If you’re at a protest and you need medical help, do not accept that help from the police, even if they’re offering. They do not have your best interests at heart.
Street medics are at least as qualified as the police to give first aid. Some of us have first aid certificates – the police aren’t likely to have more than this. Many of us are current or former healthcare workers with more training and experience than the police have in these fields. All of us care more about getting you out safely than the police do. We won’t be mining you for information while you’re vulnerable, we won’t try to remove you from the protest unless that’s genuinely in your best interest, and we probably weren’t the ones who hurt you in the first place.
Call for a medic or call an ambulance, but don’t accept help from police. They will fuck you over.
And now for why I’m posting this.
Yesterday we were blockading an oil industry conference. At about 6.10am a protester sustained a head/neck injury. An ambulance was called immediately by protesters.
Due to the nature of his injury, we were not able to move this person until the ambulance crew arrived. He was left leaning against a wall for an hour and a half while we repeatedly called for an ambulance to try to get help for him. The police line was only about 2m away, and every time they pushed the line forwards he was at risk of further injury from people falling over him. Protesters and medics were very aware of this risk. Police knew about the risk but did nothing to minimise it. The injured person was finally taken to hospital by ambulance at about 8.30am.
[Image: a line of police stand behind a line of seated protestors. To the right, a line of protesters sits along a wall. The injured person is just barely visible at the very bottom right of the photo, lying against the wall. This is how close the police were. Now imagine what happens when they shove those protesters forwards.]
Fast forward to after we got home, and what is the media saying?
Amas said police responded to a call for assistance regarding the
injured man, who was in his 50s, but he declined any police help.
“The
role of police at these type of events is to ensure safety and uphold
the law while recognising the lawful right to protest.”
And that was one of the better articles. Very few media sources questioned the fact that police were putting this person at further risk while street medics who are ALL at least as qualified as the police to give aid tried our best to get an ambulance on site to help him. Police responded to the call? We didn’t call police, we called an ambulance. Repeatedly. Why do they think they can deal with a neck injury? The medics on site were first-aiders and current and former nurses and caregivers, and we KNEW we couldn’t deal with it on site. The police took this man’s options away from him and prevented proper medical help from reaching him for an hour and a half. I will never not be angry about that.
this is probably too oversimplified to be useful but:
I think some people experience primarily guilt-driven suicidality (I don’t deserve to be alive, if I weren’t so selfish I’d be dead, how dare I keep being alive, I should die and stop burdening everyone) and some people experience primarily despair-driven suicidality (this life just isn’t worth it, being alive sucks and I wish there were a way out of it)
(and some get both, of course, because everything sucks)
and there are hella competing needs here, because the first group often benefits a lot from “people will be devastated if you die, it’s strong and admirable and heroic to keep living, living is a glorious and wonderful act of defiance” type messages
and the second group often hates those and benefits a lot from “well, we have got to change that, I’d never ask you to endlessly suffer something worse than death for the sake of other people, but I really want to make life worth it for you if that’s something I can do”
and so sometimes “I don’t think that you are obliged to stay alive if it hurts too much” is the worst thing you could possibly imaginably say to someone, while other times it’s something you absolutely have to say if you want to help at all.
basically for any advice there’s someone in your audience who’d be dead if they heard it at the wrong time, and that sucks.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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