America's Army gamer a "true hero"

America's Army developer, er, America (?) has announced that one of its players helped save the lives of people involved in a "tragic car accident" last November because of the "combat medic training" he had completed in the game.

28-year-old Paxton Galvanek "mastered the basics of first aid and had the confidence to take appropriate action when others might do nothing", says America. AA project director Colonel Casey Wardynski described him as a "true hero".

So what did he do? Well, he prioritised the critically wounded, helped control bleeding and evaluated injuries. Impressive stuff, no question.

Apparently what happened was that he saw an SUV flip over five times and then helped an uninjured man out of the truck and noticed the other bloke's fingers had been lopped off.

So, he put a towel on them and told him to hold his arm up to reduce blood-flow, then noticing a cut on his head, too. Then a real soldier turned up, said he'd done a good job and sent him on his way.

Perhaps not a "tragic" accident, then, unless there's a bit more to the story than America's Army is letting on (fish: barrel), but certainly, when written down, a good bit of propaganda, and all the encouragement I need to react to people whose food goes down the wrong way by slamming them to the floor and giving them an emergency tracheotomy using a Biro because I saw it on Casualty.