Not what I'd anticipated - (an ACC club run with hundreds of riders down in pain due to a ill-fated move through the peloton by AJ). No this was far more prosaic. You know when you use those small gangs of scooter mounted teenagers tearing up the streets, engines over-revving like amplified Hornets, and you secretly think to yourself "I wish you'd get your comeupence under the wheels of one of those cars you're cutting up." Well this morning one of them did - right in front of me as I was walking to work.
Low speed crash, rider was cutting in front of traffic slowing down for the lights at Butlers when WHAMO! Broadsided by a Mondeo which hadn't seen the scoot. Though internally I was thinking "HAH, YOU GOT YOURS BUDDY!" professionalism got the better of me and I moved in. Rider on the floor, screaming in pain, a crowd quickly gathers and suddenly everybody's Dr Findley. But I've got a red badge which proves I'm qualified to deal with such emergencies and I wasn't going to miss a chance like this. Wielding my credential before me, I scythed through the throng like some green-behind-the-years FBI agent looking for his first bust.
Its amazing how group mentality disintegrates when you throw a bunch of strangers together in a random situation at the side of the road. The small crowd seemed determined to put not only the accidentee in danger by cutting off all available air but also themselves by standing IN the road with rush hour traffic screaming past. It took so long to get everybody else safely out of the way that the crash victim was probably dying of old age rather than internal injuries. Finally I got a sensible builder to park his van just before the incident with hazards on, the other be-hooded riders to get the dead scooter off the road and out of the way and a woman from the sandwich shop who was more distressed than the crash victim, having seen the incident, to call for an ambulance.
The victim was a female and it wasn't too bad thankfully - she was conscious and in quite good spirits but with a lot of pain down her left side. It's wise to get an initial assesment of the injuries in situations like this so that the medics have an idea of what they're going to be dealing with when they arrive. Which means a hands on examination, asking permission of the victim and a general announcement to the crowd of what your doing and why (for legal reasons). Not too bad thankfully, all the damage was down her left side from hitting the floor rather than hitting the car. She couldn't move anything below her elbow on that side, wrist was almost certainly broken and probably collar bone too given the howling coming from her when I moved her upper arm about a millimeter.
DAMN - no need to practice CPR or Rescue Breaths
ah well that's probably a good thing, though I was tempted to run up to the office for the first aid box and practice my slings on her. A passing 'patient transporter' pulled up at that point, the driver outranking me with a bigger badge, a fluorescent red-cross bib AND NHS standard issue rubber-gloves so I let him take over explaining that I'd done all the hard work in keeping her alive if he'd like to sew her up and get her back to the ward 
Not a bad performance for my first incident (you have to write up what happened and submit a report self-evaluating your performance and identifying what you did and could have done better) at least I didn't panic and try amputating any limbs or anything.
I suspect the feeling is mutual.
