re: Ever witnessed a tragic death?

I was there when that poor man fell to his death in that hot air balloon..my buddy and his uncle were standing next to me, and his uncle actually filmed the footage that was used on the news.

I was also there at the interaction of
Newcastle and Sherwood when that lady pulled out in front of that cop on the motorcycle.

Its strange that back to back posters mentioned these two accidents, and I was there for both of them. What are the odds?

I also witnessed another aftermath of a motorcycle wreck on I-10. It was around 1992. I was riding with my step dad. We pulled past the body on the ground, and my stepdad said “don’t look”. I couldn’t help myself.- when I looked down, the body was completely ripped apart. No head , missing arm etc. it was hard to get that scene out of my head.

Where was this accident? How long ago?

Two, both training accidents in the Marines. Always hard to watch especially if it's people you know.

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So, I didn't do anything except talk to the guy. He came back briefly, and he died in the car a couple minutes later, and police/EMS were a few minutes later than that. Question is, why not move him? It was very apparent to me that he was going to be dead before the first responders arrived. I still feel bad for not trying something. I realize it would have most likely been futile, I have no clue what to do, but doing nothing except watching him die sucked. Not my finest hour.

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Unless there is danger to being in the vehicle (ie fire) it’s best to let EMS handle the scene and appropriately C collar and spine board a patient. As a layman there is little you can do. If there is obviously bad extremity bleeding you can try a tourniquet if available. For the person you described you can try a jaw thrust to open the airway and sometimes this helps to reestablish spontaneous breaths.

Blunt trauma is bad. Patients who code almost always die. Call EMS, assess scene safety, and provide direct pressure to (compressible) areas of bleeding. - ER doc