Posted on 05/07/2006 5:19:26 AM PDT by Mr. Brightside
Father Faces Felony Charges For Rushing To Injured Daughter's Side
POSTED: 12:22 pm EDT May 4, 2006 UPDATED: 6:27 pm EDT May 4, 2006
NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. -- A panicked father who pushed past rescue workers to get to his injured daughter at the scene of a car crash now faces felony charges.
Karl Swanson of Holiday, Fla., told the St. Petersburg Times he got a call from his daughter's cell phone late Tuesday: "Listen," the caller said, "your daughter's been in a terrible accident. She's in critical condition. It doesn't look good."
Florida Highway Patrol troopers said the 48-year-old anesthesiologist drove into the accident scene, narrowly missing an emergency helicopter, then pushed past a trooper and a paramedic to get to his 18-year-old daughter's side.
Swanson was charged with battery on a law enforcement officer and battery on an emergency medical care provider. He is free on $10,000 bond.
"Basically, he made a very serious and stressful situation worse," Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Larry Coggins said. "When people just relax for a second and listen to reason, we always let them see their loved one."
Swanson's daughter, 18-year-old Krystyna, remains in serious condition at a hospital. On Wednesday, he defended his response to the crash.
"They told me my daughter was dying," he said Wednesday. "They told me to go there. So that's what I did."
First he drives IN TO the accident scene. Not to mind you "in to" he could have easily hit her.
Second, he just about hits the emergency helicopter that might be her one chance of getting to the hospital on time.
Three he pushes aside the paramedic.
Conclusion he was trying to prevent her from receiving medical treatment. He wanted her to die.
I've got mixed feeling about this one. We don't really know as fact that one and two are completely accurate. There could be a wee bit of exaggeration going on in the article. I don't think I'd draw the same conclusion as you did but that's because I pretty well know what my gut reaction would be even though I probably wouldn't act on it in that kind of a scenario.
I can also empathize with his wanting to be with his daughter if she's not going to make it as he was supposedly told in the phone call.
Here's where I definitely do have a problem with his actions. He may in fact have been the most qualified person on the scene since he was an anesthesiologist but the professionals (police, paramedics, etc.) didn't know that and even if he had announced who and what he was, it's still their job to do everything they can to stabilize his daughter. The professionals on-scene don't exactly have time to check out the guy's credentials when they're trying to save his daughter's life.
There's also this to take into consideration. She was involved in an accident and many times people can get pretty torn up as in missing limbs, etc. I know I wouldn't want my last memory of my child to be one of a bloody, gory mess.
Many years ago several of us were driving back from Oktoberfest to our campsite when we came upon an auto-motorcycle wreck which had just happened. Even though I had never put my LVN training to work we still stopped to see if we could help anyone. Thirty years later I'm still haunted when I think about what I saw that night. None of them could have been helped and it was obvious as soon as I walked up to within 10 feet of one of the victims. I definitely know I wouldn't want to see my child in that condition.
Yep, demand a jury trial, no chance of conviction.
It would be a mother/father's instinct to get to their dying child. For as uncivilized as the world seems at times, it appears "civilization" is getting in the way of the parental instinct here. I bet if it were one of the cops' kids, they would have been at her side. They wouldn't be charged and not have a medical degree.
Most of them have kids, too, so my bet is that to get charged the guy was pretty far out of line insofar as safety goes--for the responders and possibly his daughter, too.
I have seen well-meaning relatives who would have made a real mess of a spinal injury if they had not been restrained as well. Just a little self-restraint goes a long way.
I believe the story mentioned that he is an anesthesiologist.
Which means, he went to college, obtained a degree, then went to medical school, earned his MD, then went to internship, then residency, then additional schooling to become proficient in anesthesiaology, then interned some more, worked at a hospital, etc.
I believe he was prolly well qualified to see his "dying" daughter, and prolly more qualified to administer aid than many of the persons standing around directing traffic.
His state of mind, on the other hand, and his judgement, may have been effectedf by the fact that she was his daughter.
Duh.
Well Tami, I guess you aren't my nephew.
Take care and thanks.
I'm going to give him a pass on this. Who knows how any of us would react to a phone call like that.
He would get a pass from me too. Hopefully it will turn out that way.
The key word being "usually."
There seems to be an excessive enjoyment of some folks to dredge up stories exclusively for the purpose of painting law enforcement with contempt and derision. This draws the usual suspects like sharks to blood-in-the-water.
This seems to be patently shallow and unfair to the greater preponderance of LEOs particularly those who have lost their lives during the course of their duties.
Believe me, I hear you, verity. I wore the badge proudly for almost 20 years, and I've bristled at some of the indiscriminate comments made on certain threads, but come to realize that the implacable anti-cop-all-the-time types are actually quite few. Many others are (rightfully) indignant about the arrogance of some cops and some jurisdictions. Not that arrogance is anything new, but the trend from peace officer to BDU-wearing "law enforcement officer" isn't something I've found particularly encouraging.
I've stayed off this thread because I don't have much to add, without more information. I've never called a family member to a scene where an evac was imminent - it would seem pointless. However, if I did need to have someone show up at the scene or ER, I think I would have them look for me personally, since I made the call, and then guide them as close as safely possible to the victim, and ask them to let the rescue professionals do their jobs. Ultimately, my job as responding officer at a scene is twofold: 1, protect the victims and, 2, protect the rescue workers so they can save the victims. This means keeping family, media and passersby at the appropriate distance. I'd cut family members some slack so long as they don't endanger the rescue workers or the victims.
In a critical life support situation, without an attached hospital, I'd take my chances with the competent paramedic every time. They are the front line troops in the fight against trauma, and despite your blatherings get the patients extricated, stabilized, and transported to the trauma units and ERs that continue the process every day.
Can the gas passer even find a 4X4 on the scene?
This ain't LAX, to use your metaphor, it is a grass strip. Some things the crop-duster is best qualified to do. Unless this guy has an ICU in his pocket he should GTF out of the way and let them get her there.
Driving into the scene is just another accident looking for a place to happen.
I admit I unloaded on the messenger instead of the message. I understand every profession has both its good and its bad members.
My comments were not directed at the particulars of this story, but rather to what sometimes seems to be an " implacable anti-cop-all-the-time types" magnet.
Of course they do. However, not a single paramedic out of the dozens that I know and regularly see at our E.R. would be so foolish as to think that he can run a code as well as an anesthesiologist whose very specialty involves life support under the most critical circumstances.
Can the gas passer even find a 4X4 on the scene?
No. That is why he has a mouth so he can say such things as "Open up some 4X4's" or "Get me a 16 guage Angiocath".
That's what I usually do when they call me to do a procedure in the E.R. or ICU and I don't know the lay of the room.
This ain't LAX, to use your metaphor, it is a grass strip. Some things the crop-duster is best qualified to do. Unless this guy has an ICU in his pocket he should GTF out of the way and let them get her there.
What exactly do you think that an ICU has that an Aid Car does not have as far as equipment?
If the patient is crashing fast (as the father was told) and the paramedic is out of his league and on the direct phone line to the ER getting suggestions from the ER doc who just happens to be in the ER that day, what good is getting a brain-dead body to the hospital?
According to the information (true or false) that the father had, his daughter "was DYING" which meant that, as far as the father knew, the paramedic "was FAILING".
Paramedics can be anybody from someone with years of field experience to somebody still very wet behind the ears. When your daughter is, according to the official inormation, "dying", you do not just sit there and let some unknown paramedic let her die because maybe he had the ET tube down her esophagus instead of down her trachea and he did not know any better because that was only the sixth intubation he had ever performed in his entire life.
Driving into the scene is just another accident looking for a place to happen.
As I said before, "driving into the scene" has not been defined.
You are correct.
An absence of people driving in?
Orderlies/security to keep the family out of the way?
More folks and stuff down the hall, access to x-ray, Cat scan, lab data, whole blood, surgical suite, and a whole lot more. If you work in a hospital you should be aware of that.
We sent our worst trauma victims to the Trauma unit at Hopkins on the Helicopter when I was a fireman in Maryland. No way the best meatwagon in the state had on board but a fraction of the resources they did, then or now.As I said before, "driving into the scene" has not been defined.
Almost hitting a helicopter? Is that close enough? How would nailing a helicopter or any of the fire/rescue personnel on the scene improve the situation, exactly?
While I can sympathize over his concern for his daughter (I'm a great-granddad myself), the guy was a hazard to everyone on the scene--and his daughter. He could have come in differently with some consideration for the safety of everyone there and if he had, he probably would not be facing charges.
Unless you are some cop-hater who thinks the cop has some little hitler thing going you would probably consider that the vast majority of cops would not arrest a parent in this situation unless the guy was way, way out of line.
Would you let some unknown guy come barging into your ER, claiming he is a doctor and a relative, shove you out of the way, and just let him take over one of your patients?
When your daughter is, according to the official inormation, "dying", you do not just sit there and let some unknown paramedic let her die because maybe he had the ET tube down her esophagus instead of down her trachea and he did not know any better because that was only the sixth intubation he had ever performed in his entire life.What official called? Also you seem to make some pretty bad assumptions about the competency of the paramedics, something which was never at issue. If she survived, they did their job in spite of him.
Like... "An anesthesiologist? You're the guy who puts people to sleep, right? Get outta here!"
Checked out the articles, enlightening.
Our chaplain responds to situations such as this specifically to deal with families and survivors an keep then as safe as possible at an emergency scene. I can not even imagine not allowing a family member access to their loved ones if humanly and safely possible. Its sad to see that so few departments provide this xervice anymore.
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