Philanthropist and a pillar of society, forty eight year old Gurbaksh Singh had just completed his early morning walk with about a dozen companions, all prosperous businessmen. He complained of uneasiness for a while and then suddenly collapsed onto the road. His friends looked at each other with concern but completely clueless as what to do.
Three of the men slinked away, eight of them just looked at each and at people passing by, all waiting for someone to do something and hoping for a miracle to occur. No one wanted to contact the police as that would mean huge problems and unlimited personal agony.
One man picked up Gurbaksh's mobile phone found the number of 'Balli', Gurbaksh's son and explained the situation to Balli. Balli and his mother rushed to the scene, picked up Gurbaksh and took him to the hospital.
All this took about an hour, by the time the doctors attended to Gurbaksh, it was too late.
All who are born must one day die.
The tragedy however is that Gurbaksh like a million other Indians could in all probability have been saved with a little first aid and CPR (Cardio pulmonary resuscitation) by a trained individual The hands on training and practice for CPR takes no more than 30 to 60 minutes of training.
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Really sad to hear this. I think, in India people are more scared about the laws than anything else when reaching out to help a victim of accidents/attacks.
ReplyDeleteMaybe if you could throw some light on the law regarding helping others in accident - besides CPR training will certainly help people come forward and help others.
The law in spite of good intentions is an ass. It is blind and is a double edged sword in the hands of the police and the courts.
ReplyDeleteIt is widely believed that, most police recruitments and promotions are made after hefty bribes to power brokers. Therefore investigations are not meant so much as to find the guilty as much as it is to extort money.
The more the number of people in the net, the more money is there for the making. The victim, the victim's family, the bystander, the good samaritan, the person who causes the incident, and the infrastructure provider (if he or she can be dragged into the net).
If the police can be denied the power to harass the innocent people, the members of society who are proactively helpful then we will see a sea of change.
Since the laws are drafted by those who make a profit out of an injury or situation, they were reluctant to change the law.
Recently the Ministry of Roads and Highways has issued guidelines, to ensure hospitals do not turn away victims, or harass people who help the victims. However these are guidelines only and accountability is still elusive.
There is a petition in the Supreme Court submitted by Save Life Foundation an NGO doing stellar work, at http://savelifefoundation.org/campaigns/ where you can sign an on line petition. I request you and others to do so.
Often the victim is not a stranger, but a family member, friend or colleague. There is no question of not rendering assistance. First Aid training helps enormously, and in such cases people are willing to face the consequences.
Sometimes mobs attack the helpers particularly when the First Aid assistance fails to save the victim. Every trained and certified First Aider is issued and carries an ID card to prove his or her bonafides.
There is so much focus on post incident response. The real area of work is to prevent the incidents of mishap from occurring in the first place.
Please await further posts on these vital questions that you have raised.
Thanks for your inputs