How far would you go to help someone.

Nurses General Nursing

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I have been keeping up with the news regarding a male Virginia Tech cutting off the head of a female student right in the middle of the student center. All the bystanders ran and hid and someone finally called 911. No one came to the aid of this woman and no one did anything to try to stop him. He had her down on the floor cutting her head off, then got up and was walking around with her head. He had no other weapon but this knife. What would you have done? Would you have done anything to try and stop him?

I would have ordered him to put down the knife. If he didn't I'd have shot him and suffered the consequences of the "no guns on campus" rule.

We were not there and cannot say how introducing other variables would have effected the outcome.

A few things to think about:

1) Look at shooting statistics. I will use police officer involved shooting information.

2) Most officer involved shootings occur at very close ranges. Contact to several feet in many cases.

3) Depending on the statistics, officers hit what they shoot as as low as 10% in some cases. I have seen statistics from around 10-50% depending on the source.

4) Police officers are commonly shot and killed with their own weapon. Meaning, an assailant takes possession of a trained officer's gun and uses it on the said officer.

These are not great statistics for trained police officers, let alone somebody from the public. Assuming you are well trained, the statistics are still against you.

Who's to say shooting would have resolved the situation? Would other people have been killed or injured in the process from bullets that miss the mark, would the attacker obtain control of your gun and use it to create additional mayhem, or would you have saved the day? It is hard to say.

I'm not going to try to stop a guy with a knife in his hand and all I have are my hands. That's stupid. If I had a gun, then I would shoot him.

Specializes in L&D/Maternity nursing.

Its hard to say what exactly I would do in this situation. Right now, I'd say that I'd take a chair or other object that can be used as a weapon and use it on this individual. But then again, I have never been so shocked and paralyzed with fear before that I cannot 100% sure say that I'd be able do so.

Yes, someone should have done something...after all, hindsight is 20/20. However, I can completely understand why no one took initiative.

I could not stand by and watch a fellow human being murdered right in front of me without trying to do something. I would have found something albeit a chair, fire extinguisher, anything to distract this warped individual from harming this poor girl. I come from a family that takes action when needed. Like kcochrane stated, it makes my husband a bit nervous. Although, I know either him or my sons would certainly take action against someone who was harming another individual.

I can remember a few years back, we were in the Wally world parking lot and saw a man beating on his pregnant wife. I called 911 and my husband and sons surrounded the car and my husband proceeded to pull him out of the drivers seat and beat the snot out him asking him if he liked to pick on someone weaker than himself and a few other choice words. I ran to the car to check on the poor girl and her face was bloodied and bruised. When the police arrived they arrested the husband and commended my husband and sons for acting on behalf of this girl. The girl ended up in the hospital with a broken nose and jaw. Due to the stress she gave birth prematuraly to a little girl. I sure hope that she left that sorry s.o.b.

I guess some people are geared toward sticking up for the under dog. I just think it's the right thing to do.

Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.

While I was still a full time nerd, I did disaster recovery work. People behave in very strange ways when stressed by a disaster. We used to call it the "4 F's."

Freeze: People are surprised, and they freeze, which is what happens most of the time -- your mind can't process something radically outside your experience, and you just stand there. Remember the video of the guy on the beach during the tsunami who just stood there watching the wave come in? In the Coconut Grove fire, in the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire, people were found still sitting in their seats. With the beheading, they probably looked, said, "this can't be happening, so it's not happening" and went into complete brain lock. I mean, think about it -- this woman's heart would have kept pumping, and blood would have been shooting out of her neck like a bad horror movie and he's running around waving a severed head. Their brains couldn't process what they were seeing, someone probably yelled, "RUN" and they did.

Freak: The people that start screaming and acting irrationally. A much rarer reaction than you would think from disaster movies. Sometimes people will "loop" -- do a normal behavior in abnormal situations -- one guy stopped in the middle of a house fire to put on a tie and a suit coat so he could look "professional" to the fireman -- walking by the family papers and wallet he really did need. "Nesting" will also happen -- people in the path of wildfires will stop and clean the house, Edith Russell on the Titanic went to her stateroom to tuck in a puppy, walking right by her jewel box, her coat, etc.

Fold: Sadly, this is what happens to a lot of depressed people during an emergency. They just throw their hands up and wait to die. They can't take one more thing, this is the one more thing, and they just ... stop. There were multiple reports of people in the Twin Towers who just didn't even try to evacuate, even when it was evident really bad stuff was happening. They just sat down, and never tried to evacuate or seek assistance. The designer of the Titanic, Thomas Andrews, was seen to just be sitting in a chair without a life preserver, making no attempt to help himself or others.

Focus: These are the leaders, the people who say, "what's happening, what do I have, what do I need to do to survive." This is like the guy when the Hindenburg was crashing, and all the naval personnel were running from the football field sized fireball coming down from the sky, a guy yelled, "Navy men, STAND FAST." You can see it on the newsreel -- they guys are running, then they stop and turn to run back to aid the victims. Unfortunately, "focus" is the rarest reaction -- but it also one that can be taught. That's what we do as nurses, folks. Your average person would see a hemmorhagic GI bleed and run, or an eviceration and just stand there with their mouth hanging open. We jump in to fix the problem, because we've had the training to know what to do.

If I had been there, by the time I went thru the "freeze" moment (trying to figure out what I'm seeing) -- I would have realized I couldn't save the victim, but I could keep there from being more -- I would have screamed for everyone to run, and been on the cell phone to 911 telling them where the guy was, weapons, description, anyone who appeared to be an accomplice, etc.

Specializes in Med Surg, Specialty.

Looks like this happened in January

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/01/22/2009-01-22_virginia_tech_graduate_student_attacked_.html

Great informative reply nerdtonurse!

Honestly, and unfortunately, I think I would freeze. I'm by nature not assertive. It took quite awhile for me to learn at work to deal with agitated patients or take charge in medical emergencies. I've never been around real violence. I've never even seen someone die except on the job at the hospital. I couldn't even euthanize my daughter's sickly pet rat.

I would call 911, and I would stick around to tell police what I saw.

My brother would have tackled him. At a store once, he saw a man roughing up his girlfriend. My brother stepped in and took him down and had the clerk call the police. I always admired him for that.

I always wondered why, in crises, one person becomes a helper and the other is helpless. Like after hurricane Katrina, some victims found motorboats and went to rescue other victims. While other victims stepped over sick people, so they could be first to be rescued on the motorboat. And still others shot at the rescuers. Why the difference?

Specializes in ER and Home Health.

I carry a very nice Beretta 9 mm in my backpack.

I would have stopped him in a heartbeat.

Semper Fi

Specializes in ER/ICU/Flight.

I can't believe I didn't hear about this when it happened, this is awful, especially after the shooting a couple years ago. Great responses, I think the freeze/freak/focus answer is what most people would do.

Something to think about is that in most cases, a knife is more deadly than a gun at under 21' distance (I think, it's been awhile since I was in the service). not to shortchange anyone's shooting skills at all and if I had a pistol I might shoot the guy. But like Gila said, erratic rounds can go anywhere and if two people are on the ground...you're almost as likely to hit the victim as you are the assailant.

By far the best action, I think, would have been for someone to have called 911 as soon as he picked up a knife. Even then the cops might not get there in time. I've wrestled a gun away from someone twice and it's not something you want to do (especially when a 12 gauge was fired while I held the barrel away from me----very loud).

Anyway, that brings up a good point....distraction. It is one of the best tactics, whether it's two generals in a large battle or two people squared off. anything that can take someone's mind off what's happening, even if it's just for a second. But you have to have some kind of a plan and act on it quickly.

I guess the bottom line is what level of risk you'll put yourself in. Wasn't there a story back in the 70s of a woman (in Boston I think) who was raped and murdered in the courtyard of her apartment? The police canvassed the neighborhood and found dozens of witnesses who just went inside or closed their windows. Never underestimate herd mentality.

btw...hippiegreenpeacechick, I love your screen name.....semper fi.

I have a different outlook on life now, and don't take chances like I used to. If my husband was still alive, I would have intervened. But now that I am a single parent without family available and still have 2 young teenage children, I would have cut and run...

Specializes in Medical/Surgical.

WHOA. I have NOT heard about this but I definitely watch my local news as much as possible! Where was I when this happened?! Apparently it happened in January, but still.... That is absolutely APPALLING! :angryfire

The humanity of this world sometimes.... We truly need to bring compassion back into the lives of the citizens of this world. :crying2:

Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.
Wasn't there a story back in the 70s of a woman (in Boston I think) who was raped and murdered in the courtyard of her apartment? The police canvassed the neighborhood and found dozens of witnesses who just went inside or closed their windows. Never underestimate herd mentality..

Her name was Kitty Genovese, and 38 of her neighbors watcher her get murdered over the course of 30 minutes -- he attacked her 3 separate times, while the neighbors watched and no one called the cops. It's called the "Genovese Syndrome" for when people in relative positions of safety do nothing. it's studied in Disaster Recovery as one of the worst reactions you can get out of people you're depending on. If you're working at a plant, and someone gets attacked (like in a domestic dispute), often people will ignore what's going on because they think it's in the context of a relationship and none of their business, and they don't want to get involved, no one calls 911, and a shouting match turns into murder. In the case of Ms. Genovese, the neighbors said they "didn't want to get involved" or were "frightened of the attacker" -- from behind windows in 2nd story apartments across the street. I always wondered how those folks lived with themselves, after.

What happened in VT seems more like a Freeze response, because they were in close proximity to extreme violence. At least the people at VT didn't wait for 30 minutes to call 911 so he could decide to decapitate some more people....

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