He's A Hero.

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/ja...b-by-not-helping-officials-say/?news-breaking

 

[oggbashan]

It's a lose/lose situation. If they had gone in they might be dead heroes.

Because they didn't go in, they're live villains.

We had a similar case in the UK. Two Police Community Support Officers refused to go into a lake to rescue some children. They waited until proper rescue personnel arrived and by that time one of the children was dead. Police Community Support Officers have absolutely NO rescue training. They are instructed to summon the emergency services but not become victims themselves.

Training for rescue from water starts by emphasising that you do NOT go into the water unless you are properly prepared, trained and equipped. There was a recent rescue reality programme on UK TV which showed a drunk diving into a harbour about 2am. His friends called the emergency services when he didn't surface. Some of them jumped in. They got into difficulties themselves and had to be rescued before the emergency services could look for the original drunk. It was three hours before he was found - dead - but several of his "rescuers" needed hospital treatment.

Og

 

[starrkers]

I am so glad I live in Australia. Here everyone is expected to help in an emergency, not stand around waiting for the right equipment. That's the whole thing with emergencies - the optimum equipment is rarely available.
My 15 year old daughter is doing life saving training as part of her sport/PE training at school.
Mind you, I'm in a bush area, not a city. We still live in the real world.

 

[oggbashan]

I am so glad I live in Australia. Here everyone is expected to help in an emergency, not stand around waiting for the right equipment. That's the whole thing with emergencies - the optimum equipment is rarely available.
My 15 year old daughter is doing life saving training as aprt of her sport/PE traingin at school.
Mind you, I'm in a bush area, not a city. We still live in the real world.

That's the point. Australians are trained in life saving at school. I was once a member of a surf life saving club in Sydney and I practised almost every weekend.

Once you are trained, you can make a sensible judgement about risk. If you aren't trained, you can become another victim.

Og

 

[starrkers]

I'm just amazed that your police and ambos etc aren't trained. I think ours need a Bronze Medallion in Life Saving as a basic requirement (I could be wrong).

 

[oggbashan]

I'm just amazed that your police and ambos etc aren't trained. I think ours need a Bronze Medallion in Life Saving as a basic requirement (I could be wrong).

I think ours do too - but not Police Community Support Officers who are low paid street wardens (and some are just Parking Attendants in new uniforms)

Og

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

OG

I was a fireman 30 years ago.

We were involved in a car wreck similar to the one described in the story. Some kids were racing cars on a lonely stretch of road, and one of the cars ran off the road into a canal and flipped-over.

When my truck arrived at the scene a crowd of spectators and cops loitered about on the road. One, solitary cop was in the water trying to keep the kids from drowning, inside the car. His associates, in starched uniforms and patent-leather shoes, wouldnt help him.

One of the kids died at the hospital from head injuries, but the other lived. Neither of them died from drowning. The cop in the water later became a lieutenant with the state police.

The medic in THIS story is a coward.

 

[Remec]

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/ja...b-by-not-helping-officials-say/?news-breaking

I can understand how you wouldn't want untrained people (rescue workers or not) to go out into murky waters of an unknown depth in the dark, but this confused me:

"Just as paramedics are not expected to run into burning buildings like firefighters would, they are not expected to jump into a pond if they aren't trained in water rescue, Leinhauser said."

Now, maybe it's from growing up and watching 'Emergency' on television and all, but aren't paramedics usually firefighters as well? (I know EMTs are different, from my understanding, but the men were identified in the article as paramedics.)

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

REMEC

I'm reminded of Navy Corpsmen who accompany Marines into battle. Theyre not infantry, and most are unarmed. And almost all of them put their asses on the line to aid wounded Marines.

The medic in the story is a coward.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_Skutnik

Remember Lenny Skutnik?

 

[Remec]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_Skutnik

Remember Lenny Skutnik?

I didn't recall the name, but I do remember watching tape of the incident.

 

[oggbashan]

REMEC

I'm reminded of Navy Corpsmen who accompany Marines into battle. Theyre not infantry, and most are unarmed. And almost all of them put their asses on the line to aid wounded Marines.

The medic in the story is a coward.

I think you are too harsh. If he had gone in, he would have been a hero. He is and was not a Navy Corpsman, who are trained to work in battle conditions. The professionals' advice is "Don't enter the water unless you know what you are doing and are capable of assessing the risks".

What is heinous is that the county has a record of water accidents and doesn't appear to have anyone trained to respond. If it was a dry part of Utah, I could understand the lack of appropriate response, but not in Florida.

Earlier this year in Portugal, children were caught in a rip tide. They were saved but the parents, who went in to save them, died. The locals were horrified. The risks were well known and signposted but the lifesavers were off duty and the parents (and children) didn't read, or ignored, the warning signs.

Unless you are a competent and fit lifesaver, entering unknown water to save someone can be fatal and make two bodies instead of one. I used to be a trained surf-lifesaver. Now, because of disability, I can't swim well enough to rescue anyone but I can throw a line and dial the emergency services, or hold a line while someone else enters the water.

Og

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

OG

It's worse than you imagine. He now has a reputation for hiding behind the 'book.'

When the TITANIC was sinking an American ship, S.S.CALIFORNIAN, was on the scene and refused to assist. The Master offered plausible excuses: his ship was small, etc.; but he saved NO ONE. I understand no one would hire him after the tragedy.

 

[oggbashan]

OG

It's worse than you imagine. He now has a reputation for hiding behind the 'book.'

When the TITANIC was sinking an American ship, S.S.CALIFORNIAN, was on the scene and refused to assist. The Master offered plausible excuses: his ship was small, etc.; but he saved NO ONE. I understand no one would hire him after the tragedy.

As I said above, it was a lose/lose situation. If he entered the water he'd be wrong. If he didn't, he'd still be wrong but people would understand better. It's a tragedy for all concerned. The local authorities need to make plans to prevent it happening again - and perhaps retrain the medic.

The SS CALIFORNIAN was a different situation. It wasn't proved that the Californian's officers understood that the Titanic was sinking. They kept a poor watch - that still happens today - and didn't recognise the distress signals for what they were. No one expected a ship such as the Titanic to sink and the Californian saw a massive ship with all lights burning that didn't seem to be in trouble. What they should have done? People, and that includes ships' captains, don't like making fools of themselves. If he had steamed up to the Titanic, through dark, iceberg-strewn waters, and had then been told that the rockets were for a passenger's birthday, he would have been embarrassed (and would have had to explain taking the risk and the fuel use to the ship's owners). It was a bad call but understandable.

Og

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

OG

If youre okay with a first responded doing nothing while someone drowns, I'm okay with your judgment. But I suspect most people condemn the man as a coward.

 

[oggbashan]

OG

If youre okay with a first responded doing nothing while someone drowns, I'm okay with your judgment. But I suspect most people condemn the man as a coward.

He didn't do nothing. He called for help. Florida doesn't appear to have such help. That is the real tragedy.

Some responders will go above and beyond the call of duty. Some won't - as you said earlier:

When my truck arrived at the scene a crowd of spectators and cops loitered about on the road. One, solitary cop was in the water trying to keep the kids from drowning, inside the car. His associates, in starched uniforms and patent-leather shoes, wouldnt help him.

In the UK we have the Police, Fire and Ambulance Services to respond in an emergency. Almost all of them would put themselves at risk if they were first at the scene and some die doing their duty. Our Ambulance workers are not supposed to enter a dangerous situation and sometimes have to prevented from doing so by their Police or Fire colleagues. However one was awarded a bravery medal last week for trying to give first aid to a Fireman injured (and killed) by an exploding firework factory.

Our Police Community Service Officers are no more than members of the public in uniform, not emergency workers. They are not supposed to put themselves at risk but to seek trained help. But when two PCSOs called for help and didn't enter a large lake to help two invisible boys they were vilified by the media.

It's like Social Workers: They are blamed for breaking up families and blamed when children are killed or injured in an unbroken family unit. They can't win.

Og

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

OG

Like I said, if youre okay with it, I'm okay with your judgment. And I'll feel angry when someone allows you to drown.

 

[oggbashan]

OG

Like I said, if youre okay with it, I'm okay with your judgment. And I'll feel angry when someone allows you to drown.

I'd rather drown alone than be responsible for someone else drowning in a failed rescue attempt. But whether I could stand by and watch someone else drown - that I don't know.

Quoting myself:

Training for rescue from water starts by emphasising that you do NOT go into the water unless you are properly prepared, trained and equipped. There was a recent rescue reality programme on UK TV which showed a drunk diving into a harbour about 2am. His friends called the emergency services when he didn't surface. Some of them jumped in. They got into difficulties themselves and had to be rescued before the emergency services could look for the original drunk. It was three hours before he was found - dead - but several of his "rescuers" needed hospital treatment.

Three people tried to rescue the drunk. There were dozens of people there who did absolutely nothing. They stood and watched with drinks in their hands and many of them filmed the action on their mobile phones, including the drunk's initial dive. Some people will act. The majority won't.

Og

 

[BlackShanglan]

The first three things I learned as a lifeguard were:

(1) Rule 1: Never enter the water for a rescue if you can affect it from land.

(2) Rule 2: Never enter the water with a distressed swimmer without a flotation device.

(3) Practical advice: Methods for escaping from a distressed swimmer.

The first instinct of nearly anyone who is in serious difficulty in the water is to grab anything in reach and cling to it in a deathgrip. I was personally very nearly killed by a twelve-year-old child under those circumstances; if I hadn't had a rescue tube with me, the results might have been different. Having over a hundred pounds of human being locked around your head and arms and struggling violently to stay there is enough to severely disable the best swimmer. I pulled half the muscles in my thighs just getting us to a pool wall that was less than twenty feet away.

That's in a clear pool that I knew well and with good equipment, good training, and excellent swimming skills. In an unfamiliar and murky body of water, with no equipment, no training, and quite possible very little ability to actually swim, a paramedic could easily die attempting even a rescue that looked like a simple one. By all means, give the men equipment and training, but it's ridiculous to berate them for not attempting the rescue without them. I notice that the poster seems to assume that the paramedic did in fact know how to swim, but do we know even that? What makes a man with medical training but no training in swimming or water rescue and no equipment a better candidate for the rescue than anyone else standing about the scene?

If we want a mobile water rescue crew, then we need to pay to train and equip them. Otherwise, they're a mobile suicide-by-water crew.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

BLACKIE

Yep. Thems the rules. No one will get in any official trouble sticking to the rules. And everyone knows, too, that you wont expose yourself to risk in an emergency.

Trust me, I've been there and confronted the raw fear of death. I dont wish it on anyone. And when you confront it it becomes the Moment of Truth for you. It brands you for eternity. People sense it.

 

[oggbashan]

BLACKIE

Yep. Thems the rules. No one will get in any official trouble sticking to the rules. And everyone knows, too, that you wont expose yourself to risk in an emergency.

Trust me, I've been there and confronted the raw fear of death. I dont wish it on anyone. And when you confront it it becomes the Moment of Truth for you. It brands you for eternity. People sense it.

I was part of a volunteer cliff rescue team in the 1960s, and an assistant to a cave rescue team. I was useless to the cave rescue team except as a heavy hauler on the surface because I was just too large to enter the cave systems. If I had entered the caves I would have been more of a problem than part of the solution.

Cliff rescue - I was most in danger and suffered injury recovering a six-week dead sailor from surf at the bottom of cliffs. I was selected because I was qualified for cliff AND surf rescue. As volunteers no one but us wrote the rules. If we were injured or died no one would pay compensation. We couldn't do now what we did then - we could be sued for injury to those we attempted to rescue. Lawyers have fucked everything up for volunteers.

Now I know my limitations. I'd try to help if I could but it is likely that the best help I could offer would be to summon professional emergency services to the right place.

Og

PS. In retrospect, don't risk lives trying to recover six-week old bodies immersed in water. Wait till the tide brings them ashore. I won't go into details.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Indeed, Og. I confess that if I did see someone in trouble in the water, undoubtedly I would focus more on the fact that I was trained and can swim than on the fact that I haven't been in lifeguarding shape in a decade or more, and quite possibly make myself one of those idiots who gets killed trying to rescue someone when it's obviously not a good idea. But even in my blind impulsiveness I think would balk at jumping in after a body that was never going to breath again.

As a note to those whose altruism and/or poor impulse control might also land them in the water with a panicked person in need of rescue, might I suggest:

(1) A chain of people holding hands from the shore is a great deal more helpful than a single person going it alone.

(2) Bring anything, absolutely anything with you that you can offer the swimmer to hold onto other than you. A stick, a jacket, your trousers that you're about to shuck off anyway - anything that lets the swimmer grab a non-you item is a very helpful thing.

(3) If you absolutely must go in alone, if there's any chance of it at all, approach from behind and grab the swimmer in a carry. Saves all of that nasty "crawling up your head" business.

(4) If you're grabbed, head downward. It won't always work, but it is the one place the panicked person definitely doesn't want to go.

 

[SeaCat]

Okay, an interesting and highly emotional subject.

I read the article twice. I too find parts of the situation disturbing but probably not for the reaons you are thinking.

Now without doing research on it, it seems like this is one of those areas where the Rescue Units are not part of either the Police or Fire Departments. (There are many municipalities like this, Boston is one.) Now some of these Rescue Units are Private Companies while others are run by the town, city or County.

A Rescue Unit run by the Police or Fire Departments are much more likely to have a higher level of training in areas such as Fire or Water Rescue.

A person not trained in rescue in situations like a fire or water risks not only their own lives but the lives of others, including those they are attempting to rescue. (If you are not trained in doing rescues in circumstances like this how can you asses the risks and know how to get around them?) A case in pint was a would be rescuer on Cape Cod several years ago. He saw a young boy get dragged out by a Rip Current. He became upset when the Lifegaurd at the scene seemed to be running away and therefore jumped into the water to rescue the young boy. He didn't see that the Lifegaurds were indeed running away from the water, they were running to their stand where they called for assistance as they grabbed their lifeboards. (Oversized Surfboards.)

Now the Lifegaurds had to deal with not just the young boy but with the guy. Both had water injuries as well as cold injuries. (The would be rescuer suffered from the cold more than the child, he was from Florida and not used to the cold water.)

Now what disturbs me:

The Ambulance Crew was not trained in at least basic water rescue.

The Police were not trained in at least basic water rescue.

The Ambulance nor the Police had at least basic water rescue equipment on board their vehicles. (Yes I do know about te space limits on both types of vehicles.)

The drownings were not caused by the Paramedics, they were caused by a number of factors. The first was the driver of the vehicle. The second was the County or Cities regulations on the training of the Rescue Personell.

Cat

 

[cloudy]

Indeed, Og. I confess that if I did see someone in trouble in the water, undoubtedly I would focus more on the fact that I was trained and can swim than on the fact that I haven't been in lifeguarding shape in a decade or more, and quite possibly make myself one of those idiots who gets killed trying to rescue someone when it's obviously not a good idea. But even in my blind impulsiveness I think would balk at jumping in after a body that was never going to breath again.

As a note to those whose altruism and/or poor impulse control might also land them in the water with a panicked person in need of rescue, might I suggest:

(1) A chain of people holding hands from the shore is a great deal more helpful than a single person going it alone.

(2) Bring anything, absolutely anything with you that you can offer the swimmer to hold onto other than you. A stick, a jacket, your trousers that you're about to shuck off anyway - anything that lets the swimmer grab a non-you item is a very helpful thing.

(3) If you absolutely must go in alone, if there's any chance of it at all, approach from behind and grab the swimmer in a carry. Saves all of that nasty "crawling up your head" business.

(4) If you're grabbed, head downward. It won't always work, but it is the one place the panicked person definitely doesn't want to go.

I'm WSI-certified (Water Safety Instructor), have been since I was 17, and I keep my certification current. I've pulled people from the water, and like Shang, almost been drowned in the process - in fact, one girl I had to punch in the side of the head, almost knock her out, so that I could save us both.

I don't blame someone who isn't trained for not wanting to go in the water after someone in trouble. Even those who are trained, like me, have problems with someone that's in a panic.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Amen to SeaCat's post. My thoughts too. They need trained and equipped responders; that's where the problem lies, not in the failure of untrained and unequipped people to leap in and make the situation worse.

I'm WSI-certified (Water Safety Instructor), have been since I was 17, and I keep my certification current. I've pulled people from the water, and like Shang, almost been drowned in the process - in fact, one girl I had to punch in the side of the head, almost knock her out, so that I could save us both.

I don't blame someone who isn't trained for not wanting to go in the water after someone in trouble. Even those who are trained, like me, have problems with someone that's in a panic.

Amen. Even with training and practice, nothing quite prepares you for the first time you deal with it in person. In training you've got time to mentally prepare yourself and you go in with a nice big breath of air toward a swimmer you already know is in distress. In practice, it happened very suddenly with someone close by me in the water. My lungs were nearly empty when I got a hundred pounds of panicked kid wrapped around my head with his stomach over my face. Getting my head above water did ***-all good for me.

It's true that there's a certain clarity of thinking that comes over you at such moments. After I broke the surface and tried (and failed) to get a breath, I knew very clearly that my next choice was going to have to be good, because it was the last one I was going to make.