(no subject)

[theweaselking]

West Virginia man dies from heart attack, after police chief physically bars anyone from performing CPR on him because "he is HIV positive!"

The kickers (and yes, there's more than one):
#1: He wasn't.
#2: It's safe to perform CPR on an HIV-positive person.
#3: The cop's reason for stating that this man was HIV-positive? The cop knew he was gay, and, of course, all gay people have AIDS.

There's a lawsuit pending. The police officer denies preventing the friend from giving CPR and denies telling the ambulance crew not to risk CPR because the victim has HIV. The source of the story is known to have an entirely predictable bias, but they're careful to keep their facts straight, especially about things like what a lawsuit alleges.

Comments

Oh, for fuck's sake.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

Even though it is safe to perform CPR on an HIV+ person, as you state, betcha dollars to doughnuts that any ambulance crew is going to have one of those nifty one-way masks you can put on someone to whom you're administering CPR, in order to keep from catching, say, a respiratory infection.

My parents own a cabin in West Virginia. It's very pretty there. The people who live just down the mountain are straight outta Deliverance.

Re: Oh, for fuck's sake.

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

Hey! That's West-by-God-Virginia to all y'all yankees!

(Me? I live like 5 minutes from the border, In Maryland. Frightening, indeed. *shiver*)

Re: Oh, for fuck's sake.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

They may not like to admit it, but West Virginia split from Virginia during the Civil War because it didn't want to join the Confederacy.

That may not make West Virginians Yankees (I think you pretty much have to be a New Englander for that), but it's a lot closer.

I'm a native Marylander myself. That state never can decide whether it's northern (Baltimore) or southern (Charles County).

Re: Oh, for fuck's sake.

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

By all rights, WVa shouldn't exist...there's this section in the constitution about creating states from bits of other states, and how that's not an option unless said state gives consent. I seriously doubt VA gave consent, seeing as how we were considering ourselves seceded at the time.

Re: Oh, for fuck's sake.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

Did the seceded states consider themselves bound by the previous contitution, then?

Re: Oh, for fuck's sake.

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

It doesn't matter whether they did or not, the Union didn't consider the CSA a valid foreign entity, and considered the states in question still part of the Union, and bound by the Constitution.

Re: Oh, for fuck's sake.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

They said a lot of times they didn't consider the CSA a legal entity, but in many ways they acted as if it were.

Re: Oh, for fuck's sake.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

Ambulance crews always have them. My husband even got one when he was just a trainee.

Re: Oh, for fuck's sake.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

I figured as much. The firefighters who did our CPR/AED training showed us the different kinds and told us where we could buy our own. My first aid kit doesn't have them, so I'm going to get some separately.