Mercy Flight to land at UMMC parking lot for critically injured child

God Bless

I ask that you use a higher level of sensitivity when children are involved.

We didn't report anything until Mercy Flight was dispatched. When Mercy Flight lands in the city, people want to know why. Our first obligation is to local readers. It is our obligation to tell them what is going on and why. We will continue to do our best to live up to that obligation.

Lori I understand your concern but you need to lay off the drama a little bit. I highly doubt that the parents were anywhere near a computer at the time of this drama. Also in order for responders to go to a scene and determine that an airlift or emergency transport is needed usually alot of communication has already occured, between the people responsible for the child and the responders.

As for your secondl point. You have to err on the side of caution in almost all cases of emergency response it's better to triage for something more severe and have it not be as bad rather than not take the medical condition seriously and have a fatality occur.

If responders need to decompress...believe me they know how to turn off a phone, find a quiet place and do so. With this being their career choice most of their relatives spouses and friends know better.

Third the responder's job is to assess and treat the person they are there for, crime scene, details of the scene (other than those that directly apply to medical treatment and stabilization)is secondary to their primary job and concern, to save a life. No one expects a medical responder to be paying attention to anything else but their patient. Thats what police detectives and crime scene investigators do, if they can remember then its a bonus but when I did emergency response I was trained to tune out alot of the conversation and focus on what applied to the victim, what had happened to them and what medical info was pertenent to keep them alive until they reached facilities that can take over to help heal them.

Responder's first priority is always to do what is sometimes the impossible....to stabilize and keep a victim alive until they can reach a facility for advanced medical care.

I hope your being heartbroken over this story is an overdramatization, because if it isnt then the normal everyday world is gonna chew you up and spit you out.

All that was given in this news release was an intersection of 3 roads in Bergen and that it might be a 6 yr old boy that was involved.... Pretty sterile imho

I will not debate either of you on respect and sensitivity. I would hope you would both understand and respect a life alterring event that involves a child. Howard you and I have had this discussion before with another pediatric call. It was proven that a parent did not receive notification for a period of time. You pulled the article.

To Kyle.....I will not debate erring on the side of caution because I agree it is important to patient care. I however disagree with you on sanctity of privacy, never underestimating the possiblity of a crime scene or respect of family and responders. If you don't go in to a scene with the thought that it could be a crime scene whether it is either EMS or Fire then you are old school in your thought process. I wont debate you because we clearly wont agree. I have spent decades in EMS and Fire and I haven't been chewed up... please don't plan on it happening in the near future.

My request is simple......Respect the privacy of the family.....don't assume anything because you weren't necessarily there.......and realize that in this day and age that all parents of kids aren't necessarily at the scene or easily notified. My prayers to the family.....

Again more drama..... I will make a point of fact that no privacy was violated as a name or even exact address was ever mentioned or published.

Speculation and what if's arent reality.

Lori Ann - I appreciate and admire the degree of your sensitivity. That being said...
Kyle - I agree with you. Further, we're going to pick at the news with regard to the rights of free speech?

I don't think anyone here has been insensitive. There are different points of view. All parties seem very interested and concerned. Thank you for that.

For the record, Lori has scrubbed her 3:11pm comment. I note the change because the scrubbing undercuts the context of subsequent comments.

I am sorry that Lori (her choice) is no longer a part of our discussions. Her comments, whether I agreed with them or not, were always thought provoking.
She has a history of standing by her convictions. She has won some battles, and like the rest of us, lost a few too.
The current habit of dismissing anything anyone presents with a personal conviction as "drama" is getting old and condescending.
We've lost a wonderful voice on this site. I hope, someday, she will change her mind and come back.

Lori didn't quit over anything Kyle said. She quit because I don't agree with her position and wouldn't delete the story.

Howard,
I appreciate Lori's passion for fighting what she perceived to be a serious problem just as I understand why you wouldn't delete the story.
The comment about 'drama' was more general than just associated with Lori's concerns. Labeling a comment as "drama" reduces the validity of someone's opinion. "Move along, nothing to see here, just another drama in the making.".
There are other ways to bring another side to the thread without dismissing a comment as irrelevant

One of the unfortunate consequences of defined groups, once the group defines itself, it develops a group mentality. Some people refer to this as 'cliquey behavior.' As 'The Batavian' has matured, it has become a clique. It behaves as a uniform entity with the intent of preserving its own identity- an identity that may include diverse members, however, like a family, any diversity is tolerated as one tolerates the tics of certain family members.

Everyone who posts here recognizes the status quo. With a fair degree of accuracy, regulars can anticipate the opinions and reactions of any other regular poster. On the same token, new posters or occasional posters are afforded a degree of xenophobia and held at arms length. It's a group dynamic, fairly predictable and often a harbinger of climax (no growth- not termination).

'The Batavian' is defined by those who post on it. When the group is threatened by criticism, individuals act out of defense and reprimand the scolder. Instead of being taken at face-value, the opposing viewpoint is reacted to as hostile and taken personal- treated as a threat.

The message to the rest of the world is: stay away; these people don't want us here. ...Sort of like entering the Town of Elba where the population is 'just right.' ...Or a college radio station where the jocks all like the same music and refuse to play anything else. Eventually, it is no more or less than a private club; which conflicts with the notion of a public news medium.

Bea I'm not dismissing the point per se....as I have had alot of contact recently with a 9 yr old step grandson and have seen in it my stepsons as well. There are some circumstances where people "overdramatize" things to get more attention paid to them or any number of other reasons. Like when the 9 yr old has something like a pair of scissors he grabs off a desk while his grandmother is working. He doesnt readily give them up and when they are taken from him he will whine that his grandmother or myself "hurt" his fingers and he needs to go to the hospital. Things like that arent really things to be encouraged.

Looking back several times to what Howard published I dont see where any privacy was violated in any way shape or form. So to base a whole response on indignation on something that really wasnt there seemed overly dramatic to me.

It is why I believe the opposite of your opinion that labeling a comment as drama isnt reducing it's validity at all. Its just that it is what it is.....

It was announced that Mercy Flight would not be using the hospital anymore for its helicopter due to safety concerns. So if I saw the copter coming into the hospital now, I would be wondering what extraordinary event called for the exception to policy. The fact that it was a child just clears it up, but there is no loss of privacy.

C.M., while your analysis of group behavior in online communities -- this has more or less been my profession for more than 15 years -- is accurate, it is totally not applicable to this situation in specifics, and I also reject the notion that it applies to The Batavian as a whole.

It doesn't apply to this specific case because the initial three people involved in the discussion -- Lori, myself and Kyle -- would all qualify for "part of the clique" (to put it in your terms). Lori is one of the original members of the site and has posted frequently, though limited to the issues of interest to her; Kyle, while not a member as long as Lori, has been around for a while and has commented frequently on a wide range of topics; and, me, well ...

As for Bea jumping in later ... well, that's Bea.

So there was no "clique" behavior in this case.

Further, we continue to see new names pop up in comments from time to time and the ratio who stick around and become more frequent commenters fits within the range of the 9-1-1 rule, so nothing unusual there. And with one recent exception, I haven't see a clique mentality be used against any new comers.

That one exception is somebody who has come across, rightly or wrongly, but understandably, as a political operative sent here specifically to drive an agenda for a political candidate. Given the nature of how this transpired, it's not surprising the group would behave toward him as it has, but then he's proven himself more than capable of sticking up for himself, and I'm sure if he continued to hang out here and expanded his range of discussion, he would be just as welcome as anybody else.

I just happened to be thinking about this topic three or four days ago and thinking to myself how we've avoided some of the cliquish behavior that has defined other online groups I've been exposed to in my career.

Howard, your policy against personal attacks has been very successful in preventing out and out flames; it has not prevented some of the 1st and 2nd degree burn victims, who haven't the patience for arguments (for lack of a better word) from leaving.

I attribute the stamina of The Batavian to your careful management of belligerent behavior (and your professional care-taking of the site as a whole), but it would be less than forthright to ignore the group dynamics which I characterized as a clique.

I care about The Batavian, think it's a valuable facet of the community and don't want to leave the impression I am trashing it. For what it's worth, while I was campaigning last year, I offered the site as a venue to get acquainted with my position on various issues. Many people had heard of The Batavian- most of whom visited the site for news. As to posting or reading reader posts, the vast majority felt the comments were, ummm, provocative.

Now it is good sense to realize that provocative sells papers- whether subscribers agree or not. Non-agreement might even sell better than agreement. I rarely agreed with William F. Buckley, but I watched Firing Line none-the-less.

I didn't read Lori's comment. It must have been deleted before I viewed the thread. I can't say as I agree with her recommendation to pre-emptively censor news. I do, however, consider the characterization of her concern as "drama" to be unnecessary.

lol, at "that is Bea".
I didn't comment when I first read this because I didn't feel it was necessary.
When Lori chose to leave our "family", I posted to the thread because I will miss her here.

Kyle
I'm sorry, using the analogy that anyone posting distress over any situation is acting like a nine year old who has to be discouraged from repeating that behavior is condescending. JMHO

I'm just a little confused, why read the news if you don't like what you read. The Batavian is a news site, and whether the news is triumph,or tragic, it is news, and if Howard doesn't write the story, someone else will.

LOL Sorry Bea I dont mean to be condescending at all I see the behavior in my two stepsons as well.... 21 and 25.

We try to keep a drama free household here but some of the things they bring in are just....well a similar kind of situation as the one with Lori. The perception they have of a situation isnt always the reality. One sometimes has to get over gut reactions and use reason in a common sense way. I am not sure if you saw Lori's original post. But it wasn't imho a borderline drama situation but a "rant" if you will on how Howard posting this article was a violation of privacy for the parents, child and emergency responders, even to the point of her saying that before the responders do their job of saving a life they must consider the crime scene and keeping it pristine as well as how they must not "listen" to people at the scene as they may become confused when they have to testify to what happened at the scene.

Just seems like she expanded the rather sterile post on this incident Howard published into a huge soap opera of upset parents, inept ems and heartless reporting of facts by our esteemed :P publisher. I felt the drama label was justified.

I will accept the poor choice of the word drama.... That I can do but I didnt really see anything else to call it.

But honestly she brought in her own words "Privacy" and a comment on "preserving the crime scene" and an assumption that Howard's posted article would bring the need for either the parents or first responders a need to unwind without the persistance nagging friends and family would bring to bear in relation to the article.

All these things to me seems a bit overdramatic creating a whole scenario the really projected a bit too much from what the article said. No mention of names and only a vague location....no betrayal of privacy. Mention of an earlier emergency call involving a 6 yr old from a location near the airlift site....again no real identifying info or reference that anything criminal occurred... and so on. If you didnt see the original post from Lori then you cant really make a determination (Sorry CM) But as I said I will have to look to improving my lexicon of words so I can find a less offensive term than drama I guess, the other choices that came to mind seemed much more insulting when I wrote my response.

Kyle,
Post whatever you like, using whatever words you feel appropriate.
I'm not sure what issues you are facing at home, but we are not your children and we shouldn't be discouraged from posting until our behavior meets with your approval.
We are all members of this site. There are times when passions run high. You call it drama, I call it having the right to express an opinion.
btw, I did read the original post before it was edited.
I had no idea, at the time, that it would end up with Lori chosing to leave this site. As I stated, in my first post, she has offered many thought provoking posts. I will miss them.

Kyle, try 'histrionic' next time. It's drama without the 'drama.'