[PuppyLovinNurse]

I'm attaching a letter that I sent to the mayor of my city. The letter explains the whole ordeal I was a part of tonight.

I'm just looking for reassurance that I'm right in complaining.

Please pray for both men involved in the accident...especially the younger man who was treated unfairly.



Dear Mr. K-----,

My name is Sara R------ and I live in Cornwall. I am a student in the BScN program here in town and am certified in First Aid & CPR through St. John's Ambulance.

I witnessed a car accident at the corner of P------- Street and P----- Avenue in the R-------- area tonight; I live on the corner of the intersection. When I heard the loud "bang" of the accident, I went running out of my house, as did many of my neighbours, to check on the people in the accident.

I am writing to you because I am absolutely shocked and appalled at our emergency response personnel. Frankly, after witnessing first-hand the events tonight, I hope that I never need their assistance. The response time was awful, the behaviour of one police officer was shocking, and overall the situation was not handled like it should have been.

As soon as the "bang" of the accident was heard, I screamed for my sister to call 911 and she did so immediately. She asked for an ambulance and a police officer to be dispatched and told them the accident looked like a really bad one. Then, I got on the phone and told them that there were two people in the accident and that they were stable at the moment, but still need ambulances.

The first thing that upset me is the response time of the police officer. It took roughly 20 minutes for the first police officer to come. Many people were asking if anyone had even called. During the wait, I asked my boyfriend to call again. When he did, the 911 dispatcher had said that his was the first call they had received about the accident, though I personally spoke to them (I gave them my name & date of birth) and know for a fact that my sister did, too. Also, I'm sure we weren't the only people in the neighbourhood who called.

In fact, the city workers were at the scene to clean up debris before any of the emergency personnel.

When the police officer finally came, he came down the street very slowly with no lights or siren on. He then took quite a while to actually get out of his car and get to the scene of the accident. When he did, the first thing he said was "did anyone see what happened?" This was before he checked on the victims at all (one of whom was laying on the ground right in front of him). Luckily, there were two off-duty RNs and a person with First Aid & CPR there because these people were certainly not getting the care they should have been from the emergency personnel.

The police officer then asked the first man if he had identification. A few minutes later he started asking questions as to where the man was coming from, where he was going, which way he was travelling, etc. The other victim still had not been even looked at by this time. After asking all of the questions about the accident, the police officer finally asked if the man was okay, he said his hand hurt and it was very obvious that he was quite disoriented, in fact he couldn't even answer the police officer's questions. The police officer then looked to the neighbours standing around the man and said "do you think he needs an ambulance." Again, it's fortunate that there were 2 RNs present. Everyone at the scene said an ambulance was definitely needed and that we had already called for one multiple times. When the police officer called, an ambulance had not even been dispatched, yet.

The police officer finally went to the other victim and one of the first things he said to him was "have you been drinking?" The man said "yes, I had a couple drinks earlier." The police officer then said to the man "you know you'll be going to the station for a breathalyser." This was before he asked if he was okay, or anything. This man had a laceration above his eye and blood was smeared all over the left side of his face. This is the part of the night that really shocked me. The man was obviously injured and yet the police officer did not mention anything about the hospital or ambulance (which, by the way, still had not arrived). I was left imagining, what if I was in the man's shoes?

Finally, another police officer responded - still no ambulance - and the first police officer went to him and talked with him while leaning on one of the police cars for a few minutes. Both officers then began marking the road with chalk and taking pictures.

About 10-15 minutes later I asked where the ambulance was. The police officer called to find out and the ambulance was said to be about 1 minute away. About 5 minutes later, the ambulance finally arrived.

The police officer then directed the first paramedic right past the victim closest to the ambulance (the younger one who had admitted to having a couple of drinks) and onto the second victim. The paramedic tried to stop at the first victim and the police officer guided her by the arm right onto the second, older victim. The second paramedic stopped at the younger man and asked how he was feeling and told him that he was bleeding, asked if he had lost consciousness, then asked if there was anywhere else on his body that hurt. The young man then told him that his leg hurt. The paramedic then asked me to sit with the man while he went to see if his partner needed help with the other victim.

Finally, the paramedic came back to the young man and asked him if he wanted to go to the hospital to get checked out. The victim asked what the paramedic thought. The paramedic told him that he would take him to the ambulance, see if he needed stitches and if not he was going to go with the police officer. What if this man had internal injuries that are not visible with the naked eye? They were more worried about getting a breathalyser than the well-being of this young man.

There were now five police officers at the scene, two of which were just talking to each other. One of which parked directly behind my driveway, blocking it completely.

Eventually, the two paramedics got the older victim into the ambulance. The care that he received from the paramedics seemed great from my point-of-view. It's quite unfortunate that we can't say the same about both victims.

The first officer then came running up to my Mother (one of the RNs) and I while we were walking into our house. He asked what we had seen and we told him. He then said in an extremely "cocky" tone, "well, I know I've got one guy on running a stop sign and one guy on impaired driving." This was before any actual conclusions could have been made and long before a breathalyser test had been performed on the young man who was going to be charged for impaired driving. He then said "it's always the drunk guys" and laughed. This is probably the most shocking thing of the night. Not only was that comment completely unnecessary, but it was also extremely unprofessional, very judgmental, and just plain wrong. It was also based on an assumption that had not yet been proven. I was, and am, completely horrified by the actions and comments of this officer. He then thanked us for our time and told us that he may need to stop by later for more information.

The younger man was then taken from the ambulance to the police car and arrested by the same officer (the first one that came to the scene) while the older man was taken to the hospital in the ambulance. Again, what if this man had internal injuries? Maybe it's because I'm young and about the same age as the man (I'm 19) that I sympathize, but no matter what way his situation is looked at, the way he was treated was wrong and terribly unfortunate. A couple of people who were at the scene said that the older man had admitted to having been drinking, as well, though he was not treated in the manner that the young man was.

Please consider this e-mail a formal complaint regarding this officer. Unfortunately, I did not get his name, but when he called for the ambulance on his radio I very clearly heard him say "car 10." He is a fairly tall man, with brown hair. He looked to have tanned skin and he wore glasses with black metal frames. I hope that this is enough information to identify this particular officer and I hope that his behaviour tonight is looked into. Please don't disclose my name or other identifying information when forwarding my complaint to whoever needs to be notified. I'd prefer to be kept anonymous.

I fought with myself for quite some time wondering if I should send this e-mail or not, as I don't want to upset anyone with my thoughts about the whole situation and, of course, I certainly don't want to anger or "get on the bad side" of any member of the Cornwall police force, or of the particular officer that I was upset by tonight. I decided that I would regret it if I didn't send it, because if I don't send it, nothing will happen to better the actions of police in the future.