So as we planned, boyfriend and I both got in touch with WMATA this morning to comment about our experiences Saturday night that I wrote about here.
I emailed, so my response will take a lil bit longer but I expect it will be similar, if not hte same as the one boyfriend received when he called them this morning at 9am.
Boyfriend: response is that they are bus operators
Boyfriend: and that putting emergency equipment there would result in too much liability for Metro
Boyfriend: so in short – there’s nothing you or i could have done“what if you pass out and some deranged individual used that defibrilator to kill you”
Boyfriend: basically they don’t want the responsibility
Boyfriend noted: “I’d say my biggest complaint is that they’ve made this big push to “be prepared” for any sort of incident with an emphasis on massive casualty terrorist attacks, and yet they don’t provide riders with the tools to act in an emergency. Despite the fact that they have posters telling people to “be prepared.”"
I mean…it’s true. How can you be prepared for a mass casualty situation if you’re not even prepared for any sort of emergency? I mean, that just seems like a moot point.
Now I can admit that I should have done more. Maybe I should have gone over and checked the man’s pulse myself – it wouldn’t have gotten the EMT’s there any faster, nor would it have done any good without any sort of First Aid kit but perhaps if I had, the driver would have moved just a little bit faster. Who knows but either way, hindsight is 20/20 and I can admit when I’m wrong but it doesn’t change the situation now or the future situations that myself or you fabulous readers may find yourself in in which you too come across a passenger in need and have a driver that is pretty unwilling to accept the burden.
I think Arjewtino put it best: “Despite not having any real training, obviously, you would think that since it was his bus, so to speak, he would at least attempt some sort of action on the poor man’s behalf. If someone passed out in your car while you were driving, the other passengers would look to you for some sort of authoritative action even if you never took one class in CPR, so you do have a point there.”
Which is pretty much my whole disturbance by the situation summed up by an outsider. Sure sure, I should have done something, but so should the other 20 passengers on the bus. I still feel guilty that i didn’t – but the reason I’m writing about this is not because I want to clear my conscious but because I want to make some sort of difference so it doesn’t happen again. So that the next time a passenger passes out on a train or bus, there are passengers who are more willing than I was or have the balls to encourage their bus driver/fellow passengers to do something and have the resources to do so as opposed to just waiting around for the EMT’s which is pretty much what we were forced to do after we were herded off the bus to wait for another bus.
