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Once inside, your awareness needs to continue. While the police may have already secured the scene, it is appropriate for you to do the same. Visually frisk everyone for weapons. Determine who is in the residence and where they are. Once identified, spectators should be asked to leave. Don’t allow residents to get between you and an exit route. Don’t let yourself be backed into a corner. Know where your partner is at all times. Don’t get tunnel vision when treating a patient; ensure that your partner is equally aware of what else is going on. Observe the body cues of others in the room, such as clenched fists, flared nostrils, and flushed cheeks. If the scene is otherwise safe but weapons, or potential weapons, are present in the room, you should ask that they be put away. It may help to practice a standard response to this type of situation, so that you will be prepared at the scene. One sample response is “For your safety and mine, I need to ask you to put the weapon away.” You should make a mental note of the type and location of the weapon in case you are asked about it by law enforcement personnel.
EMS personnel need to recognize and be aware that while they were originally called to help. Their presence, along with law enforcement, changes the dynamics of the scene. Specifically, either the victim or perpetrator may turn on you or the police at any time. For example, before EMS or law enforcement arrives the confrontation is between the batterer and the victim. The confrontation is the perpetrator’s attempt to obtain or maintain control over the victim. Once outside help arrives, the two-way tension changes and now involves three or more people.
Once the aggressor or violent husband is arrested, his role is changed and he perceives himself as the victim. By the arrest procedure itself, the police officer now becomes a potential threat to the perpetrator. This change effects the role of the victim, who may decide to side with her husband against the police officer. Why? Victims may go after the police because if they don’t do everything possible to help release their perpetrator they’ll get beat again as soon as he is released. (She isn’t trying to “rescue” her husband, but is trying to stay alive.) This is a primary reason why law enforcement officers are apprehensive to respond and intervene in these types of calls: they are often injured at the scenes of domestic violence calls.
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