Posted: 3/7/2010 2:18:21 PM EDT
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The idea behind the "three percenters" is that an estimated 3% of American colonists acted to achieve independence, with roughly 10% of Americans actively supporting independence while another 20% passively supported independence. My experience has been that between 3-5% of people will act in an emergency, the rest will panic, get away, or otherwise not act unless directed to do so. Today was another example of that. Another ARFcommer and I met saving a woman's life. She had run off the road and hit a tree. Neither of us saw the accident, but there was enough traffic that SOMEONE had to have seen it. We both saw the smoke rising from the median and looked closer to see her car down the hill starting to burn and stopped. I think I saw it first, but took longer to stop and get back to the accident, Charles (owner of Guns and Gear in Lavonia, he's on AR15.com but I didn't get his handle) managed to stop closer to the scene so was able to get to her faster. She had hit a tree with the right front side of her car, collapsing the dash into the passenger seat, while the driver's door was blocked by a sapling. By the time I got back there, Charles had tried getting her out from the rear passenger seat, but she had electric seats and her foot was trapped under the dash, and he was trying to smash in the windshield when I got there, while his wife was trying to find a rock or something to use. I managed to pull the sapling out of the way so Charles could open the driver's door and then we pulled her out. She was talking about her bag in the passenger seat having all of her ID and such, so I tried to grab it, but the dash was collapsed in and the smoke was getting bad, while I was doing that Charles put her in a fireman's carry and carried her up the embankment. I tried to go in through the passenger door to get her bag, but the smoke was too thick at that point. The car was fully engulfed by the time the first deputy arrived and got fire extinguishers out of his trunk. Out of all of the cars that passed (traffic was reasonably heavy for a Sunday afternoon), four stopped. Charles, myself, and two EMT's. Lessons learned? I need one of those spring-loaded devices for breaking out car windows, Charles tried breaking out the windshield (and tore up his hands doing so) while I tried smashing the driver's window with my Leatherman, without any success. Charles said he had a fire extinguisher in his Jeep, but not the truck he was driving. I'd taken my bag with my first aid kit and large knife in the house for something and hadn't put it back in the truck, and I need a bag that I can hang where I can always grab it and go, I had gloves and an orange vest in my truck but they weren't in easy reach so I left them behind. Oh, and the smoke from a burning car is nasty, I'm still hacking occasionally from what I inhaled. Pictures In the third picture, you can see the sapling that had been blocking the driver's door. |
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Good job. You definitely fall into a very small minority of people in the US for that... And you're right...most will cruise on by..."It's not my problem". Always think of it as "Would I drive on by if it was someone I knew?" A life is a life in that situation... Makes me rethink some tools I need to pick up. |
| Outstanding job...thanks for being a standup guy. Very few people will be a good samaritan. I see it everyday in my line of work. Most people are too concerned of the liability involved in aiding injured persons. I blame this on our justice system and those ambulance chasing bastards who make a living suing good people. |
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i did something like that once....drove down chastain road late one night and saw a completely flipped ford explorer...by the time my friend and i had ran up to the car the engine was still running, tires still moving, and the car was upside down....
managed the door open, reached in to turn the car off, and there was beer cans everywhere... two girls, two guys on the way back from a party....one girl had a HUGE open wound on her arm....kinda grossed me out looking at it, but i took my shirt off and wraped it up tight....everyone else was pretty beat up as well... needless to say only one car stopped (3am) aside from Kris and I...cops came, probaly arrested the driver at the hospital because he was trashed..... did i mention that the girls were lying on what was the roof...they werent wearing their seatbelts so they were sprawled out admist the glass....it was a pretty scary sight. Somehow they remembered our names, because they added us as friends on facebook a few weeks later, and wrote us both realy long thankyou letter that i still have. amazing that some people just view themselves as the only ones on the planet, and that theres not other human beings out there. Good job doing what you did. if every human looked out for every other human, this world would be a much much greater place. |
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Quoted: Good job! I've helped out at several accidents over the years. You are correct in your observation that very few people stop and help. Oh, it wasn't the first accident I'd stopped at, not even the worst injuries. But unless it's blocking the road, most people go on past, especially on the interstate or in the city. In smaller towns, people are more used to having to act because there aren't many official responders around, so folks there are more likely to ask if assistance is needed. |
| The next time you want to bust a tmepered window, just put your blade in the joint of the glass and weatherstripping, wedge it in there good then pull back sharply sideways. Tempered glass is super strong in the middle, but its weakness is its edges. It'll explode like you shot it! Oh and OOH, RAH! OUTSTANDING job! |
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Quoted: I dont see how one human can see another human in distress and just keep on moving. No sense of morals....or a sense of morals with no sense of action.....or a sense to just worry about one's self. I'm sure we all understand it.....just don't like it, don't agree with it, and look down on it.
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I dont see how one human can see another human in distress and just keep on moving. They see others doing the same thing and align their behavior with them. Like if you are really excited about something and walk into a room where everyone is visibly sad, and while you dont know why, you immediately tone down the excitement, at least until you know whats goin on. Not saying its a good thing, you would hope a good upbringing and a sense of compassion would override that tendency to go along pretending everything is OK. |
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Kudos for stopping and assisting. I keep a Gerber Hinderer in my truck console. I spotted these at Frye's last month marked down to $29.00. Beside the built in glass break, you got the main blade or the smaller recessed cutter for getting through seat belts.
http://www.gerberstore.com/index.php?xpage=itempage&xid=760 |
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I have a story close to what you did.
I was driving my work truck on a very busy road during lunch hour and came up on a Kia Sorento that rear ended a Semi-truck with trailer HARD. It was in the left lane, already on fire and not a single person had stopped. I pulled over my truck and ran to the driver side and the man was semi-conscious with his face all sorts of smashed. The dash was pushed in, his seat belt was on and the smoke was thick; I cut the seat belt with my knife and started trying to pull him out when another guy came to help. We grabbed him and someone sprayed the fire with an extinguisher sending more smoke and melted plastic all over all three of us. Since all the smoke was everywhere we couldn't see more then 3-4 feet in front of us and I was scared to death of getting hit by a car (they were still driving 45MPH or so in all the open lanes). We made it to the side of the road, we couldn't lay the man on his back because he was choking on his blood and teeth. I rolled him on his side and held his neck straight until the paramedics got there, the other guy managed to get his mothers name and phone number out of him to give to the medics. They airlifted him out; Once it was all said and done I went back to my truck and scrubbed the blood off my hands and arms with alcohol pads and reported back to work. I read in the paper the next day that some "good samaritans" pulled a man from a burning car. Never knew if he made it or not. |
| Congrats on what you did . I helped pull a guy out from under a car when I was 18 , there were 2 guys under the car 1 did not make it the other broke everything from the waist down . I saw him later on crutches he was thankful. I still remember grabbing the dead guy. |
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Congrats on what you did . I helped pull a guy out from under a car when I was 18 , there were 2 guys under the car 1 did not make it the other broke everything from the waist down . I saw him later on crutches he was thankful. I still remember grabbing the dead guy. i guy i worked with was sued for helping a woman after an accident, her car was on fire and he cut her seatbelt off and pulled her out, her arm was broken in the process of him pulling her out. he told me other people had stopped and were standing around and watching. the police were the only ones that thanked him and then he got a letter saying he was being sued, somehow the suit was dropped. he says now he will never help another stranger, i guess i wouldn't blame him. you guys did great, thanks for sharing |
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Quoted: The next time you want to bust a tmepered window, just put your blade in the joint of the glass and weatherstripping, wedge it in there good then pull back sharply sideways. Tempered glass is super strong in the middle, but its weakness is its edges. It'll explode like you shot it! Oh and OOH, RAH! OUTSTANDING job! The above is the ticket, ya have to hit it in the corner of the window and it pops immediately and great job fellas. |
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Quoted: Quoted: The next time you want to bust a tmepered window, just put your blade in the joint of the glass and weatherstripping, wedge it in there good then pull back sharply sideways. Tempered glass is super strong in the middle, but its weakness is its edges. It'll explode like you shot it! Oh and OOH, RAH! OUTSTANDING job! The above is the ticket, ya have to hit it in the corner of the window and it pops immediately and great job fellas. Yeah, one mistake was I didn't extend a blade from my Leatherman, I was just using it as a blunt object, although I was hitting near the top edge of the glass. I think she had some additional tinting applied that made it more difficult, I scratched the window tint but wasn't able to break it. I'm not sure if we'd have been able to get her out the window anyway, I think she was so close to the steering wheel that her legs would have been blocked (which was also why Charles wasn't able to pull her into the back seat). |
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i just noticed we had friends in common on FaceBook, and not the type of friends i would have expected.
BTW nice job. I keep fire extinguishers in my car, I have ysed 5, none on my own car. got in that habbit after four wheeling, brought it over to the rest of my cars |
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Congrats on what you did . I helped pull a guy out from under a car when I was 18 , there were 2 guys under the car 1 did not make it the other broke everything from the waist down . I saw him later on crutches he was thankful. I still remember grabbing the dead guy. i guy i worked with was sued for helping a woman after an accident, her car was on fire and he cut her seatbelt off and pulled her out, her arm was broken in the process of him pulling her out. he told me other people had stopped and were standing around and watching. the police were the only ones that thanked him and then he got a letter saying he was being sued, somehow the suit was dropped. he says now he will never help another stranger, i guess i wouldn't blame him. you guys did great, thanks for sharing While you can be sued for anything, good samaritan laws in Georgia will handle all lawsuits stemming from you helping someone, unless whatever you did was grossly negligent. That being said, it won't keep you out of court, just protect you once there. To be succesfully sued, the plantiff will have to prove that: 1. You had a duty to act. 2. You failed to do that duty. 3. The plantiff actually suffered damages. 4. Your actions wre the proximate causes of the damages/injuries. IANAL, this is just my understanding. Those that run towards the injured when others run away, show the true charity, humility, and sense of honor more Americans SHOULD have towards each other. Kudos to all of you guys. |
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Congrats on what you did . I helped pull a guy out from under a car when I was 18 , there were 2 guys under the car 1 did not make it the other broke everything from the waist down . I saw him later on crutches he was thankful. I still remember grabbing the dead guy. i guy i worked with was sued for helping a woman after an accident, her car was on fire and he cut her seatbelt off and pulled her out, her arm was broken in the process of him pulling her out. he told me other people had stopped and were standing around and watching. the police were the only ones that thanked him and then he got a letter saying he was being sued, somehow the suit was dropped. he says now he will never help another stranger, i guess i wouldn't blame him. you guys did great, thanks for sharing While you can be sued for anything, good samaritan laws in Georgia will handle all lawsuits stemming from you helping someone, unless whatever you did was grossly negligent. That being said, it won't keep you out of court, just protect you once there. To be succesfully sued, the plantiff will have to prove that: 1. You had a duty to act. 2. You failed to do that duty. 3. The plantiff actually suffered damages. 4. Your actions wre the proximate causes of the damages/injuries. IANAL, this is just my understanding. Those that run towards the injured when others run away, show the true charity, humility, and sense of honor more Americans SHOULD have towards each other. Kudos to all of you guys. All very true...however if/when it makes it to court you have already, normally, employed the services of an attorney. So regardless of the outcome its going to cost you for doing the right thing. People are lawsuit happy nowadays because they dont wanna get off their fat asses and be productive members of society. They would rather bitch about it and expect the government to take care of them. 
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Congrats on what you did . I helped pull a guy out from under a car when I was 18 , there were 2 guys under the car 1 did not make it the other broke everything from the waist down . I saw him later on crutches he was thankful. I still remember grabbing the dead guy. i guy i worked with was sued for helping a woman after an accident, her car was on fire and he cut her seatbelt off and pulled her out, her arm was broken in the process of him pulling her out. he told me other people had stopped and were standing around and watching. the police were the only ones that thanked him and then he got a letter saying he was being sued, somehow the suit was dropped. he says now he will never help another stranger, i guess i wouldn't blame him. you guys did great, thanks for sharing While you can be sued for anything, good samaritan laws in Georgia will handle all lawsuits stemming from you helping someone, unless whatever you did was grossly negligent. That being said, it won't keep you out of court, just protect you once there. To be succesfully sued, the plantiff will have to prove that: 1. You had a duty to act. 2. You failed to do that duty. 3. The plantiff actually suffered damages. 4. Your actions wre the proximate causes of the damages/injuries. IANAL, this is just my understanding. Those that run towards the injured when others run away, show the true charity, humility, and sense of honor more Americans SHOULD have towards each other. Kudos to all of you guys. All very true...however if/when it makes it to court you have already, normally, employed the services of an attorney. So regardless of the outcome its going to cost you for doing the right thing. People are lawsuit happy nowadays because they dont wanna get off their fat asses and be productive members of society. They would rather bitch about it and expect the government to take care of them.
IANAL but can't you counter sue them for your financial damages? I get to work from home and abouth the only thing on basic cable during the day is either soaps or court TV of some sort. every case in front of the judge has a two law suits. one person suring one person and the other counter sueing. |
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Congrats on what you did . I helped pull a guy out from under a car when I was 18 , there were 2 guys under the car 1 did not make it the other broke everything from the waist down . I saw him later on crutches he was thankful. I still remember grabbing the dead guy. i guy i worked with was sued for helping a woman after an accident, her car was on fire and he cut her seatbelt off and pulled her out, her arm was broken in the process of him pulling her out. he told me other people had stopped and were standing around and watching. the police were the only ones that thanked him and then he got a letter saying he was being sued, somehow the suit was dropped. he says now he will never help another stranger, i guess i wouldn't blame him. you guys did great, thanks for sharing While you can be sued for anything, good samaritan laws in Georgia will handle all lawsuits stemming from you helping someone, unless whatever you did was grossly negligent. That being said, it won't keep you out of court, just protect you once there. To be succesfully sued, the plantiff will have to prove that: 1. You had a duty to act. 2. You failed to do that duty. 3. The plantiff actually suffered damages. 4. Your actions wre the proximate causes of the damages/injuries. IANAL, this is just my understanding. Those that run towards the injured when others run away, show the true charity, humility, and sense of honor more Americans SHOULD have towards each other. Kudos to all of you guys. All very true...however if/when it makes it to court you have already, normally, employed the services of an attorney. So regardless of the outcome its going to cost you for doing the right thing. People are lawsuit happy nowadays because they dont wanna get off their fat asses and be productive members of society. They would rather bitch about it and expect the government to take care of them.
IANAL but can't you counter sue them for your financial damages? I get to work from home and abouth the only thing on basic cable during the day is either soaps or court TV of some sort. every case in front of the judge has a two law suits. one person suring one person and the other counter sueing. In my experience the ones who sue you for such BS couldnt give you a candy bar if it was awarded to you by a judge in a countersuit. |
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I wasn't going to respond with a "me too", but had an interesting development today
I'm a 3%-er. I have stopped for no less than a half-dozen wrecks where I was the first on the scene. Previously, the worst was tearing my t-shirt into strips to tourniquet the legs of a guy who lost them both below the knees after being sandwiched between car bumpers while trying to jump off his car in the 75/85 merger area. My ex was confused and upset when I arrived 30 minutes late to pick her up from work without a shirt and bloody up to my elbows. A couple of years ago, however, I was witness to and first on scene for a roller blader who was struck in a crosswalk by an oncoming car. There wasn't much we could do and he did not survive the trip to the hospital. I had to give a deposition a few months later, and now I've been subpoenaed as a witness for the plaintiff (his wife) on the 22nd of this month. I didn't expect this would make it to trial, given the statements all the witnesses provided, but who knows. It would be great if one day all this karma came back, but regardless I would never hesitate to stop and help anyone I possibly could. |
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I found this tool on another website.
ExiTool™-Seat Belt Cutter, Window Breaker, L.E.D. Flashlight Tool 
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Quoted: Thanks LoneWolf545. Neither of us could have done that without the other's help. That would have been a trajedy. Good luck and 6% is the charm! BTW, don't try smashing a windshield with your fist....The windshild yielded, but that was painful! Yeah, I teach martial arts, I'm used to breaking things with my hands and feet, and how much it hurts when you bounce off :-) Btw, I got a call about a week afterwards from the victim and her husband thanking me for helping her, hope you got one as well (thread about another accident in GD reminded me that I hadn't updated with that). |
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Quoted: I found this tool on another website. ExiTool™-Seat Belt Cutter, Window Breaker, L.E.D. Flashlight Tool http://www.crkt.com/crkt/content/images_inv/c/c/374/9030Left_full_374.jpg That's pretty nice. All the features I've seen on some expensive knife without the expensive knife part. Cool how it sits on the seat belt so it's always where you need it...hmm.
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Thanks for your actions. I will never understand how someone can pass an accident without trying to offer aid.
Damn, now you got me thinking about my tools I carry...I have nothing decent for rescue beyond my Gerber and a first aid kit. I see a fire extinguisher, glass breaker and possible pry tool in my future. |