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After inadvertently finding myself in amongst this over the weekend, I thought I’d take the time to reflect on being a #psychologist at the scene of a #majortrauma
@GMMajorTrauma @SRFTMajorTrauma @psychmag @DONBPS @BPSOfficial @AfterTrauma https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/m60-closed-air-ambulance-lands-20458095
@GMMajorTrauma @SRFTMajorTrauma @psychmag @DONBPS @BPSOfficial @AfterTrauma https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/m60-closed-air-ambulance-lands-20458095
For context, I am a #neuropsychologist with experience of working in #majortrauma @SalfordRoyalNHS, and was a part of the team that helped after the #ManchesterArenaAttack https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333609539_Early_psychological_interventions_following_a_major_incident_The_case_of_the_Manchester_Arena_Attack
I’ll not be sharing any specific details of the #RTC that isn’t already in the public domain, nor will there be any explicit or traumatic content or info about the injured. Do please let me know if you feel I have overstepped though and I’ll just delete bits.
My wife and I were about 30secs behind the accident, and traffic was slowing. We could see someone was hurt so I asked my wife (a dentist) if she knew #firstaid and #CPR just in case
She said she did so we made the call to quickly pull onto the hard shoulder and try to help. My wife went to the injured person, and we tried to get a sense of what was going on.
After seeing that people were calling the emergency services already, I started thinking about how I could use my #psychology skills in this moment
In hindsight, I was thinking about theory-practice links
Whilst I did not think explicitly about it, I started to slip into what I knew about #psychologicalfirstaid
Below is a summary of the core components of #PsychologicalFirstAid
I’ll therefore try and explain what I think I did during the (?)30-60min we were there, having taken some time to reflect and process it afterwards... both for myself and so I could share with others.
It feels like my wife and I were able to “restore a sense of order and control” as we’re both quite calm and containing people, and we quickly explained to people our usual roles and skillsets.
I think I “triaged at risk persons” by finding those who were driving or physically upset
I “allowed voluntary expression of emotions” and used my active listening skills to reflect or repeat back to people how they might be feeling... and here’s an infographic we @GMNeuroRehab developed a while ago to help people understand what this is
I “provided comfort” physically with hugs social distancing took a backseat), a hand on the shoulder, sitting down with people, or (with the help of others) just getting them food, drinks, or a blanket
*Later, several of the people still at the scene came to our car to say hello to our dog, which was nice as we’d started talking about our respective pets being with us, but it also seemed to help ground people a bit... here’s a photo of her for reference
The emergency services arrived really quickly and they were great at “protecting others from harm”... lanes cordoned off, witnesses moved, to the hard shoulder, road closed etc, and they monitored this throughout
In terms of “counteracting sense of helplessness” I think I helped the driver by getting them stuff from the lorry, turning the engine off for them, and calling their boss to update them at their request
I think I also “counteracted sense of helplessness” when we were wondering what to do by validating and providing positive reinforcement to people about what they had done to help, like calling the emergency services, warning others, providing comfort, and checking in on people
I think I tried to “provide factual information” about what was going on (where poss), and tried to reduce speculation.
I also tried to “provide factual information” about normal responses to trauma as I thought this might be my only chance... and drew on what I knew/remembered from things like this
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/617321/nhs_trauma_leaflet.pdf
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/617321/nhs_trauma_leaflet.pdf
People “reunited with natural groups” as the emergency services took control, and gradually we all went our separate ways having all recognised what we had been through, and valuing everyone’s individual roles
So how did I actually feel afterwards... I’ll have to do another thread on that as I’ve reached my limit!
