Have they no heart? - Warning

TTLWHKR

Forum Deputy Chief
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Warning. Site link may contain photos that are disturbing to some individuals.

Don't look if you are offended or are made faint by blood or death.

By that waring, you would think I was linking you to "Rotten Dot Com".

Not that we all haven't seen death, dying, and blood. But that is for us to see, and protect other from having to deal with. Not the facts of death, but the horror of the faces of death. To photograph it, is disrespectful to the person, whose life lay before us, shatted, twisted and mangled. I'd expect this from the media, but not from a member of emergency services. This is not somthing people should see, logging onto the website of their local fire dept..

No, this is a Volunteer Fire Dept. in Spotsylvania Co., Virginia.

http://www.cvfd.net/

Chancellor Volunteer Fire & Rescue

Click on that link and proceed to the link entitled "Pictures"

Scroll down and click on "Orange Plank Road 1/13/03"

It takes you to a Webshots Photo Album. Shows bodies laying in vehicles, partially covered, one crushed in a vehicle, blood and brain matter flowing out of the back seat, and in one, you can see part of the crushed head, not covered. There are bodies laying outside of the vehicles.. Sure, great to scare some kids in a DUI film, but suppose the family logs in...

The lack of respect for the dead just makes me sick...
 

Wingnut

EMS Junkie
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:blink: :sad: :angry:

*Note: I didn't look. Some of those kinds of pics bug me so I make Jay look at them first. He's working tonight :(


Your right WHKR, I did think at first you were going to link us to Rotten. I don't really care for that website, but Jay likes to go there from time to time (he's weird). It is inappropriate and I understand taking pics of a scene, but for God's sake I swear nobody has respect for anything anymore. (present company excluded) I don't even have to look at the pics and I'm appauled that someone would post them on a FF website.
 

fm_emt

Useless without caffeine
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How many photos were there? Looks like they removed some of them. I didn't see any bodies, and the filenames aren't contiguous.

Kind of looks like a cool place, otherwise. And they have Dunkin Donuts out there. I love Dunkin Donuts.
 
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TTLWHKR

TTLWHKR

Forum Deputy Chief
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Prolly b/c we emailed them a couple of hours before it was posted.

But if you click on the photo, then browse through their webshots account, that's where the gore comes in.
 

JJR512

Forum Deputy Chief
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I'm still in EMT-B training and have not been exposed to this type of thing in real life yet. Therefore, it might be beneficial to me to see these pictures, sort of to prepare myself. Don't get me wrong, I have no illusions that I'll be the lucky EMT who never sees any blood and guts. I know what I'm going to see. But I don't want to show up to my first bloody-gutty scene and puke because I wasn't prepared for it, even though I know what to expect. What do you all think? Look at the pictures or save it for real life?
 

MariaCatEMT

Forum Asst. Chief
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I think there is a time and place for such pictures.....training purposes, trauma presentations, etc. Not on a site accessed by the public. Considerations need to be made for family members or friends that will recognize the vehicles, do they really want to see their loved ones (even if partially covered by sheets) lying dead and crumpled on an accident scene?

No amount of "pictures" prepared me for accident scenes anyway. In real life, you also smell, feel, hear and touch. Experience is the only thing that prepares you (not that it is experience I actively seek).

There is a not so fine line between demonstrating a department's service to the community and ensuring material being presented is appropriate. Any view of a victim dead on a scene, sheets or no sheets, is inappropriate on a public site. We are taught from the beginning that patient care includes family members. A simple matter of respect. As a citizen, were that my parents, or my husband, or anyone else I love, I wouldn't want to see it.
 

Jon

Administrator
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MariaCatEMT said:
I think there is a time and place for such pictures.....training purposes, trauma presentations, etc. Not on a site accessed by the public. Considerations need to be made for family members or friends that will recognize the vehicles, do they really want to see their loved ones (even if partially covered by sheets) lying dead and crumpled on an accident scene?

No amount of "pictures" prepared me for accident scenes anyway. In real life, you also smell, feel, hear and touch. Experience is the only thing that prepares you (not that it is experience I actively seek).

There is a not so fine line between demonstrating a department's service to the community and ensuring material being presented is appropriate. Any view of a victim dead on a scene, sheets or no sheets, is inappropriate on a public site. We are taught from the beginning that patient care includes family members. A simple matter of respect. As a citizen, were that my parents, or my husband, or anyone else I love, I wouldn't want to see it.
We had this recently happen - there were pics taken of a scene, "tastefully" - the Class 5 pt. was still in the vehicle, but WASN'T shown - front end damage, etc. and also of the passenger compartment after the body was removed.

These ended up on the FD's "unofficial" site, and got printed out and shown to the brother of the 18 y/o who killed himself in the MVA.

The brother confronted my 17 y/o "junior" EMT who worked with me on my patient.... in school.... wanted an explaination as to why the pics were up all over the internet...

Nasty call. Kid was "possibly" OD'd or intoxicated.... passed out, traveled over the double yellow line at a high rate of speed a mile or 2 from home.... his family beat my ambulance (second ambulance) into the scene. Kid hit a
 
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Ridryder911

EMS Guru
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We had some medics that took pictures of the scene involving a fatality. The pictures I felt were disrespectful, and tasteless. This became such an issue, that the medics jobs were placed on the line (they did not show identyfing features).

What can we really learn of pics involving fatalities ? Okay we have pics of bent and torn metal... mechanism of injury.. hmm most likely the pics are taken or should be taken after extrication therefore they will not show the initial scene. It doesn't take a rocket science to figure out car vs. tree the mechanism of injury. Potential injuries... again, car slamming into a tree, causing a sudden stop... what are your potential injuries?

I believe that most of the pics taken at scene is because of the whacker syndrome. Sure an interesting pic showing the magnitude of the impact, or entrappment could be beneficial for the receiving trauma center. I continue to endorse such pics to be attached to the chart so that surgeons, and other care providers have an understanding of the magnitude of the scene. But, for the most part a lot of pics are taken by glory hounds....

R/R 911
 

squid

Forum Lieutenant
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For me, just seeing the vehicle is usually enough to send a shiver down my spine if it's really bad.

We have a policy of never posting pics where the victim is identifiable (without their consent, rpesumably, but I don't think we've ever tried) and making sure to blot out license plates, etc. The media can be intrusive and horrid if they want, but it's definitely not our job.

And a little smooshed ball o' car is plenty scary already.
 

fm_emt

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TTLWHKR said:

Ok, sorry. I see a bit more now. Actually, I really had to look carefully. A couple of them just looked like tarp material laying on the ground.

I was wrong. I agree that there's no real need to post ogrish.com like photos on a department website like that.
 

Jon

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TTLWHKR said:
A............ What?

Hit a what?

To be continued? Just like LOST. I detest that!
I can't edit the post after 5 minutes.... annoying.

hit a truck, spun truck out of the way, then creamed a hundai sante fe head-on.
 

Jon

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also - I just looked at the pictures (at the squad - where I won't get fired for legal, if slightly offensive, image viewing).

Disgusting... someone needs to learn what is proper.
 

emtff99

Forum Lieutenant
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Has anyone written their concern(s) to this Dept? I am seriuosly thinking about about doing such myself. Any photos that I have taken over the years, have never shown a covered corspe nor the License Plate of said vehicle(s) involved.
 
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TTLWHKR

TTLWHKR

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I did.

They said it would be removed, but didn't see anything wrong with it. Even after I asked what they would do if a family member of that victim logged on to their local vol. fire co. website and saw their dead body in the car...

Didn't really seem to phase the webby guy. Oh well.
 

natrab

Forum Crew Member
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People need to work on their definition of recognizable. Just not showing a face or license plate is not enough. If I take a picture (and it's rare that I do), I always ask myself how I could recognize this person and/or car if I were the family. It's pretty damn easy. Car color, physique, a sticker or tattoo. None of this stuff should be in a pic if someone can recognize it. That's the definitive answer to whether you broke the pt's privacy rights -- if someone knows who it was from the picture.
 

Jon

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TTLWHKR said:
I did.

They said it would be removed, but didn't see anything wrong with it. Even after I asked what they would do if a family member of that victim logged on to their local vol. fire co. website and saw their dead body in the car...

Didn't really seem to phase the webby guy. Oh well.
In my case, the Fire Chief and some other folks, including my "junior" partner, complained to the webmaster of the "unofficial" FD website, and the pics were removed.

There was also a big b**ch-fest on the local county Emergency Services Web Forum, because the pictures were cross-posted there too, and there was an intresting discussion of the use of spreaders vs. rams for dash displacement.
 
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