All those sirens around 5:15 pm tonight were responding to a rollover accident around Owens Beach.
UPDATE @ 7:50 pm: The News Tribune has more now. Two pedestrians walking on the road above Owens Beach were hit at a high rate of speed by a 19 year old man as his vehicle left the road and rolled over. All three were taken to the hospital, with the pedestrians sustaining the worst injuries. All are expected to survive.
Summer and all its craziness has arrived...
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2 comments:
Dear Ruston Home,
I enjoy this blog immensely and feel this is a great service to the community providing information.
I am sure that the Ruston Home wants that information to be accurate.
I chastised the Ruston Connection in a council meeting because of an inaccurate story from the TNT that they referenced and echoed. So to be fair, I want to advise the Ruston Home blog as well.
First of all, I am on backup call tonight and did some fact checking and read the TNT story as well as the story echoed on this blog. Over 50% of the story is inaccurate. I do not think the publics best interest is served by printing such inaccurate stories.
In general (separate from this story), I am convinced that the "spokesmen" quoted for stories such as these are either misquoted, they make things up, or are saying things that they just don't understand.
(I once asked such a "spokesman" if he was quoted accurately and why he said what he did. He basically augmented some brief communication from the hospital and really did not understand the medical and prognostic implications he was making because he was not medically trained.)
The reasons why TNT stories are inaccurate are simple. If a patient come to the hospital and is seriously injured, the Trauma team, doctors, nurses, technicians etc. are usually too busy to talk to any police or fire "spokespeople"
The only person left to talk to the police or other emergency personnel is usually nobody or the Chaplain and they usually do not have any specific information regarding the injuries because they are not participating in the workup (or the operating room). Also, there are HIPPA rules which do not allow anyone from passing along any detailed information on any patient. All they can give out is the condition (stable, serious, or critical, or unknown). Often zero information is turned into such a fictional account with a made up prognosis by a TNT writer.
It seems that there is such a temptation to pass along any information on such a story because it has a sensational factor. But I think this can actually hurt unseen people. The patients and family are usually too preoccupied to pay attention to the papers or computers initially. But friends and other family may read such stories and think that they are actually true.
In a scenario such as this story, likely only the people involved in the crash know what happened.
None of these people would have spoken to the TNT writer. The EMS responders at the scene are bound by HIPPA rules as well, so they do not usually pass on any information they know to a TNT writer who wasn't there.
I rarely speak to TPD or TFD in the ED. They often want information that I do not know yet and I often say I don't know yet or just give a condition.
It often bemuses me when I occasionally catch a TNT story about a patient I have had to stay up with for 30 straight hours at their bedside who is "expected to live" or "is not seriously injured" when I don't even know if they are going to make it.
It does irritate me though when people that I know {Ruston Connection or Ruston Home) reference and echo such bad information and thus take away their credibility which they might value.
My suggestion if you made it through this rant of mine would be to either 1) Do not pass along the TNT story as truth or 2) Make the caveat that all of the TNT information is unconfirmed and may contain numerous inaccuracies or 3) Instead of police, label the story as "fiction"
All the public needs to know is that an accident happened nearby. EMS personnel responded and took patient(s) to the local hospital where their injuries are being treated. Think about it, if it was you or your loved ones were injured, would you want a bunch of inaccurate stories posted in the paper or in the internet.
Thomas J Ferrer MD
I stand corrected. You make a good point and I will attempt to be more accurate in the future.
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