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Last Updated: Nov 14, 2008 - 12:49:26 PM |
In the past three to four weeks, I have responded to two vehicle accidents involving teenagers under 18 years of age. To date, of those six teenagers, one tragically passed away, one remains in the hospital, and of the four from the second accident, one went to the hospital, and the other three refused treatment and transport. It is this ability that teenagers have to refuse treatment and transport that I want to talk about. For your information as we begin, state law permits anyone fourteen years of age or older the ability to refuse treatment and transport for themselves, just as an adult can. The law, standard of care, and protocols bind me, but I have an issue with this right that your children have, and this is why. First of all, both of these accidents should have never occurred. In both cases, teenagers were doing things that they should not have been doing; my first argument to the good judgment that a person must have to refuse care. The second point was that the mechanism of injury was similar for both incidents by the vehicle rolling over, with the exception of the first involving an ejection. I have, for over twenty years, treated my trauma patients based on mechanism of injury, as well as the things that I find in my assessments.
Treatment and transport of patients is something that we do each and every day, sometimes ten or twelve times a day. If transport is unnecessary, then we share that, and will still transport a person if they choose to be. If transport is necessary, then we have a responsibility to make this known to the person who is sick or injured. Your desire to refuse treatment and/or transport means that you are releasing the first responders and the transport agency from responsibility for the injury that could not be seen with the naked eye. You are more than welcome to transport yourself to a medical facility, but again, you have taken the responsibility upon yourself.
Back to the teenagers, in an effort to provide the best care possible; we try to involve parents in this decision. Parents, I’ve told you before, be ready for that phone call. You may have the most well-behaved child in the world, but when teenagers get with their friends, they become different people, willing to take chances that they might not normally take. By the way, their feelings of invincibility are usually overcome by the accident and its effects on their bodies. Once the parents arrive, they want answers; answers that at that point are not known. The problem is that parents immediately think that they need to serve as their child’s defenders/protectors against police and medics. I am not saying that every person who is involved in a vehicle accident needs to be transported, but I am asking parents to listen to those of us tasked with their care, and make a decision based on both; what your child is telling you, and what we think is the best course of action.
I get told regularly and know that I am an old-school medic. I adapt pretty well to most changes, but some just do not feel right. I deal with teenagers in more settings than just the fire service. Based on what I see, I question their ability to make appropriate decisions, especially after they have just made three or four bad decisions that have gotten them in the predicament that they are in. Our desire is to provide the best and most appropriate care needed, whether that means transport or not. Trust us!
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