The motorbike crash

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Scene 1 · Opening

The D39, 21.40. It has been raining. Your headlights catch something on the ground, fifty metres ahead.

A motorbike lying across the lane. The rider is two metres from it, not moving. You pull onto the verge and cut the engine.

Scene 2 · The first reflex

Your hand is on the door handle. Behind you the road is black, and it bends.

The rider has not moved.

What do you do first?

• Right move : Hazard lights, jacket, and I make the road safe before I go near him.
  Protect, alert, give first aid : In that order, and never any other. Hazard lights as soon as you slow down, jacket on before you get out, then the warning: a triangle at least 30 metres back and in both directions of traffic, if it is possible to do it in complete safety, and the source names traffic density and visibility. A dark wet bend is exactly what that condition is there to weigh: if you cannot walk back up the road safely, you do not walk back up it.
• Mistake : I run straight to the rider, safety can wait.
  You have just created a second casualty : A car came round the bend, on a black, wet road. A rescuer who gets knocked down rescues nobody: you make the area safe, then you approach.
• Not the best choice : I film the scene, it will be useful for the insurance.
  Your phone will be useful, yes : But for dialling three digits, not for framing a shot. Put it away, you will get it out again in a minute.

Scene 3 · The helmet

The road is marked out. You crouch down beside him.

His left hand moves a little. His chest is rising. The helmet is a full-face one, visor down. He does not answer when you speak to him.

What do you do?

• Mistake : I take his helmet off, he will breathe better.
  Never take a helmet off on your own : You have just made a neck injury worse. The helmet holds the head and the neck in line: taking it off is for the crew, not for you.
• Right move : I stay crouched down, I talk to him, I touch nothing.
  He is breathing. Nothing is urgent about touching him : You talk to him, you tell him help is coming, you watch whether he keeps breathing. The helmet stays on his head, and you do not move him. His hand moving tells you he is reacting, so he is not unconscious. And the fire service guidance separately forbids moving an injured person absent immediate danger, and forbids removing a casualty's helmet: here the two say the same thing.
• Mistake : I drag him onto the verge, he will be safer there.
  You do not move an injured person off the road : Unless the danger is immediate: fire, risk of explosion, traffic still coming through. You have just made the road safe, so that danger is one you have already dealt with.

Scene 4 · Three digits

You take your phone out. One bar of signal.

What do you dial?

• Right move : 15.
  15, 18 or 112: all three are right : 15 is the Samu, the medical emergency service, 18 is the fire and rescue service, 112 is the European emergency number. At a road crash, none of the three is a mistake. The only mistake is hesitating.
• Mistake : 17, the police: it is a road accident.
  17 does not send a doctor : You did not invent that line: the Ministry of the Interior does write that 17 is dialled for an emergency involving a road accident. But there is an injured person here, and it is 15, 18 or 112 that send medical crews. Deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing and speech-impaired people reach 114 instead.
• Mistake : I look up the number of the nearest hospital.
  You are losing minutes inside your phone : Three digits are enough. The 112 is free, reachable anywhere in Europe, and it works even from a locked phone or one with no SIM card.

Scene 5 · The dispatcher picks up

The dispatcher : “Samu, go ahead.”

Timer: 30 seconds.

What do you say?

• Right move : “The D39, between the industrial estate roundabout and the railway bridge, heading south to north. Motorbike crash.”
  The address first : The road number, two landmarks, the direction of travel: the dispatcher can send a crew before he even knows the rest. Without the place, nothing moves.
• Mistake : “There has been an accident, it is awful, he is hardly moving, come quickly!”
  The dispatcher can send nothing: he does not know where : The precise location of the incident comes before everything else. The road number, a marker post, two landmarks, the direction. The story comes next.
• Not the best choice : “Hello, I would like to order a birthday cake.”
  “This is the Samu” : “Candles are two floors down. I am listening: where are you?”

Scene 6 · What you can see

The dispatcher : “Got it, the D39. What happened, and how many people?”

You answer:

• Right move : “One rider on his own, on the ground, full-face helmet. He is breathing, he is moving one hand, he is not speaking. Nobody else. I have put my hazard lights on and set out the triangle.”
  What happened, how many, how they are, what you have already done : Four pieces of information, in that order: that is exactly what is wanted from you. You describe, you do not diagnose.
• Mistake : “I do not know, I have only just got here. I will leave you, I am going to help him.”
  You have hung up on the Samu : You do not hang up before you are asked to. The doctor on the line can talk you through what to do while the crew is on its way: that is what usually happens.
• Not the best choice : “Are you far? Only I have got a meeting at 8 tomorrow.”
  “The crew has left” : “Your meeting will wait. He will not. Stay on the line and describe what you can see.”

Scene 7 · The instructions

The dispatcher : “The fire and rescue service and a Samu crew are on their way, you will see them arrive.”

The dispatcher : “You stay next to him. You do not move him, you do not take the helmet off, you give him nothing to drink. Call me back if his breathing changes.”

Three minutes to hold. What do you do?

• Right move : I stay on the line and stay with him, and I keep talking to him.
  This is the most useful thing you will do all evening : A road made safe, a clear alert with the right location, a casualty nobody has moved, and someone talking to him. The crew arrives to a clean scene.
• Mistake : He is thirsty, I will give him a little water.
  Nothing to drink, nothing to eat : It is written in black and white in the fire and rescue service guidance, and the dispatcher has just told you so.
• Mistake : I take his phone out of his pocket to call his family.
  You are going through an injured man's pockets and leaving the line : Two mistakes in one move. Telling the family is not your job tonight. Staying beside him is.

Scene 8 · The crew

Blue light in the bend, then red. An engine pulls across to close the lane. Four people get out, a stretcher comes off.

Someone asks you what happened. You answer in ten seconds, because you watched.

The helmet, they are the ones who take it off.