On the 13th of December 2006, at approx
1.30pm a road traffic accident involving a driver driving a dark blue
proton saga and a highway road sweeper of Malay decent, male, approx mid
20s (the road accident victim).
The location of the accident was about
150 - 200 meters from the Batu Tiga toll booth, elite highway in the
direction towards KLIA.
I chanced upon this accident which had
just happened while on my way back to work (Ampang via KESAS).
As I approached the accident site it
seemed the victim was already dead, the driver who had knocked him down
was standing near-by and nobody dared approach to lend assistance to the
victim, almost as if this was one time were an invasion of privacy was
taboo.
I stopped my vehicle and approached,
upon examining the accident victim I found him to be still alive but
heavily concussed, his pupils were completely dilated.
Suddenly the victim grabbed my hand and
tried with all his might to raise himself to his feet. I tried to calm him
and asked by-standers if an ambulance had been called. I was told it had
not.
In a firm tone I told the driver of the
car that hit the victim to call for an ambulance. He dialed 999, it rang
until it could not ring anymore. He rang again, again it was not answered,
he rang again and passed the phone to me. Finally someone answered (a
man).
I informed him that I am reporting an
accident a few hundred meters away from the Batu Tiga Toll in the
direction of KLIA. He asked me my phone number and my name and which
hospital was nearest. I gave the info and added that the nearest hospital
to deal with this kind of trauma is probably Klang.
At 1.57pm I received a call from 03
3371 7989 the ambulance control center at Klang Hospital. The guy in
charge of the control center asked to speak to me and asked for the
location of the accident, which I gave adding that the victim was dying
and that this was an extreme emergency.
The guy manning the control center did
not know my location, so I repeated it clearly and concisely. It seemed
that he needed to understand it for himself otherwise he could not pass on
the information and dispatch the ambulance. It was a frustrating
conversation. I repeated the details of my location and he asked me if I
was sure that Klang was the nearest hospital. I repeated firmly, yes!
I told him the injuries of the victim
hoping he would feel the urgency, instead he wanted to know whether "dia
jatuh motor ke...?" I told him politely that his question is completely
irrelevant and hurry up with the ambulance plus I have to hang up and
attend to the victim.
I called back at 2.06pm to ask if an
ambulance had been dispatched. The same guy told me "belum". He asked me
the same questions...I answered them.
I warned him that the next time I make
a call will be to the Menteri Besar's office to complain about his shoddy
professionalism, so he'd better send out that ambulance immediately. I
called Salamat Dollah at 2.08pm and he helped call Klang Hospital on my
behalf to request they send out an ambulance immediately.
I waited and called the emergency
control center at Klang Hospital at 2.36pm and asked the same guy if an
ambulance had been dispatched, same answer, "belum".
He requested me to repeat the accident
location again which I did. This time I told him that he need not
understand it just write it down and give it to the ambulance driver along
with my hp number.
I waited again. The victim was rolling
in pain on the road, his head had a gash about 10cm long on the back of
his head, the skin on his head was beginning to peel off. His left leg was
completely broken and hanging by the flesh but the main artery was not
severed, he was not loosing much blood. His workmate was cradling him in
his arms and asking him to mengucap kalimah syahadah.
I tried to stop further damage to his
left leg by securing it to his right leg. I told the few people around
that he is going to die if we don't get him to hospital. Everyone was
reluctant to put him in there car, all kinds of excuses... ada barang,
kotor la, berdarah la... Meanwhile the victim was grabbing on to my
clothes and body in pain, unable to talk possibly due to his head injury.
Finally the driver who knocked him down
allowed us to use his car to send the victim to the hospital. But he was
too shaken-up to drive. Another gentleman offered to drive but did not
know how to exit the Elite highway to get towards Klang Hospital. I asked
him to follow me and so we drove off as fast as we could head towards USJ
- Federal Highway - Klang. We had to go through so many toll gates, some
paying, some after explaining briefly, let us through.
On the Federal Highway despite our
attempts to notify motorist that we were in a state of emergency many
blocked our path and only relented to give way when I practically sat on
my car horn.
We arrived in Klang and I called the
emergency control center guy for directions to the hospital. I was by this
time quite distressed and pronounced the name of the hospital wrongly. The
guy in the control center told me there was no such hospital in Klang, so
I said to him. "Have you sent out an ambulance to the Batu Tiga toll
accident site ? No, right? So since you cannot understand were the
accident is we are sending the victim to you. This is an emergency can you
give me directions to your hospital or not??"
Finally he did.
When we arrived at Klang Hospital I had
a hard time looking for the staff to bring a trolley to remove the victim
from the car. I asked for assistance from two nurses but did not receive a
response. I took a trolley and pushed it to the car, suddenly a hospital
aide appeared, then another, as we tried to remove the victims body from
the car, it was then that the co-worker who had been cradling the victim
in the car said that he has stopped breathing.
The hospital aides rushed the victim
into the A&E room and I followed, as he was wheeled in there was no
immediate response from the doctors, it was obvious this young man with
his whole life ahead of him had died in the car on the way to the
hospital.
I was so angry, my words were simple -
"Kecuaian pihak hospital menghantar ambulance membantu mangsa ini telah
mengecewakan rakyat."
The aide asked me to be calm. How could
any human being be calm when face with such stupidity and total lack of
regard for human life? The aide showed me the IC and asked me to confirm
if this was the victim. I confirmed. I briefly saw the name Mohd Yusry and
his age was somewhere in his mid- twenties.
As I walked away from the A&E room in
disgust I saw the control center. A guy was sitting in it with a female
nurse looking at a computer (very close and comfy).
I approached him and asked if he was
the person who took my calls, he knew my name and I asked him for his, he
declined. I asked him why he did not dispatch an ambulance to which he
replied something brash.
I asked him if he was happy as the
victim was unnecessarily dead and that I am going to ensure that his
lackadaisical attitude to his job was brought to the public attention. I
asked him for his name again along with the nurse who was sitting next to
him "playing" with the computer. He refused to give it to me. Feeling very
frustrated I called Salamat Dollah and informed him that regretfully the
road accident victim a young Malay man had died in the car on the way to
the hospital and that no ambulance had been dispatched.
This is not the first time I have
called for an ambulance and used the 999 services. Every time I have
called for an ambulance it has never arrived, never. Why??
This is the first road accident victim
I have helped who has actually died. Everyone else I have helped before
this has survived.
THE ISSUES THAT NEED TO BE ADDRESSED
ARE:
1) The strategic location of a free
government hospital able to deal with serious road accident trauma in Shah
Alam (densly populated area with much traffic activity).
and/or
1.1) Emergency response centers created
where the Balai Bomba have special ambulances and police squad cars for
dispatching purposes only to accident / incident locations and to the
nearest hospital / balai police (ambulances need NOT be parked permanently
at hospitals).
2) Road signs giving clear and proper
directions to hospitals (there are hardly any such signs).
3) Special Emergency Exits through toll
gates. And signs declaring their existence + a phone number to call ahead
so that they can be opened.
4) The name of the Highways, Elite,
Kesas, Federal etc clearly advertised so that road users are able to
identify their location under emergency circumstances.
5) Professionally trained personnel
with various languages who have true empathy and value the human life,
manning emergency response centers. Who consistently answer calls on the
first or second ring.
6) An emergency station located at the
emergency parking lot with a big sign above it (similar to the car jockey
service at hotels) to receive patients. That is manned 24 hours a day,
never ever left unattended.
7) An ISO response time from the time
you send out an SOS call to 999 you will receive the assistance you need
within 15 min.
These are my simple suggestions. Life
is precious and should be preserved above all else. Without regard for one
another what kind of country are we leaving for our children to inherit ??
Thank you.
Zara Davies Abdul Rahman resident of
Bukit Jelutong, Shah Alam
http://dapmalaysia.org
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