Would you be able to hurt someone in order to try and save their life?

I took an emergency first aid class at my local Community College, and I think that up to the limits of my knowledge and capability I could do what it took to save someone even if it hurt them in the short run, but that doesn’t really compare with your scenario.

I guess if the only way to save the girl’s life were to have shot her, one would feel justified.

The goal is to not to allow innocents be hurt. Shooting a little girl with a high powered rifle does not achieve this.

You couldn’t give me a million dollars to shoot a small girl with a gun. Nope. Not a chance.

Really? If you knew she would die if you didn’t wound her, you would let her die? I wish I had a million dollars to pay for the explanation.

yes. I also could kill one to save 1000. Even if the one was me.

I think if the choices to be had were A) Life and B) Death, most of us would pick (A). Of course, no one wants to be put in a situation where (A) includes injury, but if those were the choices, I’d still go with (A). Besides, things like CPR are inherently dangerous to the person on the receiving end. You can cause a lot of physical damage to the person by performing CPR on them, but if he/she lives, then it was worth it, I say. I think it comes down to what you would want someone to do for you. If I was about to enter into a situation where I would most likely die, I’d hope someone would shoot my leg. It would suck, but at least I’d still be alive.

Surely there was another way to distract the child so she would head the other direction. However, if you want to be precise, this is exactly what surgeons and trauma docs do all the time. The scars on my husband’s body look awful and were terribly painful when first made, but he is alive because of them.

Let’s see, if a friend was trying to kill himself by say, jumping in front of a train, I’d sucker punch him to keep him from doing it. So yeah, I could do it. But then, that’s not shooting some random kid in the leg with a .308 or some such high caliber weapon. A bullet like that would tear her little leg clean off, and she would bleed to death in utter agony. Best to let her crawl back in at the hopes of resolving the hostage crisis. Even inside, she might have someone to comfort her as death came, not dying in the grass all alone and in horrible pain.

Tough question, and one I’d have trouble working out to a satisfactory conclusion.

@Les CPR is a stopgap approach to saving someone’s life, and considering that most people die anyway, I wonder why CPR is even an option. I guess it beats standing around, feeling helpless. Performing CPR on someone, even correctly, can create broken ribs, bruising, and other trauma. Rarely does it save someone’s life.

CPR in real life is NOTHING like it is on TV, a lot of people are unaware of that. I receive annual CPR training, but I hope I never have to use it.

@evelyns_pet_zebra – I know CPR can break ribs and do other damage; that was the point I was trying to make. I’m also trained in CPR. Also, I know it doesn’t work often. But it does occasionally. I know a couple instances where it was performed, and the person was able to be saved. I’m also not naive enough to think that what I see on TV is the God’s Honest Truth.

I would not give the sniper permission. I would risk my life….throw a smoke grenade, and run up there and grab her and hope I/we don’t get shot running back.

@Les, I wasn’t jumping you or trying to correct you, I was agreeing with you. Sorry if it came across as otherwise.

@EPZ – No worries. I might be a bit testy today. We had gruel in the galley this morning. Not delicious…

We hurt people to save their lives all the time in modern society. This was even more true prior to fabulous inventions like anesthesia. We’ve all heard about amputating limbs then burning them with an open flame to prevent infection and stop the bleeding on battlefields with nothing to dull the pain. Who would argue that was wrong? I would definitely hurt someone to save their life. I think the fact that this scenario includes a child, not a soldier, causes it to evoke more emotion, but the end game is still the same. I’d hurt a child to save their life. In this scenario, there are probably better alternatives that don’t include sniping at the kid with a high powered rifle, but in a different scenario, without other alternatives I’d do it. If a child’s foot was caught on a train track, and I couldn’t get it out, but I had an axe, I’d chop the kids foot off to keep the child from being hit by an oncoming train.

I think i have to agree with @evelyns_pet_zebra‘s answer (....A bullet like that would tear her little leg clean off, and she would bleed to death in utter agony. Best to let her crawl back in at the hopes of resolving the hostage crisis. Even inside, she might have someone to comfort her as death came, not dying in the grass all alone and in horrible pain….)

It might also be good to keep in mind that we do know the outcome of Beslan, whereas the people involved didn’t (obviously).

@Les at least you got gruel, we had to row the galley ship four hundred miles before breakfast, and that meal consisted of one lb. rotten salt pork boiled in 55 gallons of rancid sea water. =)

Hmmm, what’s better, pain or death?

I always wondered what performing a tracheotomy must be like.

Shooting her in the leg would probably scare her and make her want to go back inside even more. It sounds like a stupid thing to do.

In Red Cross First Aid Training, I was taught that administering CPR often breaks people’s ribs, but I would still give if, when necessary.

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

Do it again?

Yes.

I wish someone would hurt me in order to save me. Some times that’s the only way. I believe I would.

Oh, man, a high-powered rifle on a little girl’s leg. I’d do it, if only because I’d probably be a sharp enough shooter in that situation that I could merely graze the child’s leg and not blast a femoral artery.

Any parent who has ever stood there and watched their child cry while receiving an immunization or seen a child go to surgery for removal of a diseased organ can tell you for sure the answer is YES. However, the example you have chosen is ludicrous.

In many cases surgeons have to hurt people to save their lives.

Yes I would do it. I, as a parent, do that a lot anyway. You know certain actions I take hurts them but it must be done and when it must be done, it’ll get done. That’s why I’m the parent.

Yes, I would in that kind of scenario. Now asking me to choose whom to save from a group, that I would opt out of if I could get someone else to do it.

@La_chica_gomela The point of shooting her in the leg is so she isn’t able to go back inside.

@YARNLADY so your answer would be: no, I would not be able to do that? Also, like @juwhite1 said, would you be able to chop off a childs leg to save them from getting hit by a train?

I like what @Ansible1 said, why did they have to consider shooting her in the leg, why couldn’t they have constructed a plan to go and grab her?

if you don’t already know the outcome she did climb back inside

If that was the only way to stop her, yes I would do it. If there were no other possibilities to avert the little girl from being killed, I would have no hesitation or regret to shoot her in the leg, but I’d try to “graze her” with a bullet and cause a surface wound, rather than a deep shot. In any case, injuring the little girl is much better than letting her climb back into the gymnasium, where she would surely be shot and killed, or worse, rape and tortured.