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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Air ambulance ghouls

68 replies

PostItInABook · 15/08/2023 19:20

The air ambulance has just landed in the field between our and another estate and about 5 people in the street have rushed from their houses with their kids to go and gawp at it.

Why don’t these people stop and think for a minute…….that someone in our community is seriously / critically injured or unwell…….and going to gawp is really inconsiderate, invasive and insensitive.

If you want your kids to learn about air ambulances or emergency vehicles / services then go and visit one of the many emergency services days that are put on regularly or attend an air ambulance charity function or ask the school to request a school visit. Don’t take them to watch someone in your community in their hour of need as if it was some sort of children’s entertainment. It’s gross behaviour.

OP posts:
NeverDropYourMooncup · 15/08/2023 20:17

panko · 15/08/2023 19:41

Are they gawping? Or are they looking and thinking I want to do that when I'm older?

As long as the patient's privacy isn't being invaded, their treatment or the flying of the helicopter being impeded. I don't see why people shouldn't go and look at what is hopefully an unusual event. Taking smiley selfie photos with it is distasteful I agree.

Well, I'd like to think that it's to witness a helicopter up close. But in the case of my brother, it was for them to post on Facebook trying to outdo one another with descriptions of his brains and blood smearing further and further down the road. Before they'd even identified him and knocked on our mother's front door.

Oh, and his brains may have turned to mush, but they were very much still inside his head and not spread a quarter of a mile down the road. But hey, they got some attention on Facebook.

panko · 15/08/2023 20:17

PostItInABook · 15/08/2023 19:54

Not that I need to explain anything to you……I looked out the window to see which air ambulance it was as we have two that operate in our patch and which field it was landing in and noticed all the people running out of their houses with their kids. Then I went back to perusing the internet.

Show quote history

So you "gawped" too

panko · 15/08/2023 20:19

NeverDropYourMooncup · 15/08/2023 20:17

Well, I'd like to think that it's to witness a helicopter up close. But in the case of my brother, it was for them to post on Facebook trying to outdo one another with descriptions of his brains and blood smearing further and further down the road. Before they'd even identified him and knocked on our mother's front door.

Oh, and his brains may have turned to mush, but they were very much still inside his head and not spread a quarter of a mile down the road. But hey, they got some attention on Facebook.

Show quote history

If they are doing that then it's very not on and should be a criminal offence with 10+ years in jail no excuses.

I am sorry you went through that

Changeling78 · 15/08/2023 20:21

It’s natural curiosity, having been an air ambulance user, it wouldn’t have bothered me in the slightest (had I been conscious) and my OH had much more going on than to worry about people watching.

Festivemoose · 15/08/2023 20:22

It doesn’t really matter if some posters once went in an air ambulance and didn’t mind if kids came and gawped at them. The default should be to give emergency services and people in a vulnerable position space and privacy - it’s the decent thing to do. Someone else’s medical emergency and trauma is not a fun learning opportunity your kids.

MorePressureMoreRelease · 15/08/2023 20:26

OP you are in stealth boast territory 'aren't I so great for not stooping to behave like the others'...

I'd say that a helicopter landing is a fairly unusual event and people come to see that no matter what the reason. Occasionally we get a Chinook in our local park. People come to see it just as they do the medical helicopters landing.

Moanycowbag · 15/08/2023 20:34

I sure they just go to look at the helicopter not gawp at the patient, watching them land and take off is a spectacle, I live near an air base and regularly watch helicopters take off, land, fly around doing weird manoeuvres whilst walking my dogs and after 12 years still stop still and watch, most people don't get to see them regularly so it is a novelty.

MereDintofPandiculation · 15/08/2023 20:39

A friend had a medical incident in an unusual and very public place. His wife, a formidable woman, drove away all the gawpers with their phones. He was quite cross - he’d been unconscious throughout and was hoping to be able to watch on social media what he’d missed.

WhichEllie · 15/08/2023 20:43

PostItInABook · 15/08/2023 20:12

Many patients don’t like crowds being gathered around when they’re in a vulnerable state. It can be incredibly distressing for them if they know they’re being watched by a load of randoms and there’s only so much you can do to shield them and you can’t always move them quickly to get them out of sight.

Like I said previously, there are plenty of ways your children can get to see the vehicles/choppers and even have a look around them without intruding on another person in a vulnerable state.

If people could just show a little respect for the privacy and dignity of others it would be nice.

People who are in a bad enough state to need an air ambulance don’t typically think about that sort of thing. They just want to live.

And I say that as someone who has been air-lifted and didn’t give a damn about the people watching. Strangely I had other things on my mind, like trying to breathe with blood in my lungs.

willstarttomorrow · 15/08/2023 20:43

Totally about people wanting to know what is going on and a bit of entertainment. When DH had a cardiac arrest at home (fatal) a neighbour a few doors down came to knock on the door and ask if everything was okay at the site of the emergency responder and ambulance. Never seen her before or since. I was hyperventilating in the front garden whilst they had the defib out in our living room (luckily supported by our lovely neighbours we know on each side). If this was followed up with an 'are you okay' visit I may give her the benefit of the doubt.......

MmmALovelyBitOfSquirrel · 15/08/2023 20:47

Sickened me to watch a neighbour call all her dc in so they could rush down to see a young boy getting air lifted, after he'd been hit by a car. Nothing gets the scum together quicker than having something first hand to gossip about!

JusthereforXmas · 15/08/2023 20:49

PostItInABook · 15/08/2023 19:54

Not that I need to explain anything to you……I looked out the window to see which air ambulance it was as we have two that operate in our patch and which field it was landing in and noticed all the people running out of their houses with their kids. Then I went back to perusing the internet.

Show quote history

So you where rubbernecking lol.

Pot and kettle scenario. You have ZERO need to know 'which' air ambulence it is except curiousity... you then rushed online to gossip about the situation.

Original poster
PostItInABook · 15/08/2023 20:54

WhichEllie · 15/08/2023 20:43

People who are in a bad enough state to need an air ambulance don’t typically think about that sort of thing. They just want to live.

And I say that as someone who has been air-lifted and didn’t give a damn about the people watching. Strangely I had other things on my mind, like trying to breathe with blood in my lungs.

Show quote history

Not always true. Sometimes the chopper attends for life changing injury that isn’t life threatening so patients are very much with it enough to know and care.

OP posts:
Original poster
PostItInABook · 15/08/2023 20:55

JusthereforXmas · 15/08/2023 20:49

So you where rubbernecking lol.

Pot and kettle scenario. You have ZERO need to know 'which' air ambulence it is except curiousity... you then rushed online to gossip about the situation.

Show quote history

You don’t understand the term rubber necking if you think looking out of a window briefly counts as that.

OP posts:
Hollyhead · 15/08/2023 21:00

normal emergency vehicles I agree, an air ambulance, watching it lane or take off IF you have a small child with you, I think is ok. Not filming though! Although the last time I saw an air ambulance the paramedics with the attending ambulance took a selfie of themselves with the air ambulance in the background! I think I’m just old. 😂

cantwaittocruise · 15/08/2023 21:03

Totally agree. On our cruise this year sadly someone needed picked up by the helicopter and there were people outside videoing it …

HundredMilesAnHour · 15/08/2023 21:08

Someone else’s medical emergency and trauma is not a fun learning opportunity your kids.

@Festivemoose nails it with this comment.

CandyflossKaren · 15/08/2023 21:13

OP you are in stealth boast territory 'aren't I so great for not stooping to behave like the others'...

Oh isn't she just!

ElEmEnOhPee · 15/08/2023 21:17

YANBU

Last year a woman fell/jumped off a huge cliff in my area. A man and I went running down the beach to find her as we were the only two who seemed to notice. Thankfully she was still alive but in a very bad way. He called the ambulance and I held her hand and waited for help to arrive. Unbelievably not many people noticed until paramedics, police and air ambulance arrived, as soon as they got there we left quietly to let them get on with things. However them turning up appeared to gather attention and I later saw on the coast guards (or air ambulance, can't remember which) FB group how absolutely disgusted they were with the public hanging over the cliff to film them on their mobile phones when attending to the woman, they said it put the emergency services, the woman and themselves in danger and was completely tasteless. I'm so glad I'd left and didn't witness that but I'm also glad they were called out on it, it's disgusting. I was actually quite traumatised by the whole thing and as I made my way to the beach to find her I was terrified by what I might find when someone has fallen from such a great height, I certainly wouldn't have deliberately gone for a look just for the sake of it or filmed it, it's completely baffling.

ShutTheDoorBabe · 15/08/2023 21:22

They landed in a green area near us about 8 years ago. We saw them land on the way to the shop with my eldest and then again on our way back about half an hour later when they were about to take off. Dc was fascinated so we stood and watched and talked about it. The pilot waved at him and gave him a 👍 before leaving. We went home and donated a tenner online.

It's no different from watching the TV programmes.

I think it's important to see people doing the jobs they do and to talk about the things you see. It is interesting and may spark an idea in a young mind, giving them a potential career to aim for.

madamehooch · 15/08/2023 21:23

My godson died in tragic circumstances earlier this year. A video of Air Ambulance trying to resuscitate him was taken by a bystander and posted on social media. I cannot begin to describe the distress this has caused to those who loved him.

ElEmEnOhPee · 15/08/2023 21:26

madamehooch · 15/08/2023 21:23

My godson died in tragic circumstances earlier this year. A video of Air Ambulance trying to resuscitate him was taken by a bystander and posted on social media. I cannot begin to describe the distress this has caused to those who loved him.

I am so sorry for your loss, I can't even begin to imagine how it would feel to have something like that put on social media. I just don't know what the hell is wrong with people to think that it's in any way acceptable to do that.

Original poster
PostItInABook · 15/08/2023 21:34

CandyflossKaren · 15/08/2023 21:13

OP you are in stealth boast territory 'aren't I so great for not stooping to behave like the others'...

Oh isn't she just!

🙄🙄

Thing is I am a paramedic so have to deal with this nonsense and lack of respect for other people’s privacy and dignity on a daily basis. It’s actually infuriating. A pp has got it right on the money when they say someone else’s emergency is not a learning experience for your child. There are plenty of opportunities for children to learn about the emergency services and look around the vehicles if they’re interested. I’ve volunteered to take a truck to do school visits and show at ES days (mainly held at fire stations). They happen fairly regularly and schools can request visits.

OP posts:
Original poster
PostItInABook · 15/08/2023 21:35

But yes, do carry on trying to be goady and making a tit of yourself.

OP posts:
LlynTegid · 15/08/2023 21:37

Looking out of the window or garden at home would seem OK to me, but not what you have described.

I'd be tempted to make a point about their behaviour, pity you cannot block all their drives or whatever it takes to obstruct their daily lives.