Solidarity Not Charity
The StreetMedics
1529 York Street
Denver
CO
80206
US
Trainers@streetmedic.org
doc@streetmedic.org
Denver-Training-Collective@streetmedic.org
Medic.Trainers@aimmedics.org
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You're among thousands at an antiwar demonstration when police start using pepper spray and firing tear-gas grenades. You're choking and blinded. People around you are shouting and panicking. Ordinary fire and rescue services are standing idle--they are instructed never to enter areas until police declare them secured, and to tear-gas a crowd is to define it as insecure. Who will help?
The StreetMedics. A band of volunteers with varying levels of medical credential but all specially trained in the treatment of the injuries most common at demonstrations. StreetMedics walk purposefully alongside frightened crowds, urging them to "walk!" (they never shout "don't run!" knowing some people will hear only the word "run!"). They move in buddy pairs, carrying medical supplies and wearing eclectic uniforms--a fishing vest with MEDIC and a star of life emblazoned on the back or a jacket with a Red Cross made of duct tape.
At protests dating back to the '60s StreetMedics have led to safety those blinded by "chemical weapons". Once in a safe area, the medics treat victims by flushing their eyes with water. In some cases they administer MOFIBA.
Walking with the crowd yet apart from it, communicating with each other via handheld radios, ready to provide water for heat exhaustion, bandages for cuts, even moleskin for blisters, StreetMedics have been there to help at every major gathering of dissent from the Selma Montgomery March with Dr King to the recent anti-globalization actions.
In skill level they range from medical doctors to EMTs to herbalists and acupuncturists to laypeople who've gone through a 24 hr "street medic basic" training. (In addition to tear-gas treatments and basic bandaging and splinting, the core lessons of such training are: Do no harm, provide treatment commensurate with your skill level and help anyone regardless of politics, but only with their consent.) The street medics are organized into collectives world wide like Colorado StreetMedics (the oldest and the heir to the very first group - the Broome Street StreetMedic Collective which started in '67)Boston's BALM Squad, The Amsterdam StreetMedics,the Glasgow StreetMedics, London StreetMedics, Montreal StreetMedics, Portland's Black Cross Health Collective,Heartland Action Medic Response(HAMR), and DAMN [the DC Area Medics Network] .
At a demonstration, medics of all stripes and organizations gel, into one working collective. New medics introduce themselves by saying they were trained by "Annie" by "Doc" (Doc and Annie are the two original Trainers going back over 40 years but still active as trainers and front line StreetMedics) by "Pavlos",by "Ari", by "Louisa" or by "Delylah." No one asks for clarification, much less last names--street medics all know who those people are.
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In addition to patrolling the protests, street medics run pre-march workshops to educate demonstrators on basic health and safety. They emphasize the obvious, like wearing good walking shoes, getting a good night's sleep before a rally or march and not showing up drunk or on narcotics. And they highlight the less-obvious: Don't pick up tear-gas grenades to throw them back, because they are hot enough to cause severe hand burns. If pepper-sprayed or tear-gassed while wearing contact lenses, remove them immediately or risk serious eye damage.
Even in the days after a demonstration, street medics are still working: conducting debriefings, checking that everyone is safely out of jail and resupplying themselves. The bulk of costs are absorbed by these volunteers themselves. To them costs seem worth the rewards.
"to make a safe and healthy space for people to express their dissent"--particularly in times when expressing such dissent seems both unusually important and unusually risky.
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