First Aid...

I have mentioned a couple of times that there is little understanding of basic first aid rules and things here. I was confronted head on with this the other day. Rob and I were in the jeep coming home from the university. On the other side of the road we saw a man lying in the middle of the road and his motorbike accross on our side. He muct have been in a wreck. Well about four people walked over and stopped traffic long enough for them to pick him up by his shoulder and legs and carry him accross to the sidewalk. They just plopped him along the side of the wall! He was unconscious when they first picked him up but he woke up when they set him down. Rob was yelling at our driver telling them that they should never move an injured person like that. They should block traffic until an ambulance comes and puts the man on a stretcher properly. Well we found out that even if an ambulance comes they most likely would pick up the person the same way and just plop them in the vehicle. Most times people just load the person in a car and drive them to the hospital. Immanuel said that when he was in a wreck a long time ago people picked him up like that and carried him to the hospital. (Side note: Immanuel has reoccuring back pain which he attributes to eating potatoes... we think it has more to do with back strain...) So the point is sometimes I just want to go crazy and make it clear how to properly care for a sick or injured person. I am not very patient on this subject because these people are very intelligent but they continue to do very unintelligent things. Ultimately I need to realize that this is a completely different culture and that small steps in health education will help this area. I also try to remember some of the crazy things about health care in our culture.