In Alameda, California, a man who was apparently suicidal drowned while police and firefighters watched close by. The man walked into a bay until he was in neck-deep water and began to tread water. He eventually tired to the point that he could no longer stay above water and drowned.
Firefighters were not allowed to enter the water to help the man for a few reasons.
CNN reports "Two things prevented authorities from taking action, said Alameda Interim Fire Chief Michael D'Orazi said. First, because it was a crime scene, the police department was in charge.
'They felt that going into the water initially might not be the best idea because they were unsure if this individual was armed, the stability of the individual,' D'Orazi said.
Also, 'there was a policy in place that pretty much precluded out people from entering the water.'"
Click Here to read full story
Lifeguards deal with suicidal people often. People jump in front of trains, off piers, drink themselves to death or just walk into the water and hold themselves under water. Lifeguards are not to risk their own life while attempting to rescue a suicidal victim from train tracks, but we are trained in how to stay far enough away from a victim that we are not in danger. With a floatation device like a lifeguard buoy, lifeguards are able to stay above water while fighting to get the unwilling victim to shore.
L4Life,
ReplyDeleteAlameda's firefighters were NOT just standing around. They wanted to go in the water but could not:
http://www.ktvu.com/video/28088962/index.html
Here is a 2009 letter to the editor that quotes the same order:
As of March 16, 2009, the Fire Department administration issued an operational status change, placing the surface water rescue swimmer program on hold. It said, “all previously qualified Rescue Swimmers shall not enter the water for an active incident until further notice."
I know several Alameda firefighters well enough to know that their first priority is always to save lives and help people, so they must have felt real anguish at being ordered to remain on the shore when someone's life was at risk. But they no longer had the equipment needed to survive in the cold water (at 55-60 degrees you have about 15 minutes w/out a drysuit) - even if they had violated the order to not enter the water.
If I had been on the beach I might not have made the same decision(s) that the firefighters did, but we have just begun to rebuild the AFD emotionally following two years of a fire chief who destroyed the department's morale and effectiveness - before he resigned in disgrace. Repairing the damage may take a while.
As an Alameda resident I can tell you that the Alameda Fire Department (AFD) firefighters on the beach would have much rather gone into the water and attempted a rescue: helping people is what they had signed up for, after all. But they were constrained by the 2009 orders to not enter the water that followed the budget cuts that ended AFD's water rescue training and certification (also in 2009).
No one is arguing that the budget cuts in 2009 or the resulting prohibition on water rescues by AFD were a good idea, and both have been or will be remedied within a month. But sniping at our firefighters (who do an excellent job by almost all counts, BTW) does not help us to solve our problem locally. After all, it is not the on-duty firefighters themselves who made the budget cuts or put the order and policy prohibitions in place.
I agree these first responders weren't necessarily "sitting around" However, your rationalization that the first responders didn't have the necessary equipment to survive cold water is misguided. 55-66 degree water does not kill you after 15 minutes. If so my swim in the frigid northern California waters this morning, would have killed me. Its probable that a similar kind of misguided assumption in the guise of "safety" was responsible for this tragedy. It seems like bureaucratic by the book rules are too often placed at odds with instinct, experience, and general human nature of wanting to help. In the end though you have to blame budget cuts and a very misguided policy of taking away money from the people that are paid to help you.
ReplyDelete