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Fireman faces punishment for risking his life in rescue

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Flagg
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27 Mar 2007, 1:46 am

ascan wrote:
RaoulDuke wrote:
The left has nothing to do with this. Bureaucracy is a problem in government no matter which way the party in power bends...

The left have everything to do with this. I'm talking about the UK here, not the US. Labour — the main party of the left — have always been connected with a completely insane level of bureaucracy and government interference in the affairs of people and business. The left/right description has more than economic meaning within the context of a particular country.


OK, I withdraw my "Right/Left" comment.

Here in America there is universal hatred for paperwork.


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Pug
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27 Mar 2007, 2:05 am

I do understand why the firearms aren't happy with the way he rescued that woman. It has nothing to do with money or bureaucracy as mentioned before.
If they'd be happy, what would that mean? That he's done a good job risking his life? Wouldn't it be true he'd do it again then, risking his life in such a situation? Because it isn't just a risk; cold water is very, very dangerous. Why couldn't he wait a few seconds, so that something like a rope could be attached to his body? It would've made the situation much safer, also for the woman. What if the fireman reached her, got cramp (happens quite often in cold water) and hung onto her body to safe his own life, which is a natural thing to do in such a situation. They would've died both.
This time it apparently reached a good end, but for the same chance it had a bad end. You know, it's not actually bureaucracy just for the matter of being there, there are certain things that a fireman must do to prepair so that the chance of getting into a difficult situation is minimized, for the sake of himself and the sake the being to be rescued. I understand why the woman is happy, of course, I'd be insane if I wouldn't, but I also see why the firearms are angry, and they don't want a person to copy his ways.



Kanga
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27 Mar 2007, 3:16 am

It was his choice.

There are always ways in which things should work "in theory" but unfortunately they bear no relation to actual practice, often because they've been dictated by those who have never had that first hand experience.
If someone chooses to work in the fire and rescue service, they generally understand that they've already chosen to risk their own lives for the sake of others.
Those who refuse to go anywhere beyond the call of duty usually don't have what it takes to do the job anyway, which leaves those who "do what anyone else would/should have done".

I don't understand how there are so many people prepared to do this in an otherwise often selfish world, but I am very glad that there are :)



Pug
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27 Mar 2007, 3:33 am

Kanga wrote:
It was his choice.

There are always ways in which things should work "in theory" but unfortunately they bear no relation to actual practice, often because they've been dictated by those who have never had that first hand experience.
If someone chooses to work in the fire and rescue service, they generally understand that they've already chosen to risk their own lives for the sake of others.
Those who refuse to go anywhere beyond the call of duty usually don't have what it takes to do the job anyway, which leaves those who "do what anyone else would/should have done".

I don't understand how there are so many people prepared to do this in an otherwise often selfish world, but I am very glad that there are :)

O yes, he had a choice: to be almost 100% sure he'd save her by taking the appropriate preparations, or to be the hero by just jumping into the water and see what happens (note, the water was cold).
It's not intuition that should drive a fireman to do these acts. A good fireman follows the procedures, so that he's sure she'd be saved. And it might sound hard and mad to wait, but those procedures aren't just for being into existance, but they exist to avoid less plesant situations. Because of course a fireman risks his life anyway, but those risks should and would be minimized if the fireman does the right things. And he certainly didn't in this case.



ascan
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27 Mar 2007, 3:58 am

Pug wrote:
...O yes, he had a choice: to be almost 100% sure he'd save her by taking the appropriate preparations, or to be the hero by just jumping into the water and see what happens (note, the water was cold).

But he'd not been supplied with the correct equipment by his superiors:

Lister in the article wrote:
Stephen Hunter, chief fire officer of Tayside Fire and Rescue, admitted that fire engines in Perth were not equipped with the correct poles...


So, he couldn't do it by the book, as it were. Instead he improvised with what he had to hand:

Lister quoted the fireman and wrote:
We had seconds to act. The girl was losing consciousness. We had one harness, so I put that on and went down 20ft on a safety line, grabbed her and held her out of the water. My colleagues tried to pull us towards steps, but the current was so bad and the rope was pulled so hard it snapped...