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Today I encountered an accident. A woman, who was a little worst for wear, fell over and cracked her head on the pavement. I rushed over to help along with another guy who'd been closer to her. Now I've encountered this sort of situation a couple of times before (with accidents of various seriousness), but am still rather poor when dealing with it. The woman had a fair bit of blood pouring from her head and was rather confused what with the fall, a bit of shock and her general drunkeness. My main response, other than being slightly bewildered, was to call an ambulance and hope someone else dealt with the situation at hand. Luckily a couple of medical students happened by who were far more equipped to deal with the accident. Now I know medical students can get a lot of stick, but I have to say that I was very impressed by these two. They had the right combination of dealing with the injury whilst also reassuring the woman and getting useful information from her. Doing things like trying to reassure and calm the person and even offer them a coat (which they did as it was still very cold) are common sense, but left my brain when really needed. All I could do was stand around sheepishly waiting for the ambulance to arrive. This highlighted to me how inadequate my own abilities were, but hopefully I've learned something for the next time.