Yesterday evening I was riding through the centre of Cardiff at 7pm when I saw 4 youths running after another teenager who was riding a bike. At first I thought they were all messing about, but then when one of the boys caught up with the lad on the bike, I saw him hit him a couple of times, the lad fell to the ground and it was then I realised he'd been stabbed twice. Blood was spurting out of his arm as the 4 boys ran off.
He then walked over to me, asking me to help him. My first instinct was to get as far away from him as I could, there was blood everywhere and I didn't want to risk the possibility of getting infected with anything. But I knew he was loosing a lot of blood and panicking and he didn't know what to do about it. I told him to place his hand over the wound that was bleeding a lot, while I phoned an ambulance.
The blood was still coming out very fast between his fingers so I used a t-shirt as a makeshift bandage/tourniquet, and put that over the wound. That had sorted the bleeding out,slowing it right down. Meanwhile the lad was really panicking so I sat him down, asked him his name and tried to calm him down a bit. There was a crowd around by then and the police had just turned up, also a doctor driving by had stopped and come over to help. I was still reassuring the lad, Daniel that he was going to be alright but that he was going to have to go to hospital to get stitches. Really I thought he was going to need an operation to fix whatever had been cut, I think it was a major vein and not an artery as his arm was still getting a good blood supply.
Daniel asked me to phone his parents and let them know what was happening, I tried to get away with just telling his dad that he'd been hurt and was going to hospital. But his father was having none of this and prised out of me that he'd been stabbed. I could here his mother crying in the background, which only made the whole experience even harder. I never want to make another telephone call like that, ever again. It was horrific.
I'd noticed another wound to his chest, just below his nipple. It looked exactly the same as the other wound so I knew it was deep, but it wasn't bleeding, so I took no more notice of it. My concern was to stop the bleeding in the other wound. Amazingly I was quite calm throughout all of this, I knew what had to be done and once I'd made the decision to help him, in spite of knowing I'd be covered with his blood, I simply got on with it.
When the ambulance left with Daniel, I looked down at myself; I was drenched in his blood. That was when the severity of the situation hit me, I think I was in a bit of shock myself. I knew he was lucky that there wasn't anymore damage done.
I telephoned his parents today to see how Daniel was doing. He's still in hospital but doing fine and likely to go home tomorrow. The wound on his chest turned out to have been lucky not to have killed him - 2inches deep and directly over his heart, apparently half an inch further and it would have punctured his heart. It's baffled the doctors too, as it wasn't bleeding at all! The wound on his arm was 3 inches deep and needed a good amount of stitches, inside and out, to fix.
It turns out that Daniel knew his attacker's, it was a disagreement from junior school that started all of this. What I can't comprehend is why a teenage boy would throw away 3-5 years of his life in an unprovoked attack - he ran up behind Daniel and stabbed him twice. What a waste of his life and his talents. I hope this doesn't start a never ending cycle of prison sentences for that young boy, and that he's able to make something of his life.
I'm just glad that I was there and able to help Daniel, it was definitely the right thing to have done.
2 comments:
Congratulations Kev in overcoming your fear for yourself to help another human being. I applaud your courage. I guess that we never really know how we're going to act in a situation which can be threatening until we're confronted by it. In your case it is apparent to me, that the self respect and dignity which has arisen during your recovery enabled you to act, when many might have walked by.
The level of knife crime in itself is disturbing, but what I find even more alarming is the ferocity of the attacks.
You say you wonder what makes someone risk 3-5 years of their life in prison, it occurs to me that both the frequency and intensity of knife crime is an indication of disturbed minds, where the attackers appear to have lost all sense of restraint, where the fundamental sense of what is wrong or right to be found in most human beings appears to have been suspended, or, in extreme cases extinguished. I find myself wondering how many the attackers are under the influence of drugs including alcohol.
The media is full of theories as to the cause of what is referred to as feral youth. It also seems that when kids are asked why they carry knives, they almost always say it is for self protection. Whether or not that is some form of justification is debateable.
On the other hand it could be fear that they are going to be attacked. I find myself wondering what causes that fear; whether or not it arises from drug induced paranoi? If it is then the sooner we step up drug use prevention mechanisms, starting with more rigorous enforcement of the laws relating to dealing the better.
It seems to me that street dealers in South London where I work and live are able to ply their trade openly, with police enforcement negligible. It also seems as if they're reluctant to 'lift' them.
That seeming lack of interest appears to stem from the very top as witnessed by the statement of the Met police chief some 12-18 months ago when he said words to the effect that his officers were too busy to bother about stopping and searching kids for cannabis. Such an attitude leaves me wondering that if he had done the job he is being paid to do, enforcing the law, just how many kids he would have found carrying knives 'for self protection', and just how many lives could have been saved by the enforcing of current laws.
shit kev, looks like that boys higher power sent him an angel and your HP new you were. VERY VERY prouud of you.
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