Blog post - drink driving. Please share

geoffky

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

My point is that...

Neuro beds are very limited... this patient jumped the queue because of her self inflicted injuries and that will mean that someone else will have had their treatment delayed because beds just don't sit there empty waiting for a patient to happen along.

This person caused pain and suffering to a stranger by taking a valuable bed that could have been used to treat someone else.

Drink driving is a selfish act akin to taking a loaded gun and opening fire without caring where the bullets will hit... the blog does not acknowledge the risk others were placed in or the cost of the services that the accident has caused... it is totally biased.

I do not want to hear about the cost to the driver BUT I do care about the cost to the victims.

That is the problem..Drink drivers are very selfish people without a care in the world for the damage they can do...
I have no sympathy whatsoever for drink drivers who are injured but plenty for the tens of thousands affected by their selfish deeds.

Person_one

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

My point is that...

Neuro beds are very limited... this patient jumped the queue because of her self inflicted injuries and that will mean that someone else will have had their treatment delayed because beds just don't sit there empty waiting for a patient to happen along.

This person caused pain and suffering to a stranger by taking a valuable bed that could have been used to treat someone else.

Drink driving is a selfish act akin to taking a loaded gun and opening fire without caring where the bullets will hit... the blog does not acknowledge the risk others were placed in or the cost of the services that the accident has caused... it is totally biased.

I do not want to hear about the cost to the driver BUT I do care about the cost to the victims.

Jump the queue? Do you realise how mad that sounds?

Healthcare is always and must always be based on need. Never on moral judgments about why the person has that need.

It might start with letting a 19 year old die because they did something stupid and dangerous, and you might be ok with that (I'm certainly not) but where would it end? How long before you or someone you cared about behaved in a less than perfect manner and suddenly it doesn't seem so fair anymore?

**professor~yaffle**

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

My point is that...

Neuro beds are very limited... this patient jumped the queue because of her self inflicted injuries and that will mean that someone else will have had their treatment delayed because beds just don't sit there empty waiting for a patient to happen along.

This person caused pain and suffering to a stranger by taking a valuable bed that could have been used to treat someone else.

Drink driving is a selfish act akin to taking a loaded gun and opening fire without caring where the bullets will hit... the blog does not acknowledge the risk others were placed in or the cost of the services that the accident has caused... it is totally biased.

I do not want to hear about the cost to the driver BUT I do care about the cost to the victims.

Beds are very limited because our health system is insufficient and underfunded. Squabbling amongst each other about who is less deserving of care is inevitable, but not helpful.

carolan78

coolcait wrote: »

I agree that the OP was probably sharing the tale as a warning.

Nevertheless, the blog is a very one-sided view of the impact which drink-driving can have.

The focus is on the drunk driver - should he/she happen to survive. And the impact which that has on the drunk driver's family.

Yet, other innocent people can be affected by drink driving.

In this blog, the drunk driver had a passenger, who was seriously injured in the crash.

The seriously injured passenger makes a brief appearance in the blog, mainly as the means to get help for the drunk driver and her passenger.

The blog doesn't tell us how the passenger got on after the crash. It's all about the drunk driver and her family.

If the drunk driver had wrapped her car around another vehicle, with a driver and passengers, then she would have caused more trauma to more people.

How would the blog have dealt with that?

In the same way that it dealt with the fact that a - possibly suicidal - drunk driver is/was occupying a hospital bed which might have been used to save someone else's life?

As warnings go, those facts on how drink driving can affect many, many people might have a greater inpact than the idea that "you might not kill yourself, you might just end up in a vegetative state".

It depends on the selfishness of the driver

The blog is going to have a one sided view, it is the story of a relative retelling the story as she knows it. It's not someone using statistics ect to start a debate. Even if it doesn't even give one person food for thought I am sure it helped the blogger to get it all out.

It does sound like the driver possibly had some kind of emotional break down, doesn't make her driving whilst drunk right but she probably wasn't thinking rationally when she got in that car. It isn't always clear cut. We don't live in a perfect world.

OP I hope your daughter recovers eventually and I hope her friend fully recovered x

Tiddlywinks

Person_one wrote: »

Jump the queue? Do you realise how mad that sounds?

Healthcare is always and must always be based on need. Never on moral judgments about why the person has that need.

It might start with letting a 19 year old die because they did something stupid and dangerous, and you might be ok with that (I'm certainly not) but where would it end? How long before you or someone you cared about behaved in a less than perfect manner and suddenly it doesn't seem so fair anymore?

Nowhere have I even suggested not treating the individual... I am purely pointing out that there will have been someone else who was 'bumped' because of this incident...

Her actions negatively impacted on strangers - let's not dress this up as anything other than a self inflicted injury.

carolan78

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

Nowhere have I even suggested not treating the individual... I am purely pointing out that there will have been someone else who was 'bumped' because of this incident...

Her actions negatively impacted on strangers - let's not dress this up as anything other than a self inflicted injury.

From the little information given in the blog it still sounds to me like she was going through some kind of breakdown that evening. For all we know the friend could have even got in the car to try stop her taking her own life.

Sometimes people feel that desperate they just don't think. We have a really high bridge not far away running over a motorway, there's not a month that goes by when someone doesn't jump off it to end their life. They very same thing could be said about these people in fact anyone that tries to end their own life are taking resources away from others.

Would you have the same view with the above?

Ruby_woo

I have lost someone close who was killed by a drunk driver. I however, understand how easy it is to make the wrong choices in life, so I won't judge.

I would like to know how the op is?

tigershoes99

VfM4meplse wrote: »

Thanks for posting OP.

The devastating impact that type 1 diabetes can have on teenagers and young adults is very poorly understood. Some take it in their stride, but for theirs it can be hell on earth.

This, this and this. Exactly this!
We are not to know how big an issue this was for the girl, but I do think that in wider society this is a very neglected area.

I have recent experience of the DAFNE course for type 1 diabetics
( http://www.diabetes.co.uk/education/dafne.html ) and, like most issues discussed in this thread, suffers due to a lack of funding :-(

Tiddlywinks

tigershoes99 wrote: »

This, this and this. Exactly this!
We are not to know how big an issue this was for the girl, but I do think that in wider society this is a very neglected area.

I have recent experience of the DAFNE course for type 1 diabetics
( http://www.diabetes.co.uk/education/dafne.html ) and, like most issues discussed in this thread, suffers due to a lack of funding :-(

Drink driving - no excuses!

alison10011

Hello, for those who have asked, the passenger had non life threatening injuries and has since recovered fully for which we are grateful. We are also grateful for the swift actions of the emergency services and the amazing care that Helen received at the JR. Some of you are quite right, the blog is one sided, it has been written by someone who misses her cousin and wanted to try to highlight the impact on our family in the hope it might deter anyone from getting in their car after drinking.

As a family we have had to come to terms with the aftermath of Helen's choices - none of which we asked for, or wanted for her. We are living with the consequences of those choices every day.

This blog does not aim to minimise the impact on victims of drink drivers. One of my dearest friends lost her father to a hit and run drink driver and no member of our family condones Helen's actions that night - the fact remain though that if one person reads this and doesn't make the same mistake or thinks twice before getting in a car after drinking then it has made a difference.