Peter Burgess
New member
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/theemergencyservices/Fire-chief-I-was-right.6126347.jp
Some more interesting questions and statements.
Some more interesting questions and statements.
Mine Rescue Tragedy
- Thread starter Peter Burgess
- Start date
Peter Burgess
New member
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8552171.stm
"In a heated exchange with George Forbes, who is representing Ms Hume's family, the group commander also admitted that he considered risk assessments more important that rescuing the 44-year-old."
"In a heated exchange with George Forbes, who is representing Ms Hume's family, the group commander also admitted that he considered risk assessments more important that rescuing the 44-year-old."
shotlighter
Active member
This seems a good reason to reintroduce corporal punishment. Stupid smarties twats like this deserve a bloody good flogging.Peter Burgess said:
From - The Scotsman 6/3/2010
"A SENIOR firefighter who delayed the rescue of a woman for six hours for health and safety reasons has described the operation as a "success" despite her death.
Alison Hume from Galston in Ayrshire suffered head and chest injuries falling into a 60ft mineshaft in the dark in July 2008.
After being wet and cold for more than six hours, the 44-year-old lawyer suffered severe hypothermia and died shortly after being rescued.
Senior firefighters halted attempts to pull her out of the shaft due to health and safety regulations issued four months earlier.
Her family gasped in shock at a fatal accident inquiry yesterday when the firefighter who delayed her rescue described it as "a successful operation."
Group commander Paul Stewart stopped a paramedic being lowered into the shaft to treat Mrs Hume and provide pain relief.
In a second day of evidence to Sheriff Desmond Leslie, commander Stewart was asked by procurator fiscal depute Nancy Beresford if he considered the rescue mission to have succeeded.
He replied: "It was a successful outcome in the fact that we managed to get the casualty out.
"Unfortunately, it was not successful in terms of what happened to the casualty." Commander Stewart assumed control of the operation during the night after arriving to handle media inquiries and finding he was the senior officer present."
So - there we have it - a new use of the phrase "successful operation". As the officer concerned was sent to the scene to deal with the media I suggest that he chooses his words rather more carefully if only for the sake of the sensibilities of the family and to prevent raised blood pressure within the voluntary rescue services. To follow this twisted reasoning - every body extraction from any situation is "successful" irrespective of the actions and proccesses (or lack of them) that contributed to the outcome. By this logic the only unsuccessful operations would be where no physical remains could be produced.
"A SENIOR firefighter who delayed the rescue of a woman for six hours for health and safety reasons has described the operation as a "success" despite her death.
Alison Hume from Galston in Ayrshire suffered head and chest injuries falling into a 60ft mineshaft in the dark in July 2008.
After being wet and cold for more than six hours, the 44-year-old lawyer suffered severe hypothermia and died shortly after being rescued.
Senior firefighters halted attempts to pull her out of the shaft due to health and safety regulations issued four months earlier.
Her family gasped in shock at a fatal accident inquiry yesterday when the firefighter who delayed her rescue described it as "a successful operation."
Group commander Paul Stewart stopped a paramedic being lowered into the shaft to treat Mrs Hume and provide pain relief.
In a second day of evidence to Sheriff Desmond Leslie, commander Stewart was asked by procurator fiscal depute Nancy Beresford if he considered the rescue mission to have succeeded.
He replied: "It was a successful outcome in the fact that we managed to get the casualty out.
"Unfortunately, it was not successful in terms of what happened to the casualty." Commander Stewart assumed control of the operation during the night after arriving to handle media inquiries and finding he was the senior officer present."
So - there we have it - a new use of the phrase "successful operation". As the officer concerned was sent to the scene to deal with the media I suggest that he chooses his words rather more carefully if only for the sake of the sensibilities of the family and to prevent raised blood pressure within the voluntary rescue services. To follow this twisted reasoning - every body extraction from any situation is "successful" irrespective of the actions and proccesses (or lack of them) that contributed to the outcome. By this logic the only unsuccessful operations would be where no physical remains could be produced.
kay
Well-known member
SamT said:
Is it conceivable/possible/probable that a medic with no rope training could have come to grief in that shaft? If it was possible for that to have happened, what would have been the reaction in that case? - for example from the medic's family?
There's a spectrum of rsponses from 'don't do something risky to save another person because your boss has ordered you not to' via 'do something risky, against your boss's orders' to 'do something risky because you've been ordered to'. Personally. I'd prefer to be in the middle - do something risky, but my assessment of the risk and my decision, rather than have to do something I'm not happy to do because I'd been ordered to do it. But to be in that middle position, my boss has had to tell me not to in the first place. By doing that, he's given me some option - if it scares the pants off me, I can refuse to do it, and put the responsibility on to him - which is, after all, the function of a boss.
Perhaps this link can explain why the senior officer in the Scottish incident may have been unwilling to allow firefighters to take the risk of entering a collapsed shaft:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8534057.stm
"Three fire service staff have been arrested over the deaths of four firefighters in Warwickshire in 2007....They will be questioned on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter and offences under health and safety laws. "
(Seems you cant win - damned if you do, damned if you dont?)
And a related webpage explains how decisions are made:
(following edited for clarity)
"It all comes down to risk assessment, which is critical. There will be times when it's necessary for us to take on huge risk because human life is in danger.
"There are other times when that life is already lost and it would be stupid to take it on.
"Every situation is different. That's where risk assessment comes in."
Gathering as much intelligence on the situation as possible on arriving at the scene is crucial, he says.
"If it's a domestic situation they can be quite dangerous, but not on the scale of Warwickshire.
"When you've got industrial premises you need to know is there anybody in there?
"Then, before you commit any firefighters into the building you need to establish what is on fire, how quickly it is developing, and are there any risks such as electrical wires or chemicals?
"The officer in charge has to weigh up all these factors and decide whether to commit people into the building."
Mr Hughes says most fire brigades now use what is known as an incident command system, based on a model developed in the US.
Sector commanders report back to an overall incident commander who will be responsible for making what can be life-or-death decisions based on the information received.
Mr Hughes said: "With the incident command system we are limiting the chance of something going wrong. "
(OK, he is talking about a major fire, but the rescue in Scotland would have a similar scenario?. ie risk assessment to limit the chances of sosmething going wrong)
The unaswered question in Scotland is: why did it take so long for the police MRT with the relavant skills, to arrive?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8534057.stm
"Three fire service staff have been arrested over the deaths of four firefighters in Warwickshire in 2007....They will be questioned on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter and offences under health and safety laws. "
(Seems you cant win - damned if you do, damned if you dont?)
And a related webpage explains how decisions are made:
(following edited for clarity)
"It all comes down to risk assessment, which is critical. There will be times when it's necessary for us to take on huge risk because human life is in danger.
"There are other times when that life is already lost and it would be stupid to take it on.
"Every situation is different. That's where risk assessment comes in."
Gathering as much intelligence on the situation as possible on arriving at the scene is crucial, he says.
"If it's a domestic situation they can be quite dangerous, but not on the scale of Warwickshire.
"When you've got industrial premises you need to know is there anybody in there?
"Then, before you commit any firefighters into the building you need to establish what is on fire, how quickly it is developing, and are there any risks such as electrical wires or chemicals?
"The officer in charge has to weigh up all these factors and decide whether to commit people into the building."
Mr Hughes says most fire brigades now use what is known as an incident command system, based on a model developed in the US.
Sector commanders report back to an overall incident commander who will be responsible for making what can be life-or-death decisions based on the information received.
Mr Hughes said: "With the incident command system we are limiting the chance of something going wrong. "
(OK, he is talking about a major fire, but the rescue in Scotland would have a similar scenario?. ie risk assessment to limit the chances of sosmething going wrong)
The unaswered question in Scotland is: why did it take so long for the police MRT with the relavant skills, to arrive?
Alex
Well-known member
Its all down to risks I guess, how likely would that person survive if we risk 4 firefighters lives to give a person of 20% of survival is it worth a 50% risk to the firefighters of dieing? I know most would actually say yes, but it is down to there Duty watch man and not them. I am glad I am not in his shoes in that sort of situation because as you say there is no real right or wrong answers.
If we did go purely on risks then, using a fiction reference to "I-Robot" where the robot saves Will Smith but not the girl in as he had greater survival chance. Would we want that?
We should be grateful that there is people in the Fire Service and other services who are willing to make these tough decisions. Best to not to criticise them ourselves until we are put in that situation and as someone else pointed out we do not know all the facts.
If we did go purely on risks then, using a fiction reference to "I-Robot" where the robot saves Will Smith but not the girl in as he had greater survival chance. Would we want that?
We should be grateful that there is people in the Fire Service and other services who are willing to make these tough decisions. Best to not to criticise them ourselves until we are put in that situation and as someone else pointed out we do not know all the facts.
nickwilliams
Well-known member
As a result of this incident, the HSE have now published a statement on how they interpret the application of the H+S@W Act to fire service operations. It's on line at:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/services/fire/duties.pdf
Nick.
http://www.hse.gov.uk/services/fire/duties.pdf
Nick.
AndyF
New member
nickwilliams said:
I took the trouble to read this. Thanks for posting it, but I found it rather a depressing read.
I get the impression it has been drafted by commitee, discussed, re-drafted many times and what has resulted is a wooly and vague document that doesn't really say much.
In other words they should just follow all the rules, the memos, the guidelines and do what they are told. How about acting couragously, or sensibly or expediantly?
Unfortunately, it appears that that is exactly how this tragedy unfolded. Had someone said "stuff this, we can save this life" and acted with courage and conviction, then the out come may possibly have been different.
Can you imagine the civilian sailors on the little ships on Dunkirk saying "turn around lads, that looks like it may breach health and safety rules" or the Niel Moss rescuers saying "Can't lift that air tank I may do my back in if I can't get a proper grip"
There was another case where two community support officers (IIRC) stood watching a lad drowning who had fallen through ice. He was saved by a passer by with more sense/courage/fortitude I don't know what.
We seem to have lost a certain something in this country, can't put a finger on exactly what it is...
Peter Burgess
New member
AndyF expresses the same sentiment I felt when reading this. It's just like all the stuff emailed at work by people whose sole job appears to be writing stuff for the sake of it.
kay
Well-known member
AndyF said:
I thought it started well, in describing why the fire service is different from the normal employer H&S situation. But then it fizzled out, didn't say anything, didn't give any guidance as to what to do in practice. So yes, disappointing.
I don't think you can require someone to act courageously. It's one thing to decide to risk your life yourself, quite another to ask someone else to do so. Though I suppose that's what we ask our armed services to do. But a war situation is different. We don't ask the fire service to rescue people by being braver than the rest of us, we expect them to rescue people by being trained and equipped to go into situations that the rest of
us can't go into, surely?
AndyF
New member
This gives quite a different impression to the BBC story...
http://menmedia.co.uk/news/s/1006287_boy_dies_in_rescue_bid
In particular it says...
Its difficult to do that if ...
What exactly happened, I don't know....but one point seems clear, the anglers waded in and searched, neither PSCO did...
http://menmedia.co.uk/news/s/1006287_boy_dies_in_rescue_bid
In particular it says...
Its difficult to do that if ...
What exactly happened, I don't know....but one point seems clear, the anglers waded in and searched, neither PSCO did...
nickwilliams
Well-known member
kay said:
Kay,
In general I agree with you, although I don't know that the circumstances of war are necessarily unique. I would make two points which I think some senior people in the fire service (both management and unions) ought to reflect upon:
1. In this case, the firemen clearly were not appropriate trained. Not even to the extent that they could identify and call upon people who were appropriately trained - I know that SCRO were not called out for this incident.
2. Some years ago, the fire brigade's union called a national strike during which they argued that the minimum wage for fire fighters should be at least ?30k per year. They argued that firemen deserved this because they placed their lives at risk for the benefit of the public.
I did not say so earlier because I wanted to give other people the chance to voice their opinions without being coloured by my own, but it's pleasing to find that other people's view of this document is also that it mostly meaningless waffle.
Nick.
shotlighter
Active member
The bottom line to this (IMHO) is that the UK emergency services are no longer fit for purpose. They are now unwilling or unable to respond effectively to emergency situations. They have become ( or are rapidly becoming) a de facto body recovery service.
Many of us sat through a presentation last year where it was stated that " we cannot risk skilled operatives as they are expensive to train" - in effect the training is the objective, not what the person is being trained to do.
Also " don't expect us to respond the moment we arrive on site - it will take at least an hour to do the risk assessment & other paper work" The whole concept of what constitutes an emergency seems to have been lost in the race to produce the most blame free paper trail.
Work in the emergency services once embodied calculated risk, "bravery" even. The idea that timely action saves lives. Now the motto seems to be that no action saves jobs.
Many of us sat through a presentation last year where it was stated that " we cannot risk skilled operatives as they are expensive to train" - in effect the training is the objective, not what the person is being trained to do.
Also " don't expect us to respond the moment we arrive on site - it will take at least an hour to do the risk assessment & other paper work" The whole concept of what constitutes an emergency seems to have been lost in the race to produce the most blame free paper trail.
Work in the emergency services once embodied calculated risk, "bravery" even. The idea that timely action saves lives. Now the motto seems to be that no action saves jobs.
