UK - 25 emergency workers stand by and watch a man drown

Tuffy

Not really that tough...
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106423/Simon-Burgess-body-floats-Walpole-Park-pond-emergency-workers-stand-watch.html
This was Walpole Park in Gosport, Hampshire, on an overcast lunchtime last March when no fewer than 25 members of the emergency services, including a press officer, descended on a 3½ft-deep model boating lake minutes after Simon Burgess, 41, fell into the water when he suffered a seizure. But as an inquest heard last week, he lay floating face-down for more than half an hour while firemen, police and paramedics watched and did nothing.
The reason? Even though they could all swim, the first fire crew to arrive hadn’t been ‘trained’ to enter water higher than ankle-deep. Instead they waited for ‘specialists’ to arrive to retrieve his body. They had decided Mr Burgess must surely be dead because he had been in the water for ten minutes. When a policeman decided to go in anyway, he was ordered not to. A paramedic was also told not to enter the water because he didn’t have the right ‘protective’ clothing and might be in breach of the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992.
 
That doesn't seem right at all... If I was ordered not to help someone I'm pretty darn sure I would anyway.

Is there a link to this article ?
 
That doesn't seem right at all... If I was ordered not to help someone I'm pretty darn sure I would anyway.

Is there a link to this article ?

Agreed! I think I would have a harder time standing there and NOT helping. I mean, couldn't someone at least go and hold his head out of the water? :what:

btw - thank you. I fixed the link in my post!
 
Agreed! I think I would have a harder time standing there and NOT helping. I mean, couldn't someone at least go and hold his head out of the water? :what:

btw - thank you. I fixed the link in my post!

Have people lost the ability to think for themselves?
They have to wait for orders-really?!!!
 
Wow, just ... wow. I work with our local fire department and this is just appalling. Certainly we are taught that our personal safety is to be considered first but this is ridiculous. I'm afraid I would have had to disobey orders and just go for it and deal with the consequences later.
I am very proud of Mr. Swamp who will continue with body recovery missions even when the other agencies have called off the search. He will gas up his boat and take the week off of work and do what he can to bring that person home to their family.
 
Yeah, tell me I have to watch someone die because otherwise I might face charges or be fired?

Fine, bring on the handcuffs and McDonald's applications, I'm going in anyway. Free will? Human nature? Compassion? Anyone else ever heard of these things?
 
Yeah, tell me I have to watch someone die because otherwise I might face charges or be fired?

Fine, bring on the handcuffs and McDonald's applications, I'm going in anyway. Free will? Human nature? Compassion? Anyone else ever heard of these things?

Sounds like the same fear they said about the Chinese who ignored a toddler who was hit by three trucks and left to die in the street. That still haunts me. Just absolutely horrible way to treat other human beings.
 
This reminds me of the firefighters who were ordered to let one home burn down as they extinguished the next door neighbor's... because the one hadn't paid their "fees." Grrrr, we are sliding backwards into ineptness or callousness, I can't decide which is in the lead.

Come on, one of these not-so-quickwitted guys should have just said, "I'm taking the rest of the day off to tend to a personal emergency," then waded in there, retrieved the man, and started the CPR that would have saved his life. The compensation is simple: feeling good about yourself.

Sheesh, wth. :cool:
 
This is health and safety gone mad! They didn't think of the health and safety of that poor man did they?
 

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