A Wakeup Call…
…for those of us who thought we shared this planet with decent, rational people: a West Virginia police chief is facing a lawsuit that alleges he prevented CPR on a gay man who had had a heart attack because the chief assumed the man was HIV-positive (he wasn’t).
Billy Snead was furiously trying to save the life of a friend having a heart attack on a West Virginia roadside in June when the police chief arrived. The chief, Mr. Snead recalled yesterday, ordered him to stop.
The chief, Robert K. Bowman of the small town of Welch, told Mr. Snead that his friend, red-faced and gasping for breath, had the virus that causes AIDS, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday. Chief Bowman grabbed Mr. Snead’s shoulder, the suit says, pulling him away from his friend, Claude Green Jr.
Mr. Snead resisted, saying he was having success. Trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, Mr. Snead tried to continue pressing and then pounding on Mr. Green’s chest.
“Every time I’d do it, he’d take a breath,” Mr. Snead said of Mr. Green yesterday….
…Mr. Green, who was 43, died at Welch Community Hospital less than an hour later. Chief Bowman, the suit said, did nothing to help Mr. Green but did tell ambulance workers and hospital personnel that Mr. Green was positive for H.I.V….
…”I don’t know if he’d have made it or not,” Mr. Snead said of Mr. Green. “I’m not a doctor. But at least he would have had a fighting chance.”
Bad enough the chief just assumes that a gay man must have HIV. But a law enforcement official ought to have enough first aid training to know that you can’t get HIV from giving CPR in a situation like this — no blood, no open wounds — especially if the patient doesn’t have it in the first place.