April 22, 2013

"It was kind of hard to hear somebody say, 'Don't wash that wound. You might wash evidence away.'"

"Barrett cleaned shrapnel and nails from the wounds of some victims, side by side with law enforcement investigators who wanted to examine wounds for blast patterns. The investigator's request took him aback at first. 'I wasn't stopping to think, "What could be in this wound that could give him a lead?"'"

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

blast patterns in a victim that likely moved since being injured and you don't know where they were to begin with?

Is anyone going to question the effectiveness and efficiency of the huge police/security manpower we saw on display friday? On TV I mostly say them standing around talking and drinking coffee. I'm sure the word got around to all to not be shown smoking on camera, though.

J said...

You know when collection of evidence gets in the way of treating contaminated bomb wounds then the cops are too big for their britches.

Cody Jarrett said...

Jeff Teal said...

You know when collection of evidence gets in the way of treating contaminated bomb wounds then the cops are too big for their britches.


Is that it? Or is it that the justice system has been turned on it's head and they believe they need every last bit of evidence possible to convict someone, because they'll be fighting ACLU and so forth.


Nothing against the ACLU. They occasionally do good work. Frequently even when I don't agree with them they do good work, but there should be a happy medium in there somewhere, maybe?

Or is it one of those extremism is no vice deals.

Matt Sablan said...

I'd have kept cleaning and told them to charge me with something or start applying pressure to someone who was bleeding.

Oso Negro said...

No shit, Matthew. Treat the wounded then worry about catching the guilty.

Ann Althouse said...

Freeman Hunt said "You just have to ignore people like that."

I considered that a reply to the effort to hijack the thread and deleted it (along with the deletion of the hijacker), then I wondered if she was talking about the investigator saying "don't wash the wound." If the later, consider this a reposting of the deleted comment. If the former, consider this a restatement of the policy in the comments instructions that says "Some good faith comments get deleted because they respond to comments that we have to delete."

Freeman Hunt said...

It was the latter.

(I assumed there'd been a Blogger glitch and was about to repost it.)

People under stress often get hyper focused on a particular thing and make stupid statements without ill intention. Better to just ignore them and go about one's business.

Cody Jarrett said...

"Only now are these nurses beginning to come to grips with what they endured — and are still enduring as they continue to care for survivors. They are angry, sad and tired. A few confess they would have trouble caring for the surviving suspect, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, if he were at their hospital and they were assigned his room."


And you know what? Even though they say it, I really doubt it would happen, because almost without exception, nurses are wonderful, professional, caring people.



Larry J said...

The doctors and nurses will treat the suspect even if their hearts aren't in it. My son is a Navy nurse currently in Afghanistan. They have to treat the enemy wounded from time to time. It happens in every war.

As for not washing the wound, the cop was probably thinking about blast residue that tells investigators what type of explosive was used. However, there was ample residue in the area. To deny washing a wound in order to preserve evidence would be medical malpractice.

edutcher said...

Somebody watching one of those CSI marathons?

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Times like that make a nurse wish she could get back to giving pre-operative enemas.

Cody Jarrett said...

"To deny washing a wound in order to preserve evidence would be medical malpractice."


Yes, but not cop malpractice, as cops don't often...well..cops get fixated on certain things. Other things suffer occasionally. "Pound sand" is an appropriate response.

Good for your son, btw. Best wishes. Nurse in a modern combat zone is something I wouldn't wish for, high regard for those who can do it.


Paco Wové said...

"Is anyone going to question the effectiveness and efficiency of the huge police/security manpower we saw on display friday?"

You don't come around here often, do you?

Cody Jarrett said...

LOL @ Paco.

Darrell said...

The correct response to the officer is "Whatever you say, Chief!"

Jason said...

My first instinct would be to punch that fucker in the face.

My second instinct would be to tell him to fuck off and pull security while the adults take care of things.

Jason said...

My first instinct would be to punch that fucker in the face.

My second instinct would be to tell him to fuck off and pull security while the adults take care of things.

cassandra lite said...

He must've seen the newest Bond film. Bond scrapes some bullet fragments out of his shoulder, sends them to the lab, and now knows exactly where to find the bad guys.

J said...

Back when I was taking First Responder training it was explicit that you treated the wounded first.So a cop protesting a medical professional performing her duty is a cop who is too big for his britches.Should be retrained or relieved.Also kind of inhumane.

Bender said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bender said...

"You might wash the evidence away."
____________

The problem is that most everyone has gone back to a September 10 mentality.

Evidence is only relevant if you insist on treating acts of war like common crimes. But acts of war are exactly that - acts of war, and not crimes.

It should not be for the everyday person -- be he a person injured in an attack or someone sitting on a jury -- to have to do the job of removing the attackers from society or otherwise protecting the national security. That's what we have the military for.

Remove this guy to military detention and keep him locked up for the duration of hostilities. If that happens to be for the rest of his life (given that the cause he is fighting for has been at war with Western civilization for 1300 years), so be it. The injured should not have to suffer because the government insists on shoving the square peg of an act of war into the round hole of criminal prosecution.

ndspinelli said...

Nurse Jackie would have told the cop to go fuck himself.

Fred Drinkwater said...

Speaking of Bond:
In Fleming's novel "You Only Live Twice", there is a passage where Bond is relating to the Japanese intelligence boss Tiger Tanaka that he saw a car crash. There were multiple injuries, and the police were making the injured on the road stay still so they could mark where everything was. Tanaka replies to the effect that, of course, it's more important to do the police work than to assist the injured, and in any case, there are too many people in Japan already.