Speaker 1: All media.
Speaker 2: Sometimes there is a topic that is too big for
Speaker 2: just one podcaster. Sometimes a simple medical podcaster, a simple
Speaker 2: wartime journalist can't handle a topic on their own. They
Speaker 2: need to combine forces. A special team up has to happen.
Speaker 2: And that, my friends, is what's happening today on this
Speaker 2: special crossover edition of the House of Pod and it
Speaker 2: could happen here in hop Ich Hoppitch special myself, doctor
Speaker 2: cave Hote Hope I'm saying the correctly and James Stout
Speaker 2: are going to be talking to you along with two
Speaker 2: very special guests about what's happening out there in the protests,
Speaker 2: what risks the protesters are facing, what health concerns we
Speaker 2: have for them, how they can best prepare and more.
Speaker 1: James, Hey, buddy, Hey, it's nice, nice to be podcasting
Speaker 1: with you again.
Speaker 3: You really enjoy our team ups here, our special Marvel
Speaker 3: team ups that we do.
Speaker 1: It's a fun one. You're my favorite collaborator.
Speaker 2: Cove Hey, I'm going to take that as total sincerity,
Speaker 2: even though I'm not entirely sure. So I thank you
Speaker 2: for that. Yeah, because I think that sounded sincere enough.
Speaker 2: I like these I like you me too.
Speaker 3: I do too.
Speaker 2: Let's introduce our guests. We have some very special guests.
Speaker 2: I will actually ask you guys to introduce yourselves. Let's
Speaker 2: start with you, Miriam. Can you tell us a little
Speaker 2: bit about who you are and what your background in
Speaker 2: this field is.
Speaker 4: Sure, Hi, I'm Miriam. I use she or they pronouns.
Speaker 4: My background in the field of podcasting is that I'm
Speaker 4: with the collective Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, which puts
Speaker 4: out the podcast Live Like the World Is Dying, as
Speaker 4: well as the podcast Strangers and a Tangled Wilderness and
Speaker 4: the spectacle. And my experience in the field of what
Speaker 4: I think we're here to talk about today is that
Speaker 4: I've been a street medic for over a decade, which
Speaker 4: means I've treated a lot of injuries on people who've
Speaker 4: been messed up by interactions with police.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're going to talk about this more, but
Speaker 2: my first question is is it pretty much ninety percent
Speaker 2: or more violence from the police that you encounter. Do
Speaker 2: you ever encounter anything else, like violence amongst protesters themselves
Speaker 2: or something else that happens along the way, or is
Speaker 2: it solely what you're experiencing is treating violence from the.
Speaker 3: Side of the police.
Speaker 4: So that's a good question. It is mostly violence from police.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it is violence from non state affiliated or at
Speaker 4: least not on duty fascists so you know, you're proud boys,
Speaker 4: you know, other people like that, or just generally sort
Speaker 4: of hostile right wing actors. Sometimes it is also, you know,
Speaker 4: sort of underlying medical stuff more so, like somebody has
Speaker 4: been out at the march all day and they didn't
Speaker 4: bring their medication with them and so they're having a
Speaker 4: sea sure, and you know, then there's also environmental stuff.
Speaker 4: You hate, stroke, your hypothermia, you're I was running to
Speaker 4: catch up with the march and I stepped off the curb,
Speaker 4: weird ow, you know, stuff like that. But in terms
Speaker 4: of violence, yeah, it's it's mostly coming from the cops.
Speaker 4: I've I've certainly never seen a friendly fire incident of
Speaker 4: violence amongst amongst protesters. I'm sure it could happen, but
Speaker 4: but I have not seen it. I have seen people
Speaker 4: that I'm in the streets with or wherever with attacked
Speaker 4: by by people who wish them harm, who are people
Speaker 4: from the state or you know, like I said, not
Speaker 4: currently on duty as cops, but you know, basically cops.
Speaker 2: No, I'm digressing too far, and I need to introduce
Speaker 2: her other guests. But I have another follow up question
Speaker 2: and I need to ask. I'm so curious, please, have
Speaker 2: you ever had to take care of, say, someone on
Speaker 2: the other side who's been injured.
Speaker 4: So as anybody who works in any kind of emergency,
Speaker 4: you know, medical response will tell you. Anybody who's an
Speaker 4: EMT or even anybody who's like a lifeguard, the first
Speaker 4: thing you do before you approach a patient is established
Speaker 4: scene safety. So if a Nazi has been hurt, it
Speaker 4: is not safe for me to approach that patient because
Speaker 4: there's a Nazi over there.
Speaker 2: I see, Okay, I think I'm picking up what you're
Speaker 2: putting down on that one.
Speaker 3: So it has not happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah, anybody who is acting as a street medic is
Speaker 4: acting under what it called a good Samaritan laws, you know,
Speaker 4: which protects you from any kind of bad outcome. If
Speaker 4: you start taking care of somebody, you know, start helping
Speaker 4: somebody out in the streets based on whatever training you.
Speaker 3: Have, you know.
Speaker 4: Same thing like if if somebody collapses at a bus
Speaker 4: stop and you start doing CPR based on the Red
Speaker 4: Cross class you took, that's good Samaritan stuff. Same way,
Speaker 4: it does not obligate you to intervene, especially in approaching
Speaker 4: somebody who is actively seeking to do you harm. So
Speaker 4: I would not consider that within my within my lane.
Speaker 3: Understood.
Speaker 2: Well, let's introduce our second guest. We have doctor Richard Pharaoh,
Speaker 2: who is a doctor in the Los Angeles area and
Speaker 2: is a family practice physician.
Speaker 3: May I call you Richard? Uh? Yeah, you may? Okay,
Speaker 3: very good, Richard, welcome to the show. Thank you very much.
Speaker 5: Goby, it's a pleasure to be on. You know, you
Speaker 5: kind of mentioned it already. I'm Keelly medicine. I've also
Speaker 5: experienced in street medicine in the LA area. Also, you know,
Speaker 5: this is obviously something that's really important to me right
Speaker 5: now given everything that's been going on in the city,
Speaker 5: and also important for me just giving the fact that
Speaker 5: I'm a Latino, I'm a proud Coasta Rican Cuban, and
Speaker 5: just that's part of the huge reason why I'm in medicine.
Speaker 5: So I'm really happy to have an opportunity to talk about,
Speaker 5: you know, the ice protests and the stuff that's been
Speaker 5: going on to protect our community.
Speaker 3: That's great to hear.
Speaker 2: Can you tell us a little bit about what you've
Speaker 2: been involved with recently down in Los Angeles.
Speaker 5: So I as far as what I've been involved in
Speaker 5: Los Angeles, you know, I've been coordinating with some of
Speaker 5: my colleagues who I knew from residency and just other
Speaker 5: colleagues just who are all involved in social justice, as
Speaker 5: well as the CIR, the Physicians Union, you know, who
Speaker 5: are engaged in trying to like provide medical support to
Speaker 5: the protests in the area. So I've had experience working
Speaker 5: on some of the protests that have occurred both in
Speaker 5: LA and OC.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really good to hear. I think people will
Speaker 1: have been spending a lot of time like watching footage
Speaker 1: the protests right in the last I know what we
Speaker 1: weekend now, Fuck knows, it seems like a long time.
Speaker 1: I haven't been sleeping very much.
Speaker 3: Give her take eight to twelve years.
Speaker 4: Time has meant nothing. Yeah, March of twenty.
Speaker 1: Twenty, Yeah, yes, exactly. Yeah, it is flat sixteenth, twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: and here we are. I people would have seen a
Speaker 1: lot of people get hurt, right And I, like I said, journalist,
Speaker 1: like I was in LA last week, you kind of
Speaker 1: tend to get towards the more violent end of things
Speaker 1: because that is our job. Most people who go to
Speaker 1: protest don't get hurt, right, And I don't want people
Speaker 1: to hear anything we're saying today and think, oh God,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get fucked up, because most people don't
Speaker 1: get fucked up. And like my STUNTI is that you
Speaker 1: don't fight fascist because you think you're going to win
Speaker 1: or you think you might not get hurt. You fight
Speaker 1: fascist because they are fascists. And sometimes people do get hurt.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the ways that people get hurt.
Speaker 1: Either of you is welcome to answer this, but like,
Speaker 1: what are some of the common mechanisms of injury that
Speaker 1: you see when you are out there street medic king,
Speaker 1: when the cops are out there hurting people.
Speaker 5: I would say that like in terms of the things
Speaker 5: that we would typically see, I just want to start
Speaker 5: off by saying, like, absolutely, we're not out there just
Speaker 5: because we know that we're going to be successful in
Speaker 5: any type of advocacy. If that was the case, then
Speaker 5: we wouldn't have that many people. You know on that front.
Speaker 5: You know a lot of people know that it's you
Speaker 5: might be losing ground, but you're not there because you're
Speaker 5: trying to when you're doing it because you know that
Speaker 5: you want to be on the right side of history.
Speaker 5: You want to do the thing that you believe to
Speaker 5: be morally right. As far as like the type of
Speaker 5: injuries that you would typically see, I think in order
Speaker 5: to answer this question, I would kind of break it
Speaker 5: off into two sections, Like you have mainly protests that
Speaker 5: have not evolved into violent confrontations with law enforcement, and
Speaker 5: you have protests where things like you know, for instance,
Speaker 5: riot control agents have been deployed in like the like
Speaker 5: the non you know, dangerous side of things, like you
Speaker 5: might have the kind of stuff that you would encounter
Speaker 5: in any sort of major events. You know, you're going
Speaker 5: to deal with dehydration, You're going to deal with people
Speaker 5: who are, like in an overcrowded areas that might you know,
Speaker 5: accidentally fall hit and trip over one another. In those
Speaker 5: kind of circumstances, you know, when we enter into the
Speaker 5: space where you know, riot control agents are being involved,
Speaker 5: the quote unquote less lethals non lethals, which I'm going
Speaker 5: to kind of go into later, is a bit of
Speaker 5: a non a misnomer. In those circumstances we look at
Speaker 5: like chemical exposure to things like tear gas, you know,
Speaker 5: there's a lot of different ways that that manifests that
Speaker 5: type of exposure, and we can kind of get into
Speaker 5: that a little bit as well. And then also we
Speaker 5: have you know, projectile weapons like rubber bullets, you know, flashbangs,
Speaker 5: those type of things that you might encounter, you know,
Speaker 5: like sort of blunt trauma to people's bodies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you'd like to add, Miriam.
Speaker 4: I mean, first of all, like you're doing great out there.
Speaker 4: Good for you for being out there. It's a hell
Speaker 4: of a time. There's regional variation, I think to some
Speaker 4: of the stuff that we see. So I am based
Speaker 4: in New York City, not you know, not all of
Speaker 4: this the work I've done has been in New York City,
Speaker 4: but most of it has And in New York City
Speaker 4: we don't have tear gas. They just don't do it
Speaker 4: here because the police found out after plowing tear gas
Speaker 4: extensively during the RNC that the thing about tear gas
Speaker 4: is it gets sucked into vents, and when it gets
Speaker 4: sucked into vents, it gets on all kinds of people
Speaker 4: in the subway and in buildings, and that that causes
Speaker 4: lawsuits and the NYPD does not enjoy that, so they
Speaker 4: use pepper spray instead, because pepper spray is more directed,
Speaker 4: it doesn't linger in the air the same way. You
Speaker 4: hit the people that you are trying to hit, you know,
Speaker 4: and anybody else who's walking by, and also your buddies
Speaker 4: who are standing next to you, because you fired into
Speaker 4: the wind, which is always a good time.
Speaker 1: Any such cases, Yeah.
Speaker 4: So many, There's a there's a whole series of what
Speaker 4: we are calling locally pepper pigs, which are pepper pigs.
Speaker 4: It's what you think it is. So yeah, we see
Speaker 4: a lot of a lot of pepper spray. We also
Speaker 4: because one of the primary weapons of the NYPD are
Speaker 4: just sheer, overwhelming numbers, we see a lot of of
Speaker 4: just direct hands on violence, just cops hitting people, punching people,
Speaker 4: throwing people to the ground. We see a lot of
Speaker 4: very rough takedowns. Now if you're you know, acting as
Speaker 4: a street medic and in that situation, you don't get
Speaker 4: to treat those people because if they are taking down
Speaker 4: by a cop, that they are then swarmed by many
Speaker 4: other cops and they get taken away, then that's something
Speaker 4: that we might see when we meet that person later
Speaker 4: at jail support. But the other weapon that we used
Speaker 4: to see quite a bit, but haven't in more recent years.
Speaker 4: Is the l RAT, which is a sound cannon. They
Speaker 4: do still use it, but they use it to like
Speaker 4: make announcements and annoy people. They use it to like
Speaker 4: make obnoxiously loud announcements, but not to blast out people's
Speaker 4: ear drums, which was sort of its weaponized form. We
Speaker 4: haven't seen that recently though police will will you know,
Speaker 4: they all carry tasers. You don't tend to see a
Speaker 4: lot of that at protests, but it's certainly something that
Speaker 4: we're constantly aware that they have the ability to do.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it is here. It's mostly pepper spray, nightsticks, fists, knees,
Speaker 4: you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: I would assume that a lot of what they'd do, like,
Speaker 2: for example, tear gas was, to my understanding, first developed
Speaker 2: in World War One, really to cause confusion amongst the enemy.
Speaker 2: And what I assume a lot of these things that
Speaker 2: they're using, the sound canons is to create panic and
Speaker 2: confusion and hopefully get people to run and move in mass,
Speaker 2: unorganized ways. And I wonder if you're seeing crush injuries,
Speaker 2: if you're seeing injuries related to just the people moving
Speaker 2: and being scattered around and running in different directions. Is
Speaker 2: that something that you have seen in this process, either
Speaker 2: of you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, just real quick, like to the first thing
Speaker 4: you said, the absolute like the purpose of every place
Speaker 4: weapon is to cause fear. One of the reasons that
Speaker 4: I think they so often use things like tear gas
Speaker 4: and pepper spray when they could simply choose to not
Speaker 4: is like one, because they have it because their budgets
Speaker 4: are outrageous and they have, you know, all the weapons
Speaker 4: they could ever dream of, and why not, you know, well,
Speaker 4: we have it. But I think that the other reason
Speaker 4: they use it is because it does freak people out.
Speaker 4: It scares people, and so you know a lot of
Speaker 4: people have had like a big dude shove them before.
Speaker 4: You know. That's like not a super unfamiliar situation. It's
Speaker 4: not a great situation. People don't like it, but they
Speaker 4: kind of they're familiar with it. They're familiar with the
Speaker 4: concept getting sprayed by a mysterious chemical that makes you
Speaker 4: feel a thing you've never really felt before. That's a
Speaker 4: lot scarier, and you don't know what's in it. You
Speaker 4: don't know what's on your body, you don't know why
Speaker 4: it hurts the way it hurts, like you just know, like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, I guess, I guess this is what tear
Speaker 4: gas feels like. I guess this is what pepper spray
Speaker 4: feels like. It's frightening. And yeah, people absolutely get hurt
Speaker 4: running away. It makes it difficult to see. Like squeezing
Speaker 4: your eyes shut is like a very immediate reaction. So
Speaker 4: people run, They lose whoever they were at the action with,
Speaker 4: they get separated from their group, they get disoriented, they
Speaker 4: may be having trouble breathing. They may be panicking because
Speaker 4: they're having trouble breathing. Then they're having trouble breathing because
Speaker 4: they're panicking, you know. So yeah, you do absolutely see
Speaker 4: all of that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I really want to second what what
Speaker 5: Miriam has been saying here. You know, as far as
Speaker 5: like the most common agent that you see in tear
Speaker 5: gas in the United States at this time, it's believed
Speaker 5: to be agent CS. And this is something, like you mentioned,
Speaker 5: it was developed right around the time of World War Two.
Speaker 5: They started like be coming into effect the the in
Speaker 5: like the late fifties. A point of thought for this
Speaker 5: is it was actually made legal for use in warfare
Speaker 5: in the nineties by the Geneva Convention. So you don't
Speaker 5: see the US or other armies like using this on SOULDI,
Speaker 5: but we're using it in protests.
Speaker 4: Well you don't. You don't necessarily see the US military
Speaker 4: following the Geneva Convention.
Speaker 3: Okay, well we can. That's a fair point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of the walls of low ta gas is one
Speaker 1: that it is walls of low Those wool people do
Speaker 1: be using ta gas sometimes, but yeah, they shouldn't be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you're right.
Speaker 2: Is first in the Geneva Conventions in nineteen twenty five,
Speaker 2: but then nineteen ninety seven specifically it was prohibited. The
Speaker 2: thought behind that is they did it because they didn't
Speaker 2: want someone to get one gas and not know exactly
Speaker 2: what it was and then use the really nasty stuff
Speaker 2: like sirm gas, et cetera. And the reason our police
Speaker 2: are able to do it on our protesters is because
Speaker 2: they're pretty confident that our protesters don't have when they
Speaker 2: use siren gas, so they feel they feel free to
Speaker 2: use it at our But speaking of sound canyons and
Speaker 2: disturbing noises being shot into your ear holes, commercials will
Speaker 2: be right back.
Speaker 3: All right, we're back.
Speaker 1: We should talk about noxious gases. There has been this
Speaker 1: persistent rumor. I don't just mean in the last like
Speaker 1: ten days, there's been a persistent rumor every time that
Speaker 1: people have been tear gassed that this time the cops
Speaker 1: are using super tear gas, special tear gas, cancer tear gas.
Speaker 1: To be clear, like the effects of tear gas on people,
Speaker 1: especially to my understanding, like people who menstrate, are fucking
Speaker 1: long term and nasty. So let's just address like what
Speaker 1: are the reagents in tear gas and what are some
Speaker 1: of the outcomes we can expect short term and long term?
Speaker 1: And then do we suspect that the cops are using
Speaker 1: super tier gas this time?
Speaker 5: Well, I guess in terms of like the agent, like
Speaker 5: we kind of mentioned it a little bit ago on AGENCS,
Speaker 5: the more complicated long name oh klaura laden melanitril. So
Speaker 5: it's actually it's so that's absolutely the kind of thing
Speaker 5: you talk about in dinner conversations. But the compound itself,
Speaker 5: it's actually not in a gas form. It's actually a solid.
Speaker 5: It's a crystalline substance that's released that's aerosolized after any
Speaker 5: type of like explosion from you know, a grenade or
Speaker 5: canister and it's as far as you know the types
Speaker 5: of things that you will experience. It takes effect in
Speaker 5: the first twenty sixty seconds of contact with the body.
Speaker 5: It's a nucleophilic substance, so that means it will adhere
Speaker 5: to tears, it'll adhere to moisture on your skin, like sweat,
Speaker 5: any type of like saliva or mucus, and like the
Speaker 5: first things you'll typically notice are the tearing, the redness, burning,
Speaker 5: blurred vision in your eyes. Specifically on your skin, you
Speaker 5: could develop burns or rash. A contact dermatitis has also
Speaker 5: been associated with a development of this on your skin,
Speaker 5: burning irritation in your mouth. You can also devel running
Speaker 5: knows the more kind of more serious long term effects
Speaker 5: that can be more systemic. You can actually develop shortness
Speaker 5: of breath, wheezing, or chest tightness. You can also develop
Speaker 5: nausea or vomiting if you ingest much of it while
Speaker 5: you're in the protest and you kind of already brought
Speaker 5: it up as well. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot
Speaker 5: of systemic research that has been done on the impacts
Speaker 5: of agents like cs that are in tear gas on people,
Speaker 5: but we have a couple of things that have come
Speaker 5: up about pregnancy outcomes. We do see increased rates of
Speaker 5: uterine cramping, menstrual bleeding, breast tenderness, and delayed menstrual cramping
Speaker 5: as well in pregnancy. We also don't know how well
Speaker 5: it crosses into breast milk, so you know, it's this
Speaker 5: kind of challenging question, and the CDC is official like
Speaker 5: stance on it is this idea that like they don't
Speaker 5: believe that it crosses. But again, we don't have that research,
Speaker 5: so we can't know for sure.
Speaker 1: Great cool, good thing to be fogging Loud City blogs with.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well we don't know everything it does, so probably
Speaker 4: some of it is fine, you.
Speaker 2: Know, James, when you're mentioning how it keeps coming up
Speaker 2: and there's these concerns of there being like a cause
Speaker 2: and cancer. We have no proof of that right now,
Speaker 2: but I mean we really don't know, so it is
Speaker 2: a little concerning long term, especially journalists like yourself who
Speaker 2: are exposed to it a lot, so that that is
Speaker 2: something I would love to see.
Speaker 3: But I mean, how you're going to study.
Speaker 1: It, you're going to find that, Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: Rfka Junior might who knows it might be like, we're
Speaker 2: not funding real research anymore like vaccine.
Speaker 1: So if we get on the right podcast, we could
Speaker 1: probably make that happen.
Speaker 2: So before we move off of the gas, let's just
Speaker 2: talk about treatment of it and what you guys, what
Speaker 2: you will do out there in the field someone comes
Speaker 2: to you, and let's try to address some of the
Speaker 2: most common misconceptions about what you should be treating or
Speaker 2: how you should be treating.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, ready to go. Since forever, there have been
Speaker 4: like rumors that there are these I think because of
Speaker 4: sort of the way that it is mysterious, like the
Speaker 4: cops have these, like, you know, containers of this awful poisonous,
Speaker 4: magical potion that they spray on you and then we
Speaker 4: have to find the antidote. So things that I have
Speaker 4: heard as being good for tear gas and pepper spray
Speaker 4: include raw onion, lemon juice, apple cider, vinegar, coca cola, avocado.
Speaker 2: Far it sounds sounds like a nice.
Speaker 4: Great actually, and then the classic milk as well as maylocks.
Speaker 4: My personal favorite is when somebody like jumps into correct
Speaker 4: somebody on milk and it's like no, no, no, actually
Speaker 4: it's milk of magnesia, not regular milk.
Speaker 1: So oh, you got to get it from a which is.
Speaker 4: What you actually do is flush out the eyes with water.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's it. That's the only thing. It's water.
Speaker 4: The number of things that should go into a human
Speaker 4: eye are basically water and any medicine that is designed
Speaker 4: for the human eye, and saline solution. I guess you know.
Speaker 4: And definitely you could do an eye flush with saline.
Speaker 4: It's just that if you have sailine in your bag,
Speaker 4: it weighs just as much as water, and you can't
Speaker 4: drink it when you get tired. You can and what
Speaker 4: you can, but it's not recommended, and you can't refill
Speaker 4: it from a tap.
Speaker 3: You can drink anything, James, if you know a cow.
Speaker 4: But if you have a bottle of water, you can
Speaker 4: do a bunch of eye flushes, and then when it
Speaker 4: starts to run low, you can refill it from a
Speaker 4: tap because that has water in it too. It's very
Speaker 4: readily availed water in most places. And all of the
Speaker 4: other things that are out there that people will tell
Speaker 4: you you should use, you should not use. I have
Speaker 4: never seen any good evidence that any of them are
Speaker 4: better than water at getting pepper spray or cheer gas
Speaker 4: out of your eye. All of them are kind of
Speaker 4: predicated on this idea that there's like a chemical reaction
Speaker 4: you are trying to affect. And then that is sort
Speaker 4: of further based on the idea that the reason this
Speaker 4: stuff hurts is because it is acidic. Because I think
Speaker 4: people think, like, what's a chemical that burns acid? Right?
Speaker 4: These are not acidic. That is not how they work.
Speaker 4: They are chemical irritants. And you don't want an acid
Speaker 4: base reaction in your eye anyway.
Speaker 3: You want to be doing chemistry experiments in your eye.
Speaker 4: You actually usually wear goggles when you do chemistry experiments.
Speaker 4: I'm not like a chemist.
Speaker 2: But meerium water sure is great. But what about all
Speaker 2: that fluoride you're getting into your eyeballs? Have you thought about.
Speaker 4: That that'll prevent eye cavities?
Speaker 3: Richard? Anything else to add to that?
Speaker 5: I know, I think you hit the nail on the head,
Speaker 5: and I think that when when I look at what
Speaker 5: physicians typically recommend in terms of response to your gas,
Speaker 5: I always think back on the doctor Glockham fleckin thread
Speaker 5: that became very popular on on switter.
Speaker 3: I'd be very interested to hear what your thoughts are.
Speaker 5: We're on that on that miriam I think like one
Speaker 5: of the things that tended to come from from that
Speaker 5: particular thread because he does have experience as as an ophthalmologist.
Speaker 5: He mentioned washing your eyes with baby shampoo and rinsing copiously,
Speaker 5: I think like the challenge with that is obviously, like
Speaker 5: what Miriaman mentioned, one, water saline are the better options
Speaker 5: for for irrigating your eyes, especially after exposure. For one,
Speaker 5: the fact that it's you know, you never know what else,
Speaker 5: like it's it's better to avoid any other type of
Speaker 5: irritants that you could, you know, be exposed to your eye.
Speaker 5: Also the fact, like we already mentioned, the fact that
Speaker 5: the agents into your gas they're nuclear filth, meaning they're
Speaker 5: attracted to water. So by using water itself, you are
Speaker 5: effectively going to help to irrigate it. And you know,
Speaker 5: we typically recommend anywhere upwards in twenty minutes for that
Speaker 5: type of exposure. And then as far as I'm not
Speaker 5: sure if you mentioned milk already, Mary.
Speaker 4: Milk counts me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we can't mention it enough.
Speaker 3: Eyeball cheese.
Speaker 1: We cannot mention eyeball cheese.
Speaker 5: Is the let's let's think about what the context of
Speaker 5: where we are in a protest. It's very typically outdoors
Speaker 5: for many hours, usually in summertime. Exactly like the idea
Speaker 5: of putting this uh you know, this this culture on
Speaker 5: people's eyes, like I think.
Speaker 6: Far too many is the yogurt actually yogurt as well,
Speaker 6: you may as well go and get some geg Greek
Speaker 6: yogurt and pour it on their eyes, so you know,
Speaker 6: it really gets back to the idea of like constant irrigation.
Speaker 5: Clean water is perfectly fine. If you have water at
Speaker 5: the protest, usually the best thing to do is have
Speaker 5: the type of water bottles that have like a flip
Speaker 5: off cap, so that way you can easily, you know,
Speaker 5: pour it over their face and then recap it for
Speaker 5: later use on someone else or yourself. I think the
Speaker 5: other thing too that's really important to discuss is, you know,
Speaker 5: because it's this solid aerosolized substance, it can sometimes adhere
Speaker 5: to your clothing, so you know, there's a couple of
Speaker 5: different approaches, you know. Physicians for Human Rights has a
Speaker 5: PDF that I strongly encourage anybody who's listening to review.
Speaker 5: If you find yourself in the position of either being
Speaker 5: a protester at a protest or being a medic at
Speaker 5: a protest, they recommend if you've been exposed it to
Speaker 5: your gas to hang your clothing afterwards in a heavily
Speaker 5: ventilated place for up to forty eight hours. If you're
Speaker 5: not able to do that, placing your clothing in a
Speaker 5: plastic bag, including your shoes, outside and not mixing it
Speaker 5: with any of your other non exposed clothing is the
Speaker 5: ideal response afterwards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll add when doctor Glockinflecken was on our show
Speaker 2: talking about this back during George Floyd, we discussed it
Speaker 2: and the other thing that he recommended, and he is
Speaker 2: actually not just a very very funny internet person, he's
Speaker 2: also a very good ophthalmologist. And he also recommended initially
Speaker 2: when it happened, soon as you can blink rapidly that
Speaker 2: really helps initiate the tear response. You're still gonna need water,
Speaker 2: but it's going to help start get that jump started
Speaker 2: for you, and it's going to require a lot of water.
Speaker 2: About one to two leaders is generally what people will say.
Speaker 2: So it's hard to have that much with you on
Speaker 2: hand when you're out there protesting, but if you're able to,
Speaker 2: I feel like water is one of the more important
Speaker 2: things you can bring with you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So to the thing about the baby shampoo. First
Speaker 4: of all, yeah, I think the recommendation with that is
Speaker 4: to wash the skin around the eyes with the baby shampoo,
Speaker 4: not not directly in the eyes, but that that's like
Speaker 4: a less harsh way of removing the chemicals from the
Speaker 4: skin there, because you would definitely wash skin with soap
Speaker 4: and water, but I could see maybe using like a
Speaker 4: gentler soap directly around the eyes. That makes sense as
Speaker 4: far as like my technique with doing an eye flush
Speaker 4: in the streets, a continual twenty minute irrigation just is
Speaker 4: not feasible.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 4: Sometimes at big actions, you know, medics will set up
Speaker 4: clinic spaces, tents, stuff like that, and occasionally, very occasionally
Speaker 4: you can do the like true gold standard of eye irrigation,
Speaker 4: which is twenty minutes of continual saline irrigation, where you
Speaker 4: like have a bag of saline like in a hospital,
Speaker 4: and you plug it into a nasal canula and you
Speaker 4: tape that to the bridge of the nose and just
Speaker 4: let the person lie down. That works, but like it's
Speaker 4: just not feasible in most street situations. So what I
Speaker 4: do is I will basically I'll put on gloves. I
Speaker 4: will get consent because you know, anytime you're treating somebody
Speaker 4: who's been brutalized by the police, you are like you
Speaker 4: are treating an assault victim, and you should prioritize their
Speaker 4: consent as much as you can, so I, you know,
Speaker 4: do a quick like, hey, what's up. My name's Miriam,
Speaker 4: I'm a medic. Can I help you? I guide them
Speaker 4: out of the area of immediate danger if they can't see,
Speaker 4: and then I flush first one eye twice, and then
Speaker 4: I have them blink a whole bunch, and then the
Speaker 4: other eye twice, and I have them blink a whole bunch,
Speaker 4: and then they're usually able to open their eyes and
Speaker 4: navigate safely on their own. Sometimes they need another round
Speaker 4: with that, especially if I didn't you know, if I missed,
Speaker 4: you know, if it's dark and there things are moving
Speaker 4: around and I miss the eye or something. But usually
Speaker 4: that gets enough out that they are going to be
Speaker 4: able to navigate the situation. And because they are tearing
Speaker 4: a lot, that's part of the flush too, right, the
Speaker 4: body is doing that on its own and flushing too
Speaker 4: much with water. I think in that initial moment, you're
Speaker 4: just washing away tears at that point, So doing like
Speaker 4: a first round of like forceful of forceful flush. You know,
Speaker 4: you're really like using a forceful stream to push the
Speaker 4: chemicals out. And then Okay, their eyes are open, they're
Speaker 4: still in pain, and like that's just gonna last for
Speaker 4: a while. Your eyes are going to continue to hurt,
Speaker 4: and like that sucks. You've been harmed. Somebody did a
Speaker 4: harmful thing to you, and you are going to continue
Speaker 4: to have pain for a little while. But if you
Speaker 4: can see that, your immediate danger is reduced and you
Speaker 4: can get out of there, and you can, you know,
Speaker 4: in a calmer moment, maybe do another couple eye flushes,
Speaker 4: maybe you know, use soap and water on the face,
Speaker 4: clean up a little bit, and like be a little
Speaker 4: bit happier with how you feel. But my priority in
Speaker 4: the immediate moments after somebody's been spread is to like
Speaker 4: help them so that they can get out of there
Speaker 4: if they need to, because they probably do.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, speaking of things that will make you tear up,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm terrible. Commercials, stay tuned, will be right back, beautiful.
Speaker 1: All right, we are back, and I guess let's talk
Speaker 1: about rubber bullets or various impact nations, and then let's
Speaker 1: talk about how people actions people can take to keep
Speaker 1: themselves a little bit safer. Right, understanding that you are
Speaker 1: not the one who gets to choose if violence arrives
Speaker 1: at your protest. The cops are. And we're recording this
Speaker 1: on Sunday like date in June, and people had their
Speaker 1: big No Kings March yesterday. They were largely like, extremely nonviolent,
Speaker 1: and they still got attacked by the cops in La.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about impact munitions, right. One thing we
Speaker 1: didn't mention actually was pepper balls. I've had the a
Speaker 1: combo yeah right, I've had the ill fortune and receiving
Speaker 1: some pepper balls in the balls. Oh yeah, very uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Cops will try and shoot you in the grin.
Speaker 5: I had a colleague who encountered this just a few
Speaker 5: days ago.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. They had fucking so like, there's no Yeah,
Speaker 1: it happens with such frequency that you'd have to be
Speaker 1: really trying to believe that it was an accident. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about things that can hit you. Right, If
Speaker 1: we start with pepper balls and then move on up
Speaker 1: to like what people call rubber bullets, which I think
Speaker 1: baton rounds is like a more technical description of what
Speaker 1: they are, or mark a rounds for a big foam
Speaker 1: or rubber things that hit you. Sometimes they leave a
Speaker 1: little puff of chalk on you, and theory like that
Speaker 1: identifies you for the cops to arrest you. I guess
Speaker 1: in practice it's just another thing that they can use
Speaker 1: to smash into you. But like, let's talk about some
Speaker 1: of these things that the cops can shoot from their
Speaker 1: little guns. Bean backgrounds is another one, right, that comes
Speaker 1: out of a shotgun, and it's what it sounds like, right,
Speaker 1: it's a being bad traveling very fast. Somebody here in
Speaker 1: San Diego lost their eye to one of those in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. But let's talk about some of these impact
Speaker 1: munitions and like what the potential risks are for people there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that, I mean, just the one point
Speaker 5: I want to bring up in terms of these they're
Speaker 5: often called in the media non lethal and or or
Speaker 5: quote unquote less lethals. Yeah, and I think that what's
Speaker 5: really important to recognize, and you kind of already hinted
Speaker 5: to with James, people have been killed with rubber bullets,
Speaker 5: plastic bullets. We actually have. Amnesty International did a report
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty three that you know, showed that over
Speaker 5: the course of about five years, you know, dozens of
Speaker 5: people have died as a result of the use of
Speaker 5: rubber bullets. We show that between eighteen seventy two to
Speaker 5: nineteen eighty nine, just in Ireland, sixteen people were killed.
Speaker 5: In Palestine, between eighty seven and ninety three, twenty people
Speaker 5: died just from the use of Robert bullets. And you
Speaker 5: know that's reports. We don't know how many in truth
Speaker 5: actually were impacted by that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I would also add the British Medical Journal back in
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen looked at about two thousand little bit or
Speaker 2: two thousand people who had been affected by these projectiles,
Speaker 2: and three percent actually did cause immediate mortality, and then
Speaker 2: fifteen percent was long term chronic injury or illness or
Speaker 2: some sort of being maimed from the event. So yeah,
Speaker 2: you're exactly right. It's pretty significant, especially with the number
Speaker 2: of these that are shot. You know, they don't have
Speaker 2: to keep record about how many of these they shoot.
Speaker 2: So actually, one other question I have for you, Richard,
Speaker 2: that you could help answer to one in la did
Speaker 2: you see them shooting these things? And you would kind
Speaker 2: of allude to that you felt that they were actually
Speaker 2: directing them towards you. Did you feel that, being there
Speaker 2: as a medical professional, that you were being targeted.
Speaker 5: I myself was fortunate and not hit by a rubber bullet.
Speaker 5: From witnessing my colleagues who were actually there present at
Speaker 5: this protest, they themselves were hit with HERR bullets below
Speaker 5: the navel. He had previous experience from an earlier protest
Speaker 5: that week where he had actually been strugging. The thing
Speaker 5: he told me that I remember is like, I'm never
Speaker 5: going to one.
Speaker 1: Of these things.
Speaker 5: I'm prepared again. Yeah, because he did have that situation
Speaker 5: where he was kind of hit closer to the groin,
Speaker 5: so we ended up wearing I remember he was wearing
Speaker 5: a kind of a fanny pack for this particular protest
Speaker 5: that we were at, and you could very clearly see
Speaker 5: the dust marks, like the chalk marks of the bullets
Speaker 5: struck on this on his on his fanny pack. Yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, it's it's definitely something that we noticed. Many
Speaker 5: of the other medics at this event commented that they
Speaker 5: had been previously struck or targeted once the police began
Speaker 5: firing rubber bullets. As far as we fortunately we didn't
Speaker 5: see anybody who was struck you know, closer to the face.
Speaker 5: But there were reports after the No King's protest yesterday
Speaker 5: that you know, several people had been struck in the
Speaker 5: eye or on the forehead. There was one picture I
Speaker 5: think earlier from earlier this week, that one of the
Speaker 5: reporters in downtown LA had been struck with a non
Speaker 5: lethal foam round directly in his forehead and it was
Speaker 5: this you could see this very clear, enormous wealth the
Speaker 5: size of like a grapefruit, Yeah, and bleeding and it
Speaker 5: was it was, you know, very clearly like aiming above
Speaker 5: at the face.
Speaker 4: In these cases, Yeah, there was a huge number during
Speaker 4: the Chilean protests in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, eye injuries
Speaker 4: were huge. There were hundreds. There's a there's a club
Speaker 4: somewhere of journalists who've lost eyes to rubber bullets. I
Speaker 4: think they call themselves the Cyclops Club or something. They're writers,
Speaker 4: they you know. But yeah, like, these things are incredibly dangerous,
Speaker 4: and eye injuries especially are really common. Yeah, they are
Speaker 4: less lethal only in that it is less likely to
Speaker 4: kill you than being shot with live ammunition. But like
Speaker 4: most things, are less likely to kill you than live anue.
Speaker 1: Okay, grizzly barry is less likely to kill you.
Speaker 2: My friend Rebecca Watson says, you know, Samurai blade is
Speaker 2: less lethal than AK forty seven, but it's still not
Speaker 2: something you want them to have.
Speaker 1: Yeah against you, the ideal if you weren't being attacked
Speaker 1: doing what is a constitutionally protected right in the US. Yeah, hey, everyone,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to record a little pick up here
Speaker 1: to explain a little bit more. I guess about forty
Speaker 1: milimeter and thirty seven millimeter less lethal projectiles. They are
Speaker 1: sometimes called baton rounds. I saw baton round written on
Speaker 1: the Safari Land thirty seven milimeters one, but they are
Speaker 1: not the same as the baton round you will have
Speaker 1: seen British military using in Northern Ireland. Most of the
Speaker 1: modern ones that I am aware of are not designed
Speaker 1: to be skipped off the ground, albeit there desertainly are,
Speaker 1: or at least were rubber bullets that were designed to
Speaker 1: be skipped off the ground at one point. The use
Speaker 1: of a bullet made of rubber that's fired out of
Speaker 1: a conventional rifle is very rare. In the United States,
Speaker 1: there are things called simmunitions, which are munitions fire out
Speaker 1: of a conventional rifle using a different bolt, and they
Speaker 1: are generally used for simulated force on force training. You
Speaker 1: can think about it like going paintballing, but with regular
Speaker 1: guns orbit with a bolt that makes it so you
Speaker 1: can't load live ammunition into that gun while it's set
Speaker 1: up for simmunitions. Those will use extensively. I believe in
Speaker 1: Columbia identified some ammunition casings. I've not seen those used
Speaker 1: by police anywhere in the United States. What the LAPD
Speaker 1: uses is a forty millimeter egg act impact round. It
Speaker 1: has a plastic body and a sponge nosed and that
Speaker 1: is designed to be point of ain point of impact, right,
Speaker 1: so shot at someone like you would shoot a gun
Speaker 1: at somebody. There are other leslethos in use, even in
Speaker 1: LA I saw a thirty seven millimeter Safari land round.
Speaker 1: I saw FN three H three's, which is like seventeen millimeter.
Speaker 1: I saw pepper balls. Various different versions of LES lethal munitions,
Speaker 1: but most of the ones that I'm aware of in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five are designed for point of a point
Speaker 1: of impact. They're also extremely dangerous and as we've said here,
Speaker 1: they can kill you. It's wanting to clarify that, so like, yeah,
Speaker 1: these things are dangerous, right, like they have caused serious
Speaker 1: injury or death. Let's assume for a minute that like
Speaker 1: the folks listening have not attended many actions before, right,
Speaker 1: that they are right the younger or like, they just
Speaker 1: haven't been in that world in that part of their life,
Speaker 1: and they've seen what's happening recently, and they're pissed off
Speaker 1: and they want to attend. They're afraid, right, and they
Speaker 1: want to know what they can do, what they can bring,
Speaker 1: how they can prepare themselves in the understanding that like
Speaker 1: it isn't one hundred percent safe because the cops can
Speaker 1: decide to attack you whenever they want. What can people bring?
Speaker 1: How can people prepare to be as safe as they
Speaker 1: can be?
Speaker 4: Bring water? I mean not just the eyeflushes, but like
Speaker 4: bring snacks and water. Like you're going to be out
Speaker 4: there for a while, you need to keep yourself going.
Speaker 4: You need to keep your friends going. Bring friends, like
Speaker 4: be there with somebody who is going to watch your back,
Speaker 4: somebody who knows a number for like your emergency contact,
Speaker 4: you know, if you get grabbed, stuff like that, especially
Speaker 4: if you're new to this, Like try not to run alone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, even if it's like just hooking up
Speaker 1: with people when you get there, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've been at a protest that was starting to
Speaker 4: look scary and a woman turned to me and said,
Speaker 4: I'm here alone. Are you here alone? And I said yeah,
Speaker 4: and she said, now we're here together, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: which is beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's good place to make friends.
Speaker 5: It's a very like honest feeling to have. I mean,
Speaker 5: you're seeing for the problem for many people is probably
Speaker 5: the first time that you're seeing someone aiming a project
Speaker 5: out at you and aiming a firearm at you and firing.
Speaker 5: So yeah, you know, there's a good reason to feel worried.
Speaker 5: That's like the fact that we have to worry about
Speaker 5: that in this country period is you know, it's very chilling.
Speaker 5: I think that, you know, Miriam mentioned it, bringing friends
Speaker 5: is really important. Something else that like we've talked about
Speaker 5: in circles in LA I think is like really understanding
Speaker 5: going in what is the amount of risk that you
Speaker 5: are willing to take entering into these spaces I think
Speaker 5: is extraordinarily important. I think some of my colleagues who
Speaker 5: were at the UCLA protests earlier during the Palestine movement. Yeah,
Speaker 5: they kind of asked the question, like they kind of
Speaker 5: framed it in like green light, yellow light, red light,
Speaker 5: Like in terms of green meaning like I'm okay with
Speaker 5: you know, whatever risks might be involved, like as far
Speaker 5: as like what my understanding of what this protest could
Speaker 5: entail yellow being like I'm I'm not prepared to go
Speaker 5: so far as to be arrested, but I'm willing to
Speaker 5: be present on record if necessary, serve as a witness
Speaker 5: for my other colleagues who are going to be in
Speaker 5: this space read meaning you know, I'm not necessarily prepared
Speaker 5: at this point to go that far.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 5: I want to support, but I also don't want to
Speaker 5: get arrested. And I think it's important to like, you know,
Speaker 5: recognize that not necessarily shame other people in terms of
Speaker 5: like where they're at in this Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7: Understand Yeah, absolutely, because because everybody comes at this from
Speaker 7: different places, I think it's really important, like when you're
Speaker 7: in these spaces to like, you know, kind of understand
Speaker 7: the risk of the other people and who are alongside you.
Speaker 5: Because if you're a medic and you're trying to treat
Speaker 5: other people and then you have all of a sudden,
Speaker 5: you're by yourself because the other people are like, well,
Speaker 5: I you know, this is what I signed up for.
Speaker 3: I'm out.
Speaker 5: That is also scary, even if you're you know, you're
Speaker 5: very willing to be there.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So I think just having those conversations and planning more
Speaker 5: than anything, planning, planning, planning, is extraordinarily important.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's very well said, great points, and everyone
Speaker 2: has a different level of risk. And just to be
Speaker 2: totally clear for our listeners, there was over two thousand
Speaker 2: different protests yesterday and there was the minimal amount of
Speaker 2: violence and they were all peaceful. For the protesters were
Speaker 2: the vast, vast, vast majority peaceful and things went fine,
Speaker 2: and some like the one I attended, was actually kid friendly,
Speaker 2: so it was a safe place. But particularly in certain places,
Speaker 2: there's always a small chance, if not large, and depending
Speaker 2: on the police presence there, that things could go the
Speaker 2: wrong way, and it is something to keep in mind.
Speaker 2: So I particularly liked your point regarding everyone has a
Speaker 2: different level of risk, and that's okay, you're still contributing.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not a place myself where I'm planning
Speaker 2: on getting arrested. That's just not something I want to do,
Speaker 2: but I would like to protest that I would like
Speaker 2: to support in along those lines, What are ways that
Speaker 2: other people who have medical backgrounds could potentially contribute or support.
Speaker 5: You in terms of the ways that like medics can
Speaker 5: you know, respond in these situations. I think for me,
Speaker 5: I have you know, a box of medical equipment that
Speaker 5: I want to go to bring on site, like I'm
Speaker 5: obviously like and said, I'm bringing water because that's going
Speaker 5: to be foremost like my most useful tool to help
Speaker 5: anybody who's going to be affected by things like that,
Speaker 5: like to your deaths.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: As far as other things like having extra masks, I
Speaker 5: think is really really important, you know, because it's a
Speaker 5: huge way of reducing respiratory exposure to the aerosols that
Speaker 5: are going to be in the air.
Speaker 3: And then eye.
Speaker 5: Protection, eye protection, eye protection. Now the thing about like
Speaker 5: you know, we we've seen different types of protection for
Speaker 5: your eyes that are effective. We've seen goggles being used,
Speaker 5: like the ones that you would you would see in
Speaker 5: a lab. They're not actually effective unless you close the
Speaker 5: sides the vents with tape because otherwise the aerosols actually
Speaker 5: can still get inside the mask and irritate your eyes.
Speaker 5: So if you are going to be like bringing that
Speaker 5: type of eye protection, it's important to think about that.
Speaker 5: There's like some higher end, you know, more effective tools
Speaker 5: that provide both eye protection and helping to filter particles.
Speaker 5: Just using a basic goggle mask with the vents covered
Speaker 5: in an N ninety five for just about anybody, I
Speaker 5: think is a useful tool. So having those types of
Speaker 5: supplies for people who need them is helpful for sure.
Speaker 4: And as far as like a really low risk thing
Speaker 4: that people with medical training can do is show up
Speaker 4: to jail support, because that's like that is a huge
Speaker 4: way you can help not just people who are arrested,
Speaker 4: but anybody coming out of jail is by doing jail support.
Speaker 4: And what that entails is hanging out where people get released.
Speaker 4: People will usually bring food, drinks, clothes, shoelaces. People often
Speaker 4: get out without shoelaces, belts, and like a couple of
Speaker 4: you know, extra layers of clothes if people get let
Speaker 4: out and it's cold, and check out people's injuries. Often
Speaker 4: people will be taken to the hospital during processing if
Speaker 4: they have something that the police can't ignore, but people
Speaker 4: often get released with injuries and it can be really
Speaker 4: good to have somebody there who can evaluate them. Honestly,
Speaker 4: it's often just giving them like a judgment call on,
Speaker 4: do you think this needs somebody else to take a
Speaker 4: look at it, you know, in a professional environment, or
Speaker 4: can I put some ice on it and go home
Speaker 4: type thing. And almost everybody getting out of jail has
Speaker 4: handcuff injuries if they were arrested in a mass arrest,
Speaker 4: because in mass arrest situations, cops tend to use the
Speaker 4: plastic zip ties, which can get incredibly tight, even more
Speaker 4: so than metal handcuffs, which have a little bit a
Speaker 4: little length of chain. They strain the shoulders, especially larger people.
Speaker 4: Especially if somebody has a bag on their back, cops
Speaker 4: will often cuff them in such a way that the
Speaker 4: bag pushes on their hands and makes the cuffs increasingly tight.
Speaker 4: And having a medical professional or a street medic or
Speaker 4: even somebody who's like just there to like take a
Speaker 4: look and be like, yeah, man, I see that that's
Speaker 4: really fucked up that they did that to you. I'm
Speaker 4: so sorry can be useful. Having somebody there to witness
Speaker 4: an acknowledge and to document if somebody is planning on
Speaker 4: doing something with that, you know, then that's that's important too.
Speaker 4: So if you cannot be arrested, find out what's happening
Speaker 4: with jail, support and go support them because that's chill,
Speaker 4: that's calm.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 4: I mean, there are no guarantees in this world but now,
Speaker 4: but it is far more likely to be chill and calm. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and you can hang out and eat snacks. Oh and
Speaker 4: this is the one situation where, medically speaking, bring cigarettes.
Speaker 4: People want cigarettes when they get out of jail and
Speaker 4: they need, they deserve a fucking cigarette. Is it good
Speaker 4: for them?
Speaker 3: No? I know, I just am sorry. I hate cigarettes
Speaker 3: so much. I listen.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to say you can't, but I will
Speaker 2: never give someone a cigarette. It goes against I'll bring things.
Speaker 2: I just can't listen. There's certain lines I will draw
Speaker 2: as a doctor. One I have to help everybody if
Speaker 2: I don't like them. Two, I can't give them cigarettes
Speaker 2: even if I like them, So I just can't. Those
Speaker 2: are two things I can't bring myself to do. The
Speaker 2: cigarette one really a duds me crazy, but I get.
Speaker 4: In that case. Maybe bring some cards for whatever your
Speaker 4: local public transit is, or failing that, you know, have
Speaker 4: some cash on hand to send people home in a
Speaker 4: taxi or have somebody who standing by with a car
Speaker 4: to help people get home. Stuff like that that's really
Speaker 4: important for jail support, perhaps even more important than a cigarette.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would add that another thing you can do
Speaker 1: if you're a medic plea like a medical professional especially,
Speaker 1: it's helped other people learn really bagic skills. You didn't
Speaker 1: even have to be at a protest, right it could
Speaker 1: be a week laser. There are medical professionals who do
Speaker 1: street medic training. You can teach people stop the bleed
Speaker 1: in a day and potentially save someone. It's like and
Speaker 1: so if it's not something that you you know, are
Speaker 1: skilled enough to teach, and you need to be honest
Speaker 1: about whether you're skilled enough to teach that or not.
Speaker 1: You know, if you've watched a forew YouTube videos and
Speaker 1: you're not, that's something you could use to really help
Speaker 1: other people who are who are going to be there
Speaker 1: at a time when you're not comfortable or safe being there.
Speaker 1: I guess for the end of the show to wrap up,
Speaker 1: if people are just attending to be fucking mad, and
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who are fucking mad
Speaker 1: right now, what should they bring And if people want
Speaker 1: to access training, right, Like, what are some some resources
Speaker 1: that you would suggest, What are some types of training
Speaker 1: in terms of like first aid that people can access,
Speaker 1: so that people should access if they're the thinking of
Speaker 1: attending these things and they're worried.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think in terms of the type of
Speaker 5: first aid that you need to be really conscious of,
Speaker 5: especially in any any type of like event where you're
Speaker 5: going to be with a lot of people and you're
Speaker 5: going in as a medic. And this isn't just for protest.
Speaker 5: I think it's for any type of event. We do
Speaker 5: live in a world where, unfortunately, there is a lot
Speaker 5: of mass shootings. Even if they're firing rubber bullets, we
Speaker 5: don't know who else may also attend, who may also
Speaker 5: be going with the intention of being violent. So I mean,
Speaker 5: you mentioned it yourself, stopped the bleed. Having basic understanding
Speaker 5: of how to what types of on the field first
Speaker 5: aid should be done for individuals who have got received
Speaker 5: a gunshot wound, I think is really important if they've
Speaker 5: been struck by a car. We've already seen earlier this
Speaker 5: this weekend that there were shootings in I believe in
Speaker 5: a couple of different cities. It's I'm missing, which one
Speaker 5: unfortunately happened, But I do know of at least one
Speaker 5: report of a tesla being driven into a crowd of
Speaker 5: protesters this weekend, So it was, Yeah, if I.
Speaker 4: Get killed by a tesla, I'm gonna be so fucking mad.
Speaker 1: Indignity.
Speaker 2: That is the thing that concerns me the most most
Speaker 2: protests is some actor coming in from outside to do
Speaker 2: something like that. That part really does concern me, especially
Speaker 2: because so many of these are are, like I mentioned,
Speaker 2: kind of family friendly, and they should be. I think
Speaker 2: families for the most part, should be able to come
Speaker 2: to these things. So that is something that I'm always
Speaker 2: constantly on the lookout for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, cars fucking scammy, like experienced car bombs in my career,
Speaker 1: but also just like cars driving into crowds of course
Speaker 1: undouled damage, and Americans do be loving large cars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the cops won't stop them, Like at least in La.
Speaker 1: My experience with the cars were kind of in and
Speaker 1: out the whole time, and that did not make me
Speaker 1: feel secure.
Speaker 5: We had one individual who was stood in front of
Speaker 5: a van that was carrying ice agents and that person
Speaker 5: essentially got run over. In that situation, they were not
Speaker 5: at all stopping for.
Speaker 1: That big car, it's a big risk. Like I guess
Speaker 1: with that in mind, one thing I think about sometimes
Speaker 1: when these things is like you don't want to be
Speaker 1: going into this, like like traumatizing yourself by doing this.
Speaker 1: But a degree of situational when is to include what
Speaker 1: are my points of cover and what are my ways out?
Speaker 1: It's good to have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it helps.
Speaker 1: It helps me feel safer anyway.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's another huge reason to always run with
Speaker 4: a buddy, right because if you're running with a buddy especially,
Speaker 4: I mean I think I personally think that if you
Speaker 4: are doing medical stuff, you should always have a buddy
Speaker 4: just because if you're going to be stopped and like
Speaker 4: somebody's got to watch your back and like it's and
Speaker 4: you know you might need a second opinion, you can
Speaker 4: call in that buddy for a consult. You know. The
Speaker 4: Medic Collective that I run with on really big action days,
Speaker 4: we'll put together like little bingo cards that will distribute
Speaker 4: to all the medic buddy pairs as a situational awareness game.
Speaker 4: So like if we're alllling out to this, you know,
Speaker 4: to a big, big action, we'll put like there'll be
Speaker 4: squares for like a cop who clearly is not awake,
Speaker 4: or your ex, or you know, a person who forgot sunscreen,
Speaker 4: or you know, just just things to look out for. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and I think honestly like making a little bit of
Speaker 4: a game like that if you're going to be out
Speaker 4: all day, can be kind of fun. And it also
Speaker 4: makes you keep looking. It makes you not just look
Speaker 4: down at your feet as you as you march another mile,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, please, there's another great reminder. Please prepare for the weather,
Speaker 2: prepare for the elements. Bring water, bring sunscreen, bring hats,
Speaker 2: all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Sunscreen can trap the chemical irritant next to your skin.
Speaker 1: I like to wear a sun hoodie like you can
Speaker 1: get hoodies with a SPF. I am pay a lass person, right,
Speaker 1: some of you can see me.
Speaker 3: For listeners, It is indeed true.
Speaker 4: Who's gonna say, is that sun hoodie y? You in
Speaker 4: no way have a watch tan?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay yeah, friends, friends can see my absolutely brutal tan
Speaker 1: right now. When I was a bike racer, I used
Speaker 1: to have the logos of my sponsors burned into my back.
Speaker 3: And that was cool and normal.
Speaker 4: That's unsettling, literal.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, yeah, yeah, that was a political moment for me. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like to wear sun hoody because sunscreen it can
Speaker 1: trap immergance against your skin. But if it's a creamy kind, right,
Speaker 1: I think after point it absorbs and it doesn't. But
Speaker 1: I've definitely experienced that kind of paste on your skin
Speaker 1: kind of situation. Interesting, some of the gnalhliest like injuries
Speaker 1: I've seen have been heat related at protests. If you're
Speaker 1: organizing a protest, don't send it straight up a fucking hill,
Speaker 1: Like just don't let go easy on people. You know,
Speaker 1: the people will be bringing a lot of stuff and
Speaker 1: they have signs and stuff like a mant of weather
Speaker 1: comfy shoes. Go easy on them with the with the
Speaker 1: hill climbing. And then because you're doing it in the
Speaker 1: middle of the day often as well, like you know,
Speaker 1: don't help people, Richard. I know you were going to
Speaker 1: mention somebody else.
Speaker 5: The thing I was trying to to mention this is
Speaker 5: this is less so for i'd say ems non physician individuals. Actually,
Speaker 5: before the podcast, I had a chance to talk with
Speaker 5: one of the regional vice presidents for CIR, the Physicians
Speaker 5: Union that I was formerly a part of when I
Speaker 5: was in my residency.
Speaker 3: Kayla.
Speaker 5: She has a lot of experience being involved in protests
Speaker 5: and street medicine, and the thing that she likes to
Speaker 5: mention is like, physicians have a tendency to want to
Speaker 5: do a lot in a moment, and so Miry mentioned
Speaker 5: situational awareness. I think situational awareness is extremely important.
Speaker 3: Being able to.
Speaker 5: Know when you have the time to to do a
Speaker 5: certain intervention versus when it's time to like get this
Speaker 5: person out of here and to a safer place, I
Speaker 5: think is like very very important.
Speaker 3: Ya, So less does.
Speaker 5: More in these situations, is what I would say is
Speaker 5: pretty important.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One thing I do like as a journalist, primarily not
Speaker 1: a visual one. I often work with photographers right as
Speaker 1: a two person team. I have been a photographer protest
Speaker 1: in the past, and your world is very small in
Speaker 1: that viewfinder, and it's kind of the same if you're
Speaker 1: helping someone right who's injured, that becomes your whole shit.
Speaker 1: I will have my physically have my hand on my
Speaker 1: photographer a lot of the time on their back right,
Speaker 1: and if they need to start moving backwards, I am
Speaker 1: going to start moving them backwards. Obviously, you don't want
Speaker 1: to leave someone who's hurt but like if you're the buddy,
Speaker 1: it's good to be that close to the person who's
Speaker 1: providing care so that you can have a way out
Speaker 1: if you need to have a way out.
Speaker 2: This was so incredibly useful, helpful and insightful. We appreciate
Speaker 2: both of you coming on. Let's close up here. What
Speaker 2: I would like to do is not only plug something
Speaker 2: for yourselves, but what I'd like to hear and our
Speaker 2: listeners actually enjoy, is to hear something that's bringing you
Speaker 2: some joy in these times. Some piece of media, art, film, book, podcast, anything,
Speaker 2: you name it, a good restaurant that you really love.
Speaker 2: You want to give a shout out to whatever it is,
Speaker 2: something that's bringing you a little bit of joy.
Speaker 3: So let's do those two things. Miriam.
Speaker 2: Let's start with you. What can we plug and what's
Speaker 2: something that's bringing you some joy?
Speaker 4: So thank you for having me on. This was delightful.
Speaker 4: So I will plug Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, which
Speaker 4: is the collective that I'm a part of. You can
Speaker 4: find us at Tangled Wilderness on Blue Sky and Instagram
Speaker 4: and nowhere else. And we have a website which is
Speaker 4: Strangers and a Tangled Wilderness. We have a Patreon all
Speaker 4: that stuff. But the main thing I want to tell
Speaker 4: you about those guys over there is that James and
Speaker 4: I did a podcast recently for the show lives Like
Speaker 4: the World is Dying on protest health and safety, and
Speaker 4: we go really in detail on specifics of gear, specifics
Speaker 4: of first aid techniques, and I think people should maybe
Speaker 4: check it out if they're if they're going to be
Speaker 4: out there.
Speaker 1: We'll put it in the show note.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because we're professional podcasters like that.
Speaker 1: You can craze on to take it happen here if
Speaker 1: you'd like to find the show notes.
Speaker 3: Right. Wait, Miriam, So what's the thing that's bringing you joy?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 1: I have remember that, Joey.
Speaker 4: I'm earlier with the concept. I have been rewatching the
Speaker 4: Shira and the Princesses of Power cartoon.
Speaker 3: Wow, nice love it? What about Jim? She is outrageous.
Speaker 4: You know they didn't remake that as an overtly queer
Speaker 4: Netflix series, so I have had less exposure to it.
Speaker 4: But you know, cartoons sword lesbians can't argue with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah that sounds pretty awesome, all right, Richard? What about you?
Speaker 5: As far as something to plug I am a huge
Speaker 5: pleasure of being able to work on onlue Sky, helping
Speaker 5: to put together the med Sky feeds. So if you're
Speaker 5: on blue Sky, be sure to subscribe to our labeler
Speaker 5: so that way you can get your medical specialty on
Speaker 5: your accounts and you can get your posts on one
Speaker 5: of our forty different feeds. And then also as a Latino,
Speaker 5: I can't leave the podcast without mentioning also we are
Speaker 5: working on Latin Sky and it's a it's it's a
Speaker 5: it's the amount of latinidad and joy that I've been
Speaker 5: seeing on that feed over the last few days, despite
Speaker 5: the pain, it's been very inspiring. So I think that's
Speaker 5: like the plug that I want to put out there,
Speaker 5: and as far as a thing that brings me joy
Speaker 5: right now, I like I was torn. I heard it
Speaker 5: like a bunch of people have already plugged and or,
Speaker 5: so I'm not gonna plug and or.
Speaker 3: But can you yeah, you know, I'm gonna.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna give some love to Ryan Coogler's Cinners, which.
Speaker 3: Is easily one of the number of cast movies.
Speaker 5: I have seen in at least the last five years.
Speaker 5: It is an extraordinary movie. Every everything about that movie
Speaker 5: is like art. I just hope that Ryan cooler can
Speaker 5: just make original movies for the rest of his life
Speaker 5: and that he doesn't have to like be stuck doing
Speaker 5: franchise stuff because when he's just given a canvas, he
Speaker 5: he makes beautiful, beautiful art.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right on, right on.
Speaker 2: That's for the So James, what about what about you?
Speaker 3: What we plug? What can you plug for you?
Speaker 1: What can I plug? There was a hot dog guy
Speaker 1: who went on the freeway in Los Angeles when everyone
Speaker 1: else went on the freeway, So that person's a fucking hero.
Speaker 1: I would let you know if you're if you're in
Speaker 1: the I'm vegan, so you know, maybe the bun, but
Speaker 1: for the rest of you, get after it. You know
Speaker 1: you can. You can listen to my podcast. You may
Speaker 1: be already are it could happen here if you have.
Speaker 1: I haven't listened. It would mean a look to me
Speaker 1: if you had listened to the podcast I made in
Speaker 1: the Dadian Gap last year when I traveled with migrants
Speaker 1: who were on their way to the United States. Those
Speaker 1: people and their stories are really important to me. So
Speaker 1: if you would listen to one thing I ever made,
Speaker 1: it would be that you can find it by searching
Speaker 1: Dadien where Dreams Die, and then it could happen here podcast,
Speaker 1: and it will come up unless you're using a really
Speaker 1: shit search engine a Google has been even more fucked
Speaker 1: by AI. And then, in terms of stuff that gives
Speaker 1: me joy, recently, I have been listening to like the
Speaker 1: music of the anti apartheid movement. Again, I kind of
Speaker 1: when I was a very young person, my sort of
Speaker 1: first exposure to activism was through people who had resisted
Speaker 1: apartheid in South Africa, and they were very inspiring to me,
Speaker 1: and they still are very inspiring to me. I listened
Speaker 1: to that music with them, right, Like apartheid, to be clear,
Speaker 1: ended when I was eight years old, but like it
Speaker 1: was cool because it seemed like at that point the
Speaker 1: good guys were winning, right and so hey, we fucking anyway.
Speaker 1: I listened to that because it reminds me that they
Speaker 1: always lose in the end. So yeah, I enjoy like
Speaker 1: the Specials and Eddie Grant and even the incredibly eclectic
Speaker 1: Sun City album.
Speaker 3: Great Choices, Great Choices.
Speaker 2: And for if you happen to be listening on the
Speaker 2: House of Pod, you've heard James come and talk about
Speaker 2: the Darien Gap. That was a really amazing story and
Speaker 2: it resonated with a lot of listeners, and you should
Speaker 2: listen to the full multi part series that he put
Speaker 2: out on that if it's so much better, So please
Speaker 2: do that for me. If you happen to be listening
Speaker 2: on it could happen here. Listen to the House of Pod.
Speaker 3: You like it.
Speaker 2: You'll hear James and lots of people you already known
Speaker 2: love and meet some new people. And you'll hear us
Speaker 2: make fun of medical grifters in the wellness community and
Speaker 2: that sort.
Speaker 1: Of thing as well members of the cabinet.
Speaker 3: And I believe it. Yeah, boy.
Speaker 2: As for the thing that's bringing me joy, I recently
Speaker 2: had a chance to expose my kids on a long
Speaker 2: drive to the work of Jeff Buckley, who is for
Speaker 2: you younger listeners out there. You may not know who
Speaker 2: he was because he unfortunately passed away when he was
Speaker 2: only thirty, but he was really a once in a
Speaker 2: generation talent.
Speaker 3: His was a voice.
Speaker 2: His songwriting transcended different genres. There was rock, there's jazz,
Speaker 2: there was folk. He could span a vocal range that
Speaker 2: just really is amazing. And he only had one studio album, Grace,
Speaker 2: but it is amazing and I highly recommend that or
Speaker 2: really any of his Live Album's Mystery White Boy, They're
Speaker 2: all fantastic. His cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah is the
Speaker 2: best version of it in my opinion.
Speaker 3: I will fight you. I will fight you.
Speaker 2: If you say rufus waynewright better, I will physically fight you.
Speaker 2: So it's just raw and beautiful and I hope you
Speaker 2: guys check it out if you haven't already. Last thing
Speaker 2: I'll plug June twenty eighth, if you happen to be
Speaker 2: in the Bay Area, my band will be playing at
Speaker 2: the Hotel Utah in San Francisco. It is one of
Speaker 2: my favorite places to watch or play music, and it's
Speaker 2: just super fun. Come up and say hi, and we'll
Speaker 2: chat and we'll maybe share a drink if we have time. Okay,
Speaker 2: thank you all so much. Thanks James.
Speaker 3: This was fun. Huh yeah, that was fun.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful. I had a nice time.
Speaker 3: Let's do it again.
Speaker 8: Okay, bye, it could happen. Here is a production of
Speaker 8: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 8: visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out
Speaker 8: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 8: to podcasts. You can now find sources for it could
Speaker 8: happen here. Listened directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.