How to Break the Bystander Effect
They could have left it to someone else. An Army veteran blocked a shooter in Oregon from entering his classroom. Three friends on a high-speed train from Paris to Amsterdam helped stop a gunman wielding an AK-47. This past spring, an Army captain in North Carolina pulled a couple to safety after a fiery car crash. Were these men instinctively courageous, or had they learned to be? The Army captain (aptly wearing a Captain America T-shirt) credited his military training for knowing what to do and remaining calm.
Singapore bystander CPR rate 'extremely low', Health News
SINGAPORE - Wedneday's report ("Motorcyclist, 38, dies in Braddell Road accident") about a 19-year-old student who performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on a road accident victim clearly demonstrates that people are prepared to help others in need and try to save lives. The student's actions should be highly commended. Providing bystander first aid in the form of CPR, using an automated external defibrillator (AED) and trying to stem external bleeding are all forms of positive action meant to save lives.
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If you see someone in distress, will you help them? We all like to consider ourselves to be good people, but when we’re caught in the moment, we freeze. What is the bystander effect? For more than 50 years, psychologists have observed this phenomenon again and again in experiments and in real life. The research overwhelmingly shows the more people that are present when there’s an emergency, the less likely they are to help.
New York Today: The City’s Bystander Effect
Good morning on this clear Monday. The first time I dialed 911 in New York was on a subway platform at 42nd Street — last week. A woman was bleeding on her head and neck; she had fallen on the stairs between the platform and turnstiles. Some passengers hurried past her. Others stopped to look and moved on. Several took out their phones — not to call for help, but instead to record the scene.
Off-duty SCDF paramedic jumps to aid of a jogger who collapsed along Woodlands Drive, Singapore News
SINGAPORE - An off-duty paramedic leapt to the assistance of a male jogger who collapsed along 1 Woodlands Drive 64 on Tuesday morning around 8am. The male paramedic, who was passing by, attempted to resuscitate the middle-aged jogger, who had no pulse and was not breathing. The Singapore Civil Defence Force said in a statement on Facebook that they received a call for ambulance assistance at 8:05am, and dispatched the nearest available ambulance. The SCDF said the off-duty paramedic "administered Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) while asking a member of public to get an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) from a nearby school." "Two shocks of the AED were administered by him to the patient as part of the cardiac arrest resuscitation procedure before the SCDF ambulance arrived.
What is the Bystander Effect and How Can We Overcome it? - DefibsPlus
You may think that you are more likely to receive life-saving care if you experience a Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) in a crowd or busy area – but the opposite is actually true. This is due to the bystander effect; a natural phenomenon where the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely any individual is going to act to provide help. It’s a complex phenomenon but one we actively need to combat in order to support people in distress. Understanding the Bystander Effect When an emergency situation occurs, people are more likely to take action if there are fewer people around.
TODAYonline
I refer to the news reports of the fatal traffic accident on Sunday (Dec 29) at Lucky Plaza. I applaud the Good Samaritans who unselfishly helped to lift up the car, pulled the victims out and attended to them. These are acts of true heroism. They encourage us to lend help to accident victims when needed and show that there are still compassionate people who don’t respond to accidents by whipping out their phones first to take videos and photos to circulate to their friends. In Sunday’s incident, one of the first things a bystander could do was to rush to the nearby Mount Elizabeth Hospital Accident and Emergency Department to seek help, as it would have the necessary medical equipment and trauma specialists on duty.
What Is the 'Bystander Effect' and How Do People Overcome It?
This story appeared in the June 2020 issue as "Action!" Subscribe to Discover magazine for more stories like this. On April 9, 2017, three security officers from the Chicago Department of Aviation forcibly removed David Dao from an overbooked United Airlines flight. Dao, a 69-year-old doctor, was dragged down the plane’s aisle after he refused to give up his seat.
A country of bystanders
In 1968, U.S. psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latane conducted a famous experiment. They created a situation in which it appeared as though someone was having an epileptic seizure to see how many people would offer help to a person in an emergency situation. According to the scientists’ observations, the probability that a bystander lent a hand to the person in trouble was 85 percent when there was only one person at the scene.
straitstimes
SINGAPORE - Mr Syed Zukarnain and his wife were giving a lift to a man and his pregnant wife who were heading to the hospital to deliver their baby. But caught in morning traffic, the baby girl simply couldn't wait - she was born in their car, 15 minutes away from Singapore General Hospital (SGH). The 46-year-old document controller detailed the experience in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
Reducing the Bystander Effect
As discussed, there are a number of factors that magnify the Bystander Effect. Fortunately, there are also a number of factors that weaken it. Once again, factors can be divided into characteristics of the situation, and of the people. Situational characteristics Dangers of the incident The perceived danger of intervening in a critical situation has the greatest influence in reducing the Bystander Effect.
How tech can combat the bystander effect
The responsibility to help during an emergency falls on anyone present and capable of lending a hand. While there may be occasional good Samaritans who are able to aid, more often than not, the main responsibility falls on emergency respondents to step in. Understandably, the shock of witnessing a mugging, hijacking, terrorist attack or even a car accident can leave a bystander paralysed with shock and uncertain about what to do, or even fearful of getting involved altogether. A harrowing, often-cited case in point is the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese – a New York woman was stabbed to death outside her apartment while dozens of witnesses reportedly heard her crying for help, and not a single one stepped into help or even called the police. While recent investigations have called into question just how many witnesses there were at the scene, the fact is that no one offered to help or even call for qualified aid.
