By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

HEALTH Minister Dr Duane Sands yesterday bemoaned the recording of a video that captured the distress of a bloodied woman who later died.

The woman, identified as Zephenia Dean, died on Saturday.

Dean is said to have punched through a glass window at a home, lacerating her right arm.

In the one-minute video shared across social media, the woman is in a daze and is seen lying on the ground outside the home, screaming in pain as blood spews from a deep wound on her arm; a man tries to comfort her by telling her to stay still. As the woman bleeds out, no one in the video renders much assistance. 

Dr Sands posted this on Facebook: “EMTs make sure that the airway is safe and the breathing okay. Then they apply direct pressure to the bleeding point. Sometimes a compression dressing is enough. Other times, a tourniquet may be needed.”

He told The Tribune: “Social media has brought advances but it has also brought out some very negative traits of humanity. We now videotape and WhatsApp instead of administering first aid or comfort. The dignity of a human victim is less important than the number of likes gained from their misfortune. There is no prettying this up. We have collectively lost our way.”

The woman, he said, may have survived if bystanders offered assistance. “It is possible but indeed they may not have known,” he said. “The issue is that the device used to videotape also has a browser that can be used to Google or browse explicit directions with pictures or videos.”

That view was echoed by a Facebook user who described himself as Dean’s cousin. “The same phone y’all pulled out to record my cousin taking her last breath y’all could have used that same phone to find out how to stop the bleeding!” he wrote.