Today's action: First aid first

It's always different when a call of a traffic accident appears on my pager at a location very close to my house. Yes, I do rush out with my camera, but in those cases my first goal is to be there for people that got injured. After all I am a Red Cross volunteer and getting to a scene very quickly and being there before the ambulance means that I need to take care of injuries first and hand over to the ambulance workers when they arrive. Being a news reporter in those cases is not a priority.

In this case a woman on a bicycle was run over by a car. It seemed to have been a pretty hard blow and the lady has hit the ground with her head. For those not familiar with Dutch traffic: due to riding bicycles being fairly safe, having so many separate bicycle paths all over the country, almost no one on normal bicycles wears a helmet. So the victim had no protection whatsoever.

First I instructed a bystander who was already on his knees near the victim's head to hold her head to immobilise the neck and spine. Then I started to question the lady who was conscious, but not completely aware of what was going on around her. Since there were no other visible injuries we waited for the ambulance to arrive, checking her consciousness constantly, and then I assisted with the usual procedure with the longboard. Hopefully the injuries are not too serious.

So only after the ambulance had left I could get my camera out and make a picture of the scene. From behind the police car that blocked the road, waiting for traffic police investigators to determine the cause of the accident, with cones blocking the road on the other side of the bicycle path. An empty accident scene, because in this case it was first aid first.