Law reform targeting first-responder assault misguided

I think it’s probably very difficult to find a front-line first responder or emergency room worker who hasn’t been physically attacked or threatened during their career.

In fact, I’d suggest it’s difficult to find any who haven’t been attacked numerous times.

I can think of many times when I or the other firefighters I was working with were threatened, and sometimes attacked. And I was only a firefighter for around six years, with two different rural fire departments.

Once it was a man who had fallen backwards into a narrow ditch and was also having a diabetic emergency at the same time — we could barely reach around him in the tight quarters to lift him out, while he muttered that he knew us all and would kill us as soon as he got his hands free.

When we pried him out of the gap, he started swinging. We all got a little of that.

Another time, it was a cyclist who had crashed at high speed on a curve, splitting his helmet apart. As we tried to put a neck collar on him, he also became extremely violent — not an uncommon symptom of a serious head injury.

I’ve been thrown out of the way by people trying to reach an injured relative we were treating. We even had our rescue vehicle rammed by an impaired driver who was trying to reach his seriously injured brother, who had been involved in a separate impaired collision.

The last two times were in Saskatoon, at first-aid emergencies long after I had left the fire service.

The first involved a man lying on his side near my house. When I got to him, it looked like he’d been hit by a car — a car was parked with its four-ways flashing, a woman standing next to an injured man lying on the street. Turned out, she’d stopped because he was blocking the road. She left when I arrived, eager to hand off the responsibility.

He alternated between telling me I was a great guy, and telling me “I’m going to punch your f—king head in” while I kneeled next to him on the ground.

His words weren’t the most frightening part, though: I can still see his expressions in my memory, flicking back and forth in an instant between a calm smile and absolute fury, with not even a second’s gap in between. Turned out he’d been beaten up in a fight — and he wasn’t sure at that point if I was his attacker. He swung at me a few times — but badly.

The last time? A motorcyclist who had been hit by a truck at a Saskatoon intersection. He was lying on the street in a fetal position, a long white smear of paint from the truck along the shiny shell of his helmet, only his eyes visible. They were closed. At first.

Another first-aider and I immobilized his neck, talked to him as he drifted in and out, muttering, and told him to just stay still. He struggled to his knees, then to his feet. I had my hands resting on his shoulders. I noticed the pupils of his eyes were dramatically different sizes. He shrugged off my hands — I knew what was coming.

I braced myself to get hit.

The timely intervention of a very large Saskatoon police officer made the difference in that case: just as the motorcyclist was drawing his arm back to hit me, the police officer wrapped him up in a bear hug that didn’t end until more help arrived.

The threats were a surprise — I was in no way prepared. And they’re only a shadow of what most city first responders face.

And yet, I wouldn’t have wanted to see any of those attackers charged.

Recently, the federal government has talked about changes to the Criminal Code to make attacking a first responder an aggravating factor in sentencing — and to otherwise enact stiffer penalties for attacking emergency responders.

“If you target first responders, expect zero tolerance. You should be held accountable for your conduct,” federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser told a news conference in late October. “Those who run toward danger to keep us safe deserve the full protection of the law, and we’re delivering it.

“When a firefighter answers a call, when a paramedic arrives at a scene, when a police officer steps in to stop a threat, they should never have to wonder if the system has their back. These reforms make that clear.”

Words.

Attacks on emergency workers are a serious problem, and one that’s getting worse.

But I don’t think the Criminal Code changes will make much of a difference.

I’m not saying violence against first responders should come with the turf — far from it. It shouldn’t.

But first responders are dealing with patients who are drug- or alcohol-impaired, affected by mental-health issues or with serious injuries and medical emergencies that can make patients violent.

Even normal, everyday people facing the very worst moments of their lives react in unpredictable ways.

And, honestly I don’t think the threat of being charged — or being held without bail — would have made one bit of difference to any of the people who threatened or hit me.

There’s a consistent through-line for all the attacks and threats I’ve experienced — and many other emergency workers experience. It’s that the attackers aren’t reasoning things out in any sort of normal way — I’m not sure you could even argue they had the ability to form intent.

Violence against first responders is unacceptable. Responders are injured and threatened, and trained professionals — people we all have huge investments in — leave a field where we need them the most. Sometimes they leave because of physical injuries, other times because they can’t face the continued stress and risk.

It’s a tragedy.

But in plenty of cases, it’s also understandable, at least in a cause-and-effect kind of way.

This is a long way of saying I think we have to take great care to be discriminating in who gets charged and what kind of increased penalties they face — and whether any of that will actually change anything.

I was never attacked by someone who was consciously making any kind of plan to attack me.

They were… attacking. I just happened to be the one who was there.

Unless there’s help right there on the scene, things will unfold.

Russell Wangersky is the Comment Editor at the Free Press. He can be reached at russell.wangersky@freepress.mb.ca