It’s been a tragic start to the summer — from a horrific bus crash to multiple drownings — and each tragedy has had a far-reaching impact on everyone including witnesses and bystanders.
With first responders excluded, coming across an emergency or a tragic event typically happens by chance. Psychologist Cathy Moser says people have three kinds of responses, fight, flight, or freeze and people tend to only be able to do one.
Moser says it may be helpful for people to get CPR training to help in situations like these as people never know when they might find themselves in an emergency situation, and feeling prepared can help.
“If you’ve gone through the training, then you will feel competent and capable of, you know, going to somebody’s assistance if there’s nobody else around,” she added.
St John Ambulance provides first aid training and director of learning Brenda Preston says they are seeing an uptick in people from different industries coming in to take first aid training.
“You get a lot of new parents and some awareness of first aid training and how it can make a difference as much as treating the injury afterward,” she said. “It’s interesting training, we talk about prevention as well. So I just think people are more aware that first aid training is available and it’s very easy to get.”
However, while getting training is important for knowing how to handle these difficult situations calling 911 should always be the first step.
“They can walk you through that incident. Our communication operators do a phenomenal job. They can kind of help you triage that incident. They can give you direction on how to care for the patients.” said paramedic, Cory Guest.
Moser says it’s advisable to call 911 even if people aren’t sure if they have been called and notified already.
“Just do it, they won’t mind if you know they get two calls.”
Once the situation has been cleared, Moser says the best thing for people to do is debrief to help get all the thoughts out of their head and process what happened.
“Your body goes through a lot of negative emotion and the fear is there, the anxiety is there and if you don’t deal with it, you will re-experience that same feeling when you go by that spot or when something reminds you of that trauma,” she said.
“Victim services, you know, can help people connect with therapists and psychologists that help people through these, you just have to first talk it out and talk to somebody.”
— With files from Global’s Teagan Rasche