Labadi Accident: Was the Victim Dead or Alive?

A Daewoo long truck with registration number GE 4831-22 carrying club beer on Tuesday October 24, 2023 crushed into a building occupying the La Dadekotopon office of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) at Labadi.

The accident which occurred just few meters away from the Labadi police station saw some destroyed properties and unfortunately, a woman believed to be in her late 20ties was reported dead as a result.

Officers of the Fire Service, the Ghana Police Service and the Ghana Ambulance Service were immediately deployed to the accident scene afterwards.

However, the circumstance surrounding her being referred to as dead are as mysterious as anything.

It is not clear when and how she was pronounced dead.

Live facebook footages of happenings at the scene during the alleged rescue of the victim/casualty suggests that the actions and inactions of the personnel might have rather killed the individual involved in the accident.

The voice commentary of the officer accompanying the rescue effort as captured in the live Facebook page of the National Fire Service is rather incriminating should a court action be taken against the state by the family of the alleged deceased lady.

The facts according to the video shows that, 3 Fire officers and 6 bystanders helped in pulling out the casualty from the rubble.

They further proceeded into the barricaded road and that was where the police officers opened up the body bag and the motionless body of the casualty was placed in and zipped.

Officers of the Ambulance Service were seen standing by for a lack of a better word, like stooges unconcerned without working within their jurisdiction to ensure that the woman in question was taken into the ambulance and cared for by giving her oxygen, checking for pulse or even examining her to know whether her pulse was functional or not.

The emergency team did not even perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation less to even talk about rushing her to the hospital. From observation, the team negligently declared her dead through their actions and inactions as shown in the facebook live.

In effect, they just stood like spectators and watched as the innocent woman was taken straight and placed in the Coprse Body Bag provided by the police.

The public needs to know at what point of the rescue exercise the victim was pronounced dead especially when the commentator said the actual condition of the casualty is not known.

Best Practice

From a conventional point of view and according to best practice elsewhere, paramedics like ambulance crew members cannot declare or certify death.

The physician/ licensed medical doctor only must issue or certify the death of anyone because of the protocols they have to follow in doing that, and this evidence goes to buttress the point that if you are not a physician, or within the law of medicine you cannot declare someone dead.

For instance, a woman was declared dead in the UK by the Ambulance crew, only to wake up later and protest the claim of her being dead.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/uk-woman-wakes-up-in-hospital-after-being-declared-dead-by-ambulance-crew-4487089/amp/1

With that statement secured, all are encouraged to read the guidelines for determining whether the patient is eligible to be called dead or not by the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges and compare that to the video watched or pictures seen.

The protocols requires that, when you have been asked to confirm the death of a patient, you should observe the patient for a minimum of 5 minutes by a qualified personnel.

To ensure that all the neccesary steps are followed, the use of a systematic A to E approach is required:

Airway / Breathing – Auscultate the lungs for >1min
There will be no respiratory effort and no audible breath sounds.
Circulation – Palpate for a pulse for >1min and auscultate the heart for >1min
There will be no palpable central pulse and no audible heart sounds*
Make sure you check for any palpable cardiac pacemaker
Disability – Check for a pupillary response and check for a motor response to pain
Following 5 minutes of continued cardio-respiratory arrest the patient’s pupils will be fixed, dilated and unresponsive to light.
There will be no response to a painful stimulus. This can be tested by applying supra-orbital pressure and looking for any motor response.
Exposure – The patient may be peripherally cold (depending on the timing of your assessment)
*In a patient who had been monitored, you may also notice continuous asystole on the cardiac monitor.

In a patient who has an arterial line, you can observe an absence of pulsatile flow.
As there’s a difference between sane and insane, so is there a difference between dying and death, you may be dying, but you aren’t dead yet and you could be saved looking at the timing and if the resources and protocols work.

From the above protocols, the ministry of health should as a matter of urgency initiate an immediate investigation into the conduct of all 3 institutions involved in the Labadi accident rescue mission.

The outcome of this investigation must be taken serioiusly and where somedoby is found culpable, the law must take its full course.

Many innocent lives might have been lost in the past as a result of total disregard for laid down life saving protocols.

The inhumane negligence on the part of some professionals who have a duty to save lives must not be allowed to continue. The time to act is now!

Source: Eagleghana