British police medic uses nightstick to treat his involuntary patients

Justin McKeating asks: “Now, I’ve never had any medical training so can someone more knowledgeable please tell me what the above procedure is called and what it’s used for in a medical capacity?” (via, Why That's Delightful!)

Discussion

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That's percussive maintenance.

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#2 posted by Anonymous, April 10, 2009 10:14 AM

Well, he is a police medic - not a protester medic...

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if someone wearing a Red Cross picks up a gun during war, they become legitimate targets.

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#4 posted by Anonymous, April 10, 2009 10:20 AM

It's called drumming up business.

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#5 posted by Anonymous, April 10, 2009 10:20 AM

Really, I'd have thought it was obvious. Just take a look at the appendix to the hypocritic oath and you'll find it there

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I wonder if any of the GOOD cops in the UK have any concerns about their international reputation being that of mindless half-zombie thugs?

Or have all the good ones already been driven out?

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The recession has been hard for everyone. Even the police medics are expected to go out and find new clients themselves.

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He's throwing a leg splint! Maybe that nightstick didn't connect to anyone? Or he's not going for blood? I think that patch just let's police know he is trained to handle medical situations where as regular cops have less training? Maybe just a classification?

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A police medic is just a normal cop with some medical training. So he can beat all the meat he wants.

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I think there's something about nightsticks in the hypocritical oath.

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He's obviously performing CPR using a chest compression enhancement device.

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See Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan: it's called a "medical truncheon".

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I wonder how the Red Cross feel about that use of the medical designation. This may be a fairly serious international crime, whatever the rules are in the UK.

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The Subgenius calls it "acubeating."

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#15 posted by Anonymous, April 10, 2009 10:43 AM

That is radical cranial resuscitation
ref: http://www.hackcanada.com/canadian/zines/spacemoose/pileum.gif

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Obviously. . . it's a rectal thermometer.

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It's an approved and accepted medical treatment for Luxans.

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Hm... Apparently this is just fine because the cross on his back is not red on a white field.

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#19 posted by Anonymous, April 10, 2009 10:49 AM

The man he was treating had some free speech stuck in his throat. The medic was just trying to dislodge it.

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#20 posted by Anonymous, April 10, 2009 10:55 AM

What is the copayment for "a sound thrashing"?

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#21 posted by Anonymous, April 10, 2009 10:59 AM

precision operation the wakastiktomy... usually only used in cases of extreme innocentitis.

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He's obviously trying to let the demons out of the protesters' heads.

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#13: you're exactly right.

But really, why shouldn't medics have some fun too? I mean, you spend weeks in cop school and then find out you can't injure the public with impunity? I think it's very courageous that he's rebelling against the oppressive system that keeps medics from realizing their dreams.

Alternatively, I guess you could say he's taking charge of the supply chain.

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yeah, I'm use the Red Cross appreciates the fine distinction. Asshole move, UK police, asshole move. The slippery slope you tread for a microscopic gain in available manpower shows a mentality that can't be trusted with public safety.

Police can only work with public consent. They are vastly outnumbered and ultimately out-gunned (even in the UK). They can function to a limited extent when they have replaced public respect with fear, but when they cross the line into public hatred, things fall apart.

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Bludgeon therapy

or

Medicine: you're doing it wrong.

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#28 posted by Anonymous, April 10, 2009 11:23 AM

Neither the phrase "police medic" or a white cross on a blue field are protected emblems. The do, indeed only imply that ther copper in question has taken some medical training, not that he is either a doctor or protected under international law.

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I'm not sure this deserves a LOLtag, except as amended by /sarcasm.

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I believe that medical procedure is called a freedomectomy. It's typically performed on people with chronic cases of Civil Rights.

The standard tissue blungeoner shown above is used throughout most of the UK, with the exception of Irleand where they uses medicinal shelalees.

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" now open your mouth, say AAAAAHHH"

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#33 posted by Anonymous, April 10, 2009 11:44 AM

forget about the nighstick, as its standard PD equipment. What about the sap gloves? To me it looks like he anticipated fighting, and decided to buy a new set of gloves with a bonus 6 ounces of lead powder for hippie head crackin.

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Actually, there's a real medical procedure that involves breaking a patient's face. It's called a LeFort procedure and is used for patients with severe facial anomalies. LeFort fractures are common facial fractures seen in injuries. Facial surgeons create controlled breaks in the patient's face in order to rearrange the facial structure for deformities like mid-face hypoplasia or eyes set way out to the sides. The original research consisted largely of dropping skulls face-first.

On a lighter note, when you have a nose job, the doctor more or less sticks a screwdriver up your nose and yanks it side to side to break it.

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creating patients?

^m^

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He's clearly an anaesthetist.

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"you may feel a small stick"

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#38 posted by Anonymous, April 10, 2009 12:11 PM

Well, I don't know about the police, but when I was a medic in the army, we were expected contribute (shoot the enemy).

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He's just testing protesters' reflexes.

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Müllerian mimicry

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It's called "Job Security"

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I understand that devices of a similar nature were used by doctors in the Victorian age to cure women of "hysterics". Does it come with batteries?

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#44 posted by Anonymous, April 10, 2009 1:55 PM

Notice the other cops wearing slickers? It isn't raining; they just want to keep the blood off their uniforms when that guy connects.

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From the same day, here's 2 police medics doing their thing:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigcrustyape/3406023407/sizes/o/

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Um, FYI, you appear to be using someone's photo without permission/attribution: the original is here http://www.flickr.com/photos/amjamjazz/3406353191 and All Rights Reserved...

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A police medic is just a normal cop with some medical training. So he can beat all the meat he wants.

What he does at home after his shift isn't the issue in contention, here :p

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#49 posted by Anonymous, April 10, 2009 4:39 PM

He's beating out an alcohol fire. The "victim" is actually burning and is quite grateful.

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Girl 47, it's fair use.

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#51 posted by Anonymous, April 10, 2009 5:12 PM

What has happened to the UK? It's as if they have read books like 1984, and V for Vendetta and decided that it what they were shooting for all along.

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I think he's handing that dangerous weapon to someone behind him. People could get hurt with it.

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@Xopher #50: I'm no legal expert but regardless of this picture being seen in a 'review' context - and therefore open to a "Fair Use" description - shouldn't the originator of the photo still be credited and/or linked here?

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He's a Police Medic, not Protester Medic. He's practicing preventive medicine.

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#55 posted by Anonymous, April 10, 2009 6:05 PM

I believe that this is a Punch and Judy reference, no? In Neil Gaiman's version, the "medicine" that the doctor applies to Punch is a beating with his stick.

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Well,

Thank goodness his jacket isn't labeled, "Police Proctologist".

Bad-a-bing.

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@17

Excellent Farscape reference...

Beat'em till the blood runs clear.

Best show ever.

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#58 posted by Anonymous, April 10, 2009 6:39 PM

the procedure is called blunt object trepanation, and can cure a variety of ills most notably aggression. it does so by releiving pressure of too much blood in the cranium by creating small cracks in the skull. this is a very old and effective procedure.

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It's simply a make work project. Now move along.

Plus, now they have easy spin to the media...'we had a medic working on him'.

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Xopher @ 6: "Or have all the good [cops in the UK] already been driven out?"

No, there are a few left. But they've all been transferred to Sandford for making the others look bad.

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#62 posted by Anonymous, April 10, 2009 8:21 PM

In medicine we talk about procedures as being diagnostic (e.g. colonoscopy) or therapeutic (e.g. appendectomy). I came up with a third category: punitive, e.g. gastric lavage for overdosers. The gentleman pictured here has developed a new punitive procedure; he could probably write this up and get it published in Lancet.

Another punitive procedure: getting to do a Captcha to preview AND to post.

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Police medics often follow the old adage, "a good defense is a strong offense," as can be seen here by the medic proactively eliminating the "threat" to his fellow officers. Well done, medic.

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Tak@26:

That's obviously been Photoshopped. When you read the police reports, it was the crowds who were so unruly that the police were unable to get him help.

In the video you can clearly see it's the protestors themselves who move the crowd, not by swinging a truncheon but by actually telling the masses "Hey, back the fuck up - this guy is having a heart attack". And the people respond.

It's almost like... if you use your words instead of shoving people around, they'll actually react voluntarily in the manner you wish!

And since we know thats bullshit... it's all shooped in that one.

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#67 posted by Anonymous, April 11, 2009 6:52 AM
It had all started with demands for a more militant and homogeneous police force, for greater technical resources in general, and for more firearms in particular. To get this it had been necessary to exaggerate the hazards that policemen faced. Since verbiage had not proved politically effective enough, recourse had then been made to another method: namely, the manipulation of statistics.

At this juncture the political demonstrations during the second half of the sixties had opened up magnificent possibilities. Demonstrators pleading for peace had been suppressed by violence. Hardly ever armed with anything but their banners and their convictions, they had been met by tear gas, water cannons, and rubber nightsticks. Few were the nonviolent demonstrations that had not ended in tumult and chaos. The individuals who had tried to defend themselves had been mauled about, arrested, and prosecuted for "assaulting the police" or "resisting arrest." All this information had been fed into the statistics. The method worked perfectly. Each time a few hundred policemen were sent out to "control" a demonstration, the figures for alleged assaults against police had rocketed.

That's from the Locked Room, written in 1972.

The Blair regime, and the Brown one that followed it, have really increased the scope of this kind of thing (Jacqui Smith barely bothers to cloak her totalitarian designs), but similar things have been happening in the UK since the 1960s. The Battle of the Beanfield is an excellent example.

The same is true of the US.

The police are at least as much of a problem as they crime they are supposedly controlling (even when the police aren't actually being bribed to look the other way by criminals: that being an example of regulatory capture) just like the critics of Sir Robert Peel predicted when Peel created the Metropolitan Police Force.

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I'm not a big fan of the policing of protests in London, and I've been the victim of police kettling in 2001, but the police medics were on hand almost immediately to treat a man who collapsed next to me for no apparent reason.

I doubt that they are as quick to come to the aid of people who's skulls they've just cracked though. They seem to be for medical emergencies only.

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#69 posted by Anonymous, April 11, 2009 10:46 AM

Looks to me that the cross is only designating where his kit is, not the officer himself. teh white cross on green or blue background is a common symbol for kits. As long as he isn't wearing a blue star, or the scepter and snake (whole new meaning to it now) I don't see him as any different than any cop. just to throw in a devils advocate response, consider for a moment that the officers are acting out of fear. they do their jobs, or get fired, and in the current conditions, there may not be another job, or even if there was, who would hire an ex-cop. many of them probably were trained by officers who lived in the days of the IRA terrorists, and expect any mob to end up in a gunfight. Its a mob mentality gotten out of control, with no moderating influence. I'd also suspect that stress has a big affect on how the police reports are written, as even if the officer is trying to be honest, they do not have a clear picture of what happened. An experiment for you to try, get a painball gun, preferably automatic or with a high rate of fire, an approved mask, and a pair of coveralls. get someone to shoot you so your brain understands the pain, and links it to the sound. wait a couple of hours, let the adrenaline rush drop off. Now, get the other person to shoot at you, try to hit you while you hide behind something that might protect you, and try to do a soduko, or a memory puzzle. it helps if you have to run to new places while under fire.
When you are in danger, a lot of your "higher" brain functions get dropped.

"never attribute to Malice, that which can be as adequately explained by Stupidity."

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how do you know they weren't just lifting his wallet?

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Takuan, thanks again for the links. I have less and less time each day to be a part of this community or even read the news. Your links are very important to at least one.

Starting to tend bar a few nights a week at a beer bar, 40 taps of liquid pleasure and adult company, plus tips. Good job for a insomniac. Don't tell anyone, but I'd probably do it for free to get out of the house without the boys.

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hey, take the kids to work and teach 'em a trade!

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let's see, looks like the heroic cop backhands the woman and THEN smashes her in the knee with a club... what do you think?

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