergency alarm on the train or platform. LUL staff promptly attend and can clearly see the person is unwell but breathing, so decide the best thing to do is not try to move him but call for help from better qualified people. I can't think there is anything "extra" which the LUL staff involved could be expected to do. For Pete's sake should we make a recruitment criteria that all LUL staff are all trained brain surgeons?

Doubtless if their request for better qualified assistance had resulted in an instruction to place the person in the recovery position then doubtless the staff would have got stuck in. But I think lacking extensive medical training - to imply this was a fault seems farcical - unlike the person with the video camera the LUL staff have no idea how the person ended up on the floor, so they have no idea whether trying to move them (as several probably unqualified passengers eventually decided they should) could actually have exacerbated things potentially leaving someone paralyzed.

I really wish news reporters focus on REPORTING just FACTS and stop adding this sort of emotive and unhelpful spin! I really think SkyNews owe someone in LUL an apology but I suspect that will never happen....

Rant over...

[Deleted]

Just a correction. TfL staff do not receive routine first aid training. Some staff do go on the course but this is a workplace course designed to help your colleagues and not the public.

[Deleted]

I think Sky News verges on the hysterical and unbalanced at times. Their presenters' glee at the self-harming going on at the BBC proves this. Being a commercial outfit, Sky loves it when a public organisation is in the spotlight for the wrong reasons.

Regards,
DR4M

[Deleted]

I also reas that he was unable to help the man. Seems pretty selfish to film a man falling down instead of helping him.

"Calling 999" underground may be almost impossible on the circle line (when underground) but the woman was right to pull the emergency alarm. People may just want to post videos to "gain" their 15 minutes of fame.

[Chris W]

Aaaahhh SKY (believe in better) verses Auntie Beeb...

Both have wronged, however out of the two there is only one that I would be more likely to trust... and its not the one that wants you to believe !!!

As for the footage, yes its shocking that no-one steps forwards... this is rather more of a mirror being shone back at our uncaring and selfish society... at the end of the day, who were present when the man collapsed... LU staff... or normal everyday passengers !!!

Did the member of station staff go to get help - being translated as didn't care, when the opposite is true !!

I think perhaps LU/TfL should consider training more of its customer/passenger facing staff in basic first aid... DRABC for example. A minute of your time can be the difference between life and death...

Only the most unprofessional/biased media organisations would use the footage as an opportunity to bash the Underground !!!!

[charleyfarley]

Nov 16, 2012 20:38:47 GMT @centralsimon said:

Just a correction. TfL staff do not receive routine first aid training. Some staff do go on the course but this is a workplace course designed to help your colleagues and not the public.

Why not?
To my mind, this is in itself a scandal.
The public are expected to ride on escalators, wait on stations far underground, travel on trains far underground and the very people logically assigned to supervise and care for these people in an emergency situation have no training for it. Are you serious??
So if someone has a heart attack while waiting on the platform at Oxford Circus, there is no member of TfL staff qualified to provide basic care until the emergency services show up. All the staff can apparently do is "guard" the passenger. This is a joke.

[Chris W]

Charley

I don't think that you'll find that no-one on the Underground has been trained in first aid... as far as I'm aware all firms with a minimum number of staff, must have a qualified first aider...

I think that its more likely that the station staff who first came across the collapsed passenger themselves didn't have the necessary training... yes a shame

In my department at work, out of 120 people, two are qualified and others would report an incident to them, which is what I suspect was happening when the staff member walked away from the chap on the train...

As stig suggests, such courses (often run by the St Johns Ambulance organisation for example) are pitched in order to help colleagues, however the same basic biological rules apply to every other human being too...

Not the scandal or joke I think that you're implying... such references or terms are those that I would expect to see in the Daily Fail... its sad to see them here !!!

However I do think that moving forward LU should condider training more, if not all station assistants in basic first aid...

[Chris M]

Certainly training more people in first aid can never harm ("DRABC" means "Danger, Response, Airways, Breathing, Circulation" by the way) - both LU staff and the general public.

From reading that story it seems like there isn't much more that could have been done by LU staff.

In some cases, a guard on the train then they may have been able to help more quickly, but that would depend on where on the train the guard was relative to the incident and how far from the station the train was (it could easily take several minutes for a guard to make their way to the far end of a crowded train). In this case, the train was less than 1 minute away from the station - he collapsed after the next station announcement - so a guard would unlikely have got to them before the station. However they may be able to get to the scene quicker than station staff once, GPS isn't that large but it may take staff a couple of minutes to reach some deep level platforms at large stations if they don't happen to be manned at that particular moment.

Regardless of the presence of a guard or not, the best course of action in almost all circumstances is for the driver to get the train to the next station as quickly as possible, where there are more people available to help and where paramedics, etc. can easily get to if required.

Far from being ignored, several of the people around him seems to check on him, and it was only a matter of seconds before the alarm was pulled. There would not have been time for the driver to arrange for staff to meet the train on arrival at Great Portland Street, given the proximity to the station, but they arrived as soon as was possible.

As for the people walking by when the man was lying there, what help would someone without medical training be? My first aid qualification is long-lapsed, so I would be reluctant to intervene if there was apparently someone in charge of the situation (not clear from the video, but apparently so in the text).

One thing that this does show though is the importance of staff when things go wrong. While I don't want to get political at all with this thread, it could (and maybe should) be used as argument against a reduction in particularly station staff numbers. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

[railtechnician]

In my time at LUL every one of us in my department had mandatory basic first aid training. Of course we were not first aiders as such and those who were so deemed did more training, gained a qualification and a small financial reward each year.
In our ridiculous politically correct world it may be more trouble than it's worth to attempt to deal with a casualty beyond simply calling for specialist assistance. Trying to do the right thing could land one in all sorts of trouble including criminal proceedings so it is best left to the experts.
My first aid kit contained safety pins and sticking plasters which I handed out when asked for and anything requiring more than that was left to experts. Even though I learnt ABC, how to blow up the dummy and give chest compressions, check the pulse etc I would never have used it under any circumstances, as the old Underground saying goes "one volunteer is worth ten pressed men" and while I was always happy to volunteer for the toughest engineering jobs, first aid was not my job, I was pressed to do the training even though I declined the invitation!

[Deleted]

I'm not sure I agree the problem is with uncaring passengers. A woman is seen very promptly pulling the emergency handle. If I'd seen that and the passenger being located by LU staff I would have assumed that the situation was being dealt with.

Statistically it is overwhelmingly likely that a passenger on the train or in the station is a doctor/nurse/paramedic and would be willing to help. Were any announcements asking for medical personnel made? If not, why isn't it standard operating procedure to do so?

[Deleted]

Perhaps it would be useful for me to give an opinion from a medical point of view, I am someone who is involved in teaching resus skills etc to lay-people, and have long been responsible for teaching basic life support skills to parents of vulnerable children.

The most recent update to the UK Resus guidlelines was last year, these are reviewed every 5 years based on research from all documented resus situations (successful and not). In light of evidence that most arrest/emergency situations were witnessed by someone with at least a rudimentary knowledge of BLS, but that often there were no attempts to resus, or it was delayed, or not carried out effectively, the guidelines were significantly simplified, which resulted in the BHF 'Vinnie' hard man/heart man campaign.

In short, anything you can do is better than nothing. No-one is going to be prosecuted or be subject to being sued provided they are acting with good intentions. Someone who is collapsed is very likely to stop breathing and die if nothing is done. NOTHING is worse than being dead, you can recover from broken ribs, bruising etc, all concerns which prevent people from helping. Fear now prevents people from helping their fellow man - just take a moment to think how you would feel if your mother/father/sister/brother/etc was in need of help and was ignored.

Standing back because someone else would be better qualified to help is all very well, provided that someone else there!!

Now I appreciate that in this instance, it may have appeared that this person was drunk, but there are numerous medical conditions which mimic drunkness very closely. If someone IS drunk you will soon tell by the smell - but this also begs the question, if someone is drunk, does that mean they don't deserve to be helped?

[Deleted]

Just to say, even if it looks as though someone is dealiing with the incident, it does no harm to ask if you can be of assistance in some way - the person dealing with it can always say if no help is needed.

[Deleted]

Drivers used to get basic first aid training, but that was a long time ago during our annual test of rules.

[Phil]

Nov 17, 2012 12:02:43 GMT charleyfarley said:

Nov 16, 2012 20:38:47 GMT @centralsimon said:

Just a correction. TfL staff do not receive routine first aid training. Some staff do go on the course but this is a workplace course designed to help your colleagues and not the public.

Why not?
To my mind, this is in itself a scandal.
The public are expected to ride on escalators, wait on stations far underground, travel on trains far underground and the very people logically assigned to supervise and care for these people in an emergency situation have no training for it. Are you serious??
So if someone has a heart attack while waiting on the platform at Oxford Circus, there is no member of TfL staff qualified to provide basic care until the emergency services show up. All the staff can apparently do is "guard" the passenger. This is a joke.

Even on a large building site, with over 100 workers up ladders, down holes, pouring concrete, using grinders etc., there are seldom more than two or three trained in first aid. SO if that's acceptable to the general public why the fuss over TfL/LU where the ratio is far, far higher??

[Deleted]

Nov 26, 2012 19:36:22 GMT Phil said:

Nov 17, 2012 12:02:43 GMT charleyfarley said:

Why not?
To my mind, this is in itself a scandal.
The public are expected to ride on escalators, wait on stations far underground, travel on trains far underground and the very people logically assigned to supervise and care for these people in an emergency situation have no training for it. Are you serious??
So if someone has a heart attack while waiting on the platform at Oxford Circus, there is no member of TfL staff qualified to provide basic care until the emergency services show up. All the staff can apparently do is "guard" the passenger. This is a joke.

Even on a large building site, with over 100 workers up ladders, down holes, pouring concrete, using grinders etc., there are seldom more than two or three trained in first aid. SO if that's acceptable to the general public why the fuss over TfL/LU where the ratio is far, far higher??

But; the people on a large Building site have all been trained in using the dangerous equipment and at the very least will not be operating them without training or certainly under the influence ( i would hope!).

What differentiates that to the LU is that there are far more people using the Underground which can be a very dangerous place indeed.

If somebody on a building site were to twist an ankle or fracture a bone, one, two or three first aiders would be there within minutes.

However, if for example at Oxford Circus somebody on the Victoria Line southbound platform fell over and broke a wrist, just as somebody on an approaching Bakerloo Line train pulled the Passanger Emergency Alarm as they are feeling "Sick" - just as someone else has fallen down an escalator and isn't conscious, perhaps drunk, - already LU's ability to cope has been exceeded and somebody else needs to be called in. This can take a very long time - especially if it is on a Friday, Saturday - (or am I wrong, Thursday now?! night!).

I personally think it should be compulsory for certain TFL staff, specifically those underground in tube stations to receive basic first aid training. The certain staff would be not too spaced out from one another - for example one on a given platform at any given time, or if the northbound and southbound run concurrently, one first aid trained staff member between the two of them - at the very least.

Toby.

[railtechnician]

Nov 26, 2012 19:53:28 GMT @tobywalsh said:

Nov 26, 2012 19:36:22 GMT Phil said:

Even on a large building site, with over 100 workers up ladders, down holes, pouring concrete, using grinders etc., there are seldom more than two or three trained in first aid. SO if that's acceptable to the general public why the fuss over TfL/LU where the ratio is far, far higher??

But; the people on a large Building site have all been trained in using the dangerous equipment and at the very least will not be operating them without training or certainly under the influence ( i would hope!).

What differentiates that to the LU is that there are far more people using the Underground which can be a very dangerous place indeed.

If somebody on a building site were to twist an ankle or fracture a bone, one, two or three first aiders would be there within minutes.

However, if for example at Oxford Circus somebody on the Victoria Line southbound platform fell over and broke a wrist, just as somebody on an approaching Bakerloo Line train pulled the Passanger Emergency Alarm as they are feeling "Sick" - just as someone else has fallen down an escalator and isn't conscious, perhaps drunk, - already LU's ability to cope has been exceeded and somebody else needs to be called in. This can take a very long time - especially if it is on a Friday, Saturday - (or am I wrong, Thursday now?! night!).

I personally think it should be compulsory for certain TFL staff, specifically those underground in tube stations to receive basic first aid training. The certain staff would be not too spaced out from one another - for example one on a given platform at any given time, or if the northbound and southbound run concurrently, one first aid trained staff member between the two of them - at the very least.

Toby.

Just how much extra salary do you think would be justified for those members of staff given such a massive responsibility?

How many passengers would be happy to fork out another hike in fares to cover the costs of having to train hundreds of staff to paramedic status and equip them?

I expect the answer to both questions is zilch. The bottom line is that as soon as LU staff become aware of such a situation requiring medical assistance, an ambulance is called using a long standing procedure. The time for one to arrive is little different to such a situation anywhere in the street.

You are very naive indeed to believe that everyone on a building site is fully trained in anything or everything. The same is true for all industries, much is made of licensing, certificates and accreditation these days but despite many such schemes they are no guarantee of universal levels of competence, knowledge or experience!

[SE13]

Certainly on the buses, none of us were trained in first aid, and the leading drivers had a limited knowledge of the de-fib machine.

The general procedure for finding someone taken ill was to shout a leading driver, who would call an ambulance out. If someone was taken ill on a bus, it was the only time we were allowed to use mobile phones, and that would be to direct the ambulance in, and follow any advice given by the 999 operator.