In The Blink of an Eye

From my experience I will also toys out there that if you are the only one there in an emergency, even if you aren't sure you have the skills, DON'T WAIT for someone more qualified. By all means when someone more qualified get there or is there let them take over but don't wait.
About 10 years ago I went to pick a friend up from the hospital. He was being released and supposed to be all good. We went to the parking lot (nurse didn't go with us) and as he tried to get in the trick he went unresponsive. Long story short he had several medical issues and my training was limited, we were about 100 yards from ER door, 2 people had informed people inside and had called 911 so I was SURE well qualified help would be there in moments and was afraid I might do more damage by trying to help. Thought my perception of time was warped by adrenalin but no, it took first responders about 45 minutes to get there, right under the life flight pad of the ER and friend died.
He may not have been saved anyway but point is (and instructor in first responder training gave same sentiment) you can't really go to wrong with a dead or near dead patient, do nothing they WILL die, do something even if it's wrong and they just may live, worst case is same result as doing nothing. The one difference is still being haunted over a decade later wondering if he could have lived of I had acted rather than waiting for someone qualified.

 

@Ganado brings up a very valid point, IMHO. Oftentimes, your help might make a difference, and you will hopefully find it in your heart to render aid. Other times, though, you do what you can, knowing that it might not make a bit of difference....and wonder if you're doing that person any favor by helping?

My niece and her (now late) husband were going through some tough times, and he was suffering from some serious depression and drinking issues. One evening, he texted her and told her he would prove how much he loved her. The next thing she knows, he's pulled up into the yard at the house with his truck, hops out, grabs his grandfather's old 22 rifle, and sticks the barrel in his mouth.....and it went off.

My niece told me that the action on that old rifle was dodgy, at best (semi-auto, that would occasionally do a multi-round burst with a single pull of the trigger), and the safety wasn't much better. So we still don't know if he intended to pull the trigger, or was just trying to make like he was going to, then back off. Didn't much matter, as the bullet went in his mouth, and out through the back of his neck, barely missing the spine. My brother in law ran outside and tried to render mouth to mouth, but between the beer the young man had consumed (a depressant as well as thinning the blood a bit) and the MASSIVE amount of blood going down his windpipe, there was likely no way he was going to be saved by anyone that didn't have an airway to insert, and bypass that damage. The police were on the scene immediately, but wouldn't allow an ambulance in to the scene until they were 100% certain that the EMT's wouldn't be shot at.

The official cause of death was that he bled out from the wound. There's no telling what sort of shape he might have been in, had he survived. That was 6 years ago now, and the pain of this loss is finally diminishing.

This, I believe, is the point that Ganado was trying to make.

 

Around a month before my 5th birthday, I drowned at a local swimming hole. Only reason I'm here now is because a school bus driver who had CPR training was there with her son. I was clinically dead for 20 minutes before the CPR was effective. There was also a guy there who kept trying to pull her off me, demanding to know about her credentials. If I remember right what my mother has told me about that, my father had to restrain her from pummeling him.