Would you panick or think clearly?

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A week ago, I was waiting for the bus after work, and a man stood near me talking on a cell phone. Suddenly he dropped the phone and fell, his head bouncing off the sidewalk. He started convulsing, and foam came out of his mouth. He was fighting for breath, and stared up without seeing anything.

So I screamed at people nearby to call an ambulance. They just got on the bus, although one teen boy had a cell phone in his hands. Everyone around here carries a cellphone, beside me.

I stopped a person walking by and asked him if he knows mouth to mouth resicitation. Luckily, he knew what he was doing, said it was epilipsy, and turned the man on his side. He also picked up the cell phone he dropped and called an ambulance.

I feel bad that I didn't think to use the cell phone I'd actually seen the man use, but I wasnt thinking clearly and panicked a bit. At least I tried to help and not just walked away like those bastards.

Would you have known what to do? Does this have anything to do with Asperger, not being practical, not thinking? I'd have used his phone if I'd have thought about it. Have you ever been in such a situation, and what did you do? Did you panick, or did you know what to do?

Well done. You did get help for him whether or not you were calm enough to think of using his phone. But did all the other people really just walk away, ignoring the convulsing man and your plea for help? Seriously? That's horrible.

I have been in a similar situation at work. Someone started to convulse uncontrollably. I had to call an ambulance. I wasn't 100 percent calm but was calm enough to operate the work phone and explain the situation and location.

I don't know if I would be calm enough to think to use his phone if I were in your situation. Well, I hope I will never find out.

I wonder if you got traumatized by that incident. My coworker, a contractor and I couldn't continue working that day as all of us were traumatized by seeing a violently convulsing person.

I may actually try to convince my father to carry a mobile phone for an emergency like this one.

Having a bit of a brain fart in a panicked situation isn't a mortal sin. Me, my first instinct would probably be to use my own phone, but failing that, asking someone nearby for a phone or using the one he dropped makes no significant difference, in my submission.

Also, people are terrible.

I think you did fine. You did what you could think of, and you did *something* to help this man, unlike the people who walked by ignoring him.

It sounds like the man who helped had some kind of training in first aid/CPR. Just having the training alone gives one more of a "peace of mind" when encountering emergency situations. You, not having had that, would not be able to think as clearly as someone who has had some training.

No one can really predict how exactly they will act in an emergency. You did fine.

Besides, it is better to have two people assisting. One cannot always talk on the phone with the 911 operator AND be the hands that need to do the assisting. Getting an additional person to help was the right thing to do, regardless of how it came about.

One time, when I was student teaching 5th grade and my supervising teacher was out of the room, a girl came up to me saying she wasn't feeling good and needed to go to the nurse. All of a sudden, her face turned gray and I knew she was going to faint. She was across a long table from me, and I couldn't get around the table and chairs quickly enough to catch her. The only thing I could do was pray (silently) that she would not hit her head on the way down. I yelled at a student to run for the nurse while I kept my eye on her.

I think you behaved admirably.

The people who ignored him must have thought he was just high on drugs, or that he had something contagious, or maybe they just didn't think at all. Yes, I do believe that last one is the most likely.If he had died I think they would all be murderers, in a way. Good for you for caring.

It's not AS. NT's freeze all the time. Also, if you have never encountered a cell phone like his before it's normal that you don't know how to use it.

From the symptoms you describe I would have thought it was a seizure too and I do know what to do about that but that is only because I went to nursing school for a while until I got pregnant with my first baby, and also I come from a medical background.

As much as I totally expect to lose it and freak out in a crisis, people tell me I'm very calm and seem to know exactly what I'm doing but I'm freaking out on the inside even when I know what to do. My youngest choked on a cheese stick once when she was 11 and I did the Heimlich on her without even thinking about it and got it out. I about had a heart attack after it scared me so bad, but she was mad I wouldn't let her have any more of them.

I'd really only panic for real if it were impending death for me or one of my kids or my family in some way. I usually do just fine when it involves other people. I can detach that way. You can't help them if you are freaked out, you have to distance yourself and make yourself think about them differently and objectively even. I've managed to do fine in bad situations though. However, when I have a panic attack nothing bad is going on and I'm completely irrational and I freak compeletely out.

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You did good.
I would probably stand there and stare, trying to make sense of the situation. I would come to my senses and try to help after a while but I wouldn't probably think about calling an ambulance. I would rather try to prevent him from further injury for example by trying to put something soft under his head or changing his body position so he can breath - those are my first ideas after reading your story. I know nothing about seizures so I find it hard to imagine it now but I would try my best to figure something out so I can help hands on. Who knows, maybe I would be even "smart" enough to take the mobile phone and browse the net for "how to help seizure" INSTEAD of calling an ambulance. I am capable of that... the first thing I did after a wasp stung mom mom in neck was checking a net for "first aid wasp stung".

For me ambulance is not a direct help because before an ambulance comes someone can be already dead. I actually seen a situation like this - except the guy had a heart attack, not seizure and I got there after an ambulance already come. The worst thing was there was a medical center 1 minute walk away but an ambulance from another city - 10 mins drive - came as first professional help because noone of the about 50 people around figured it would be a good idea to run for a doctor from the CHC 100 meters away.

Besides I don't think I would have enough ability to speak to clearly describe the situation by phone - I have trouble with phone calls even when I am calm. Even if I managed to think about calling an ambulance I would only manage to yell at someone "Call an ambulance!" or "Can you help me?" and I hand him the phone. Well... Unless I was really the only person around and the victim seemed stable enough. In that case I would cut off all emotions and call the ambulance like a programmed robot.

For a seizure you first call 911, then turn them on their right side if you can and they aren't all over the place. This helps keep them from choking on stuff. It may not work but you can't put something in their mouth to prevent it because you aren't carrying it with you and wouldn't be qualified anyway and plus sometimes you need two people to pry the jaws open. So just turn them on their side and wait for it to be over and try to keep them from accidentally hurting themselves during it. The only thing you can do if you aren't a doctor who carries the stuff he needs with him, is to do that.

Never try and put anything inside the mouth of a person having a seizure because they could either choke on it or bite your finger off. It may seem like a good idea at the time, which is why I said it twice. Also there was an old wives tale about using a spoon to keep them from choking on their tongue, which you don't do. There is something that they use in the hospital similar to that but you nor I know what the hell we are doing and we are likely to make them puke more and choke on vomit rather than help them, or they will choke on our finger when they bite it off.

That is what you do for a seizure. For just about everything except starting CPR you call 911 first. With starting CPR you do one round and then call. YOu can call and put the phone down on the ground and yell into it while you are doing the CPR or put it on speaker though.

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I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

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