No straw clutching going on here. Just pointing out the difficulties of front line services.
Most coppers who've been on the job for a while will have been present at an incident where someone had a face covered in blood, being propped up by someone because they've been scrapping and taken a whack in the face. 99 times out of 100 it will have been superficial or non-life threatening injuries, this time, it wasn't, and that's tragic.
If I'm turning up to a scene like that in a medical capacity, my checklist would be:
H - Hazards - To me primarily, to the casualty and to any bystanders.
H - History - What happened?
R - Response - Is the casualty responsive (level of consciousness, per GCS (Glasgow Coma Scale)/ AVPU (Alert obeys Voice commands responds to Pain or Unresponsive).
A - Airway - Check, clear, maintain
B - Breathing - Type of breathing and rate (there are other checks I would do at this stage to do with chest trauma primarily looking for a collapsed lung of a flail segment rib fracture - both life threatening)
C - Circulation - Do they have a pulse and what is their pulse rate (Radial pulse both wrists potentially indicates a useable volume of blood left in the body)
D - Disability - Checking for body/neurological disfunction (PEARL - Pupils Equal And React to Light or any other outward sign of brain trauma).
E - Exposure - Systematically expose the body to check for hidden injury or trauma
That's an awful lot to concentrate on, and all the time I still have to think about my own safety, and what is going on around me.
HHR can be pretty much achieved simultaneously, but it still takes a little bit of time to ascertain what hazards are present, especially in the dark. In this case the casualty was able to speak which meant they had a decent level of consciousness. Perhaps that formed part of the officers initial assessment? That for me would make ABC a little less urgent, but I still wouldn't be hanging about.
All that said, sometimes even trained medic might not pick up on the outward signs of hypovolemic shock until they've completed their primary survey, especially in the dark, and bear in mind that coppers are't medics. They are trained in basic life support only.
A police officers primary role is public safety, law enforcement and ascertaining evidence for the purposes of law enforcement. That situation was made a whole lot more difficult for the attending officers because of the lies they were told leading up to the interactions with the now sadly deceased. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I've been on shouts where I wish thing had panned out differently and I'm certain the officers involved here wish they could turn back time and do things differently; they can't.
