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xiphiasWhen I was writing my last post, I was in an internet cafe at 8 or 9in the morning local time, which is about when LJ is down for scheduled nightly maintenence. So, when I tried to post, I couldn't, but it DID autosave properly. So I later logged in through Lis's cell phone, loaded the draft, and posted from there.
I guess the LJ Mobile interface has a shorter character limit than the regular interface. . .
You saw how much I was able to post, and then I left you all in the middle of a story. And, unfortunately, because it DID load up the draft, the draft is lost, so I have to attempt to reconstruct what I was going to say from memory. So, here's my best guess as to what I was going to say:
On our way back [from Ostia Antica], we were exhausted, and, even though I wanted to take the train farther out to go to the beach, we were too tired, and got on the train back to Rome. The train was packed by people coming back from the beach -- women wearing swimsuits under their wraps, with hair that had clearly just been in salt water -- you know what people coming back from the beach look like. Standing right next to me was a pretty young woman coming back from the beach who was just about old enough for me to feel comfortable looking at her every once in a while, so I saw the whole thing, and I got to see how the Italians deal with emergencies.
I saw her rub the back of her neck, and adjust the strap of her swimsuit top which was tied around the back of her neck. And a few minutes later, I saw her eyes roll up into her head, and she fell straght back and collapsed on the floor of the train.
Immediately, I handed the bottle of water in my bag to the woman who was travelling with her, who poured it on her face, as she was elevating the fainting woman's legs. Another woman standing next to her took HER bottle of water, and starting wetting the fainting woman's neck and face, and massaging her hands and feet, and also turning her head to the side, in case she vomited so she wouldn't asperiate. Another bottle of water was handed forward which was also used to wet her face and neck. Everyone else stepped back far enough to give her air. One person pulled the alarm/emergency lever, which was an error, but I count it as a design error, rather than an execution error. Another two people grabbed the small child and the bag that almost fell out of the moving train as the train door opened because the emergency lever was pulled.
Every person in the vicinity acted calmly, efficiently, and usefully -- including staying out of the way if they didn't see anything particular they could do to help. Everyone was either calmly and efficiently helping, or being ready to help while not hindering anyone who was helping. The woman who was wetting the face and hands ended up as the point-person, and everyone worked through her, rather than tromping over each other.
We were only a minute or so outside of the next station when this happened, and, when we pulled in, she was beginning to come around. Everyone in the immediate vicinity poured out onto the platform to give more space, and one person called an ambulance on the cell phone, and we passed word for the station personnel to help.
After a couple minutes, a vigile (security guard) for the Met.Ro ("Metropolitan transport of Rome" = Met.Ro.) showed up, and started looking for a pickpocket. People were yelling at him to help the woman who was passed out of the floor in front of him, you know, the woman that he'd just stepped over twice. Eventually, he apparently noticed her, and dragged her out onto the platform. Then he stood around apparently baffled.
The woman who had become the point-person, the woman travelling with the fainting woman, Lis, me, and one or two other people stayed around to help out, and, once it was clear that the fainting woman was breathing and basically stable, everyone except point-woman, buddy, Lis, and me filed back into the train. A few more train station security guards showed up, and looked around, baffled. Then they started yelling at each other.
The woman had recovered enough that we were able to start giving her sips of water. The emergency personel started pulling out cell phones and yelling into them. Then they pulled out papers and forms and waved them at each other. The woman started to feel stable enough that we were able to move her to sitting on a bench, with her head between her knees. Another person showed up, wearing a "Met.Ro" polo shirt instead of a "Met.Ro." security guard uniform. He started yelling at the security guards. The point woman said, "Dolce", and I ran upstairs to a little snack shop above the platform, and bought a Kit-Kat chocolate bar and a bottle of Coke, which I came down and gave to them. The point-woman was able to feed the fainting woman a bit of chocolate. She was still clearly not even remotely able to stand, or even sit upright unaided, and her friend and the point woman were still wetting her face, hair, neck, and hands, while getting her to drink more water and eat some chocolate. We heard an ambulance coming, and the security guards had wandered off somewhere else. The guy in the polo shirt was still there, walking up and down the platform, yelling into a cell phone and gesticulating wildly.
I ran upstairs to the snack bar, and managed to, through caveman-level English, caveman-level Italian, and lots of gesticulation, get across the idea that a woman had fainted downstairs and did they have any ice. They didn't, but they pointed to the ice cream freezer they had, and helped me scrape a bunch of the frost off the sides of the thing into a handkerchief, so that I had a pile of snow. They also handed me a couple packets of sugar. I took that all downstairs, and we put the snowy handkerchief on the back of the woman's neck, and she began to be able to focus her eyes and really start to interact with folks.
The paramedics showed up, took her pulse, asked for her documents, looked at them, wrote down some stuff, and left.
The woman was able to really drink water, and finished the chocolate, ate a packet of sugar, and was still too woozy to stand, but was clearly on the mend. Her friend thanked us and said that she could take it from there, and the point-woman and Lis and I got our stuff together to head home.
At no point in this process did any first responder do anything even remotely useful. At no point in this process did anyone who WASN'T a first responder do anything stupid. I'm sure that there were things we could have done better, but I don't feel anyone made any blantant errors, except for pulling the emergency lever, which, again, was a design error, not a user error.
In the United States, I'd have wanted to see the woman get to an ER, just to make sure her body temperature got to soemthing normal, and to give the possibility of IV fluids if necessecary, but, well, having seen the paramedics in Rome, I think it worked out better the way it did.
So, the lesson is: if you are in Rome, random people around you will be competent and helpful, and people in uniforms won't.
I guess the LJ Mobile interface has a shorter character limit than the regular interface. . .
You saw how much I was able to post, and then I left you all in the middle of a story. And, unfortunately, because it DID load up the draft, the draft is lost, so I have to attempt to reconstruct what I was going to say from memory. So, here's my best guess as to what I was going to say:
On our way back [from Ostia Antica], we were exhausted, and, even though I wanted to take the train farther out to go to the beach, we were too tired, and got on the train back to Rome. The train was packed by people coming back from the beach -- women wearing swimsuits under their wraps, with hair that had clearly just been in salt water -- you know what people coming back from the beach look like. Standing right next to me was a pretty young woman coming back from the beach who was just about old enough for me to feel comfortable looking at her every once in a while, so I saw the whole thing, and I got to see how the Italians deal with emergencies.
I saw her rub the back of her neck, and adjust the strap of her swimsuit top which was tied around the back of her neck. And a few minutes later, I saw her eyes roll up into her head, and she fell straght back and collapsed on the floor of the train.
Immediately, I handed the bottle of water in my bag to the woman who was travelling with her, who poured it on her face, as she was elevating the fainting woman's legs. Another woman standing next to her took HER bottle of water, and starting wetting the fainting woman's neck and face, and massaging her hands and feet, and also turning her head to the side, in case she vomited so she wouldn't asperiate. Another bottle of water was handed forward which was also used to wet her face and neck. Everyone else stepped back far enough to give her air. One person pulled the alarm/emergency lever, which was an error, but I count it as a design error, rather than an execution error. Another two people grabbed the small child and the bag that almost fell out of the moving train as the train door opened because the emergency lever was pulled.
Every person in the vicinity acted calmly, efficiently, and usefully -- including staying out of the way if they didn't see anything particular they could do to help. Everyone was either calmly and efficiently helping, or being ready to help while not hindering anyone who was helping. The woman who was wetting the face and hands ended up as the point-person, and everyone worked through her, rather than tromping over each other.
We were only a minute or so outside of the next station when this happened, and, when we pulled in, she was beginning to come around. Everyone in the immediate vicinity poured out onto the platform to give more space, and one person called an ambulance on the cell phone, and we passed word for the station personnel to help.
After a couple minutes, a vigile (security guard) for the Met.Ro ("Metropolitan transport of Rome" = Met.Ro.) showed up, and started looking for a pickpocket. People were yelling at him to help the woman who was passed out of the floor in front of him, you know, the woman that he'd just stepped over twice. Eventually, he apparently noticed her, and dragged her out onto the platform. Then he stood around apparently baffled.
The woman who had become the point-person, the woman travelling with the fainting woman, Lis, me, and one or two other people stayed around to help out, and, once it was clear that the fainting woman was breathing and basically stable, everyone except point-woman, buddy, Lis, and me filed back into the train. A few more train station security guards showed up, and looked around, baffled. Then they started yelling at each other.
The woman had recovered enough that we were able to start giving her sips of water. The emergency personel started pulling out cell phones and yelling into them. Then they pulled out papers and forms and waved them at each other. The woman started to feel stable enough that we were able to move her to sitting on a bench, with her head between her knees. Another person showed up, wearing a "Met.Ro" polo shirt instead of a "Met.Ro." security guard uniform. He started yelling at the security guards. The point woman said, "Dolce", and I ran upstairs to a little snack shop above the platform, and bought a Kit-Kat chocolate bar and a bottle of Coke, which I came down and gave to them. The point-woman was able to feed the fainting woman a bit of chocolate. She was still clearly not even remotely able to stand, or even sit upright unaided, and her friend and the point woman were still wetting her face, hair, neck, and hands, while getting her to drink more water and eat some chocolate. We heard an ambulance coming, and the security guards had wandered off somewhere else. The guy in the polo shirt was still there, walking up and down the platform, yelling into a cell phone and gesticulating wildly.
I ran upstairs to the snack bar, and managed to, through caveman-level English, caveman-level Italian, and lots of gesticulation, get across the idea that a woman had fainted downstairs and did they have any ice. They didn't, but they pointed to the ice cream freezer they had, and helped me scrape a bunch of the frost off the sides of the thing into a handkerchief, so that I had a pile of snow. They also handed me a couple packets of sugar. I took that all downstairs, and we put the snowy handkerchief on the back of the woman's neck, and she began to be able to focus her eyes and really start to interact with folks.
The paramedics showed up, took her pulse, asked for her documents, looked at them, wrote down some stuff, and left.
The woman was able to really drink water, and finished the chocolate, ate a packet of sugar, and was still too woozy to stand, but was clearly on the mend. Her friend thanked us and said that she could take it from there, and the point-woman and Lis and I got our stuff together to head home.
At no point in this process did any first responder do anything even remotely useful. At no point in this process did anyone who WASN'T a first responder do anything stupid. I'm sure that there were things we could have done better, but I don't feel anyone made any blantant errors, except for pulling the emergency lever, which, again, was a design error, not a user error.
In the United States, I'd have wanted to see the woman get to an ER, just to make sure her body temperature got to soemthing normal, and to give the possibility of IV fluids if necessecary, but, well, having seen the paramedics in Rome, I think it worked out better the way it did.
So, the lesson is: if you are in Rome, random people around you will be competent and helpful, and people in uniforms won't.