I'm about 2/3 of the way through the American Red Cross Emergency First Responder program. This past Saturday, we had an incident in class. Hopefully, some of the experienced folks here can offer insight and advice.
History: "That Guy" is Indiana Jones, so nicknamed because he's clearly desperate to get out into the world and have some hairy adventures. He's already been through First Aid, CPR, and perhaps some other ARC programs. This is a guy who now has three bags full of medical gear in his trunk and has admitted that he's been "patrolling" some of the major highways in the Baltimore area. He claims he's stopped to help 200-300 people so far. This is the guy who is constantly shouting out answers to every question the teacher asks so we all know he's the smartest. This is the guy who interrupts the teacher to give other students direction during practicals. This is the guy whose neck I'm going to snap before the class is over.
Incident:
In the morning, we are taught how to backboard a potential spinal injury. During the exercises, Indiana scrapes his knuckles and begins to bleed rather profusely. Luckily, one of the students (a full time nurse) sees it immediately and tells him to back away. Indiana patches himself up, puts on a pair of rubber gloves, and continues with the class. We all felt ok with that.
In the afternoon, we do our first blind practical: team walks into the room, instructor is on the ground simulating multiple simultaneous injuries.
Instructor/victim/patient is also chewing gum. So during the "secondary survey" -- which Indiana Jones is doing -- he asks her to open her mouth, at which point he goes to remove the gum. She clearly tells him, gloves or no gloves, he's not sticking his bleeding hand into her mouth. While all this is going on, we've put her on the backboard, I've splinted her lower left leg, another student has splinted her right arm, etc.
So the teacher is basically immobilized and trying to watch what we're doing.
Indiana Jones, out of nowhere, stands up and while hovering over all of us, he takes off his gloves, removes the bandages from his hand, and "looks to see if he's still bleeding."Apparently, when the instructor said he couldn't put his hand in her mouth, he decided he should check to see if he was really still bleeding. Seriously.
So I happen to look up as he's doing this and yell "STOP" ... but he keeps on doing what he's doing. He manages to get some blood on the pants leg of the student holding stabilization at the head (we hadn't done the pads or head straps yet) before everyone else catches up to what's happening and he's made to go away.
We immediately get the instructor released from the straps and everyone takes a break to wash up and check themselves. When we come back, the instructor says we'll do another scenario and this time I'm to be the team leader. I flat out refuse to have Indiana Jones on my team. I then walk over to the backboard with the instructor and we check it for blood. Sure enough, there are a few small drops of blood on it. She puts on some gloves to clean it off but I suggest we skip the backboard for the scenario until someone can really disinfect it.
It was right about then that we realized Indiana Jones was re-bandaging himself back at the table he was sharing with another student, potentially contaminating not only the table but this other students' personal effects.
The instructor, realizing the entire situation was out of control, sent everyone home.
I spoke with her after class and she is trying to juggle the fact that Indiana is now all butt hurt (my words, not hers) with the fact that most of the rest of the class doesn't want to get within 10 feet of him. My advice -- and perhaps this was off base since this is way out of my lane -- was to treat Indiana like any other professional rescuer she would have dealt with while she was at Johns Hopkins or down post-Katrina or whatever. Would she have taken that guy aside and read him the riot act? I assume so.
So my real question is this, assembled medical experts: how much lime do I need to decompose a 300# body?
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