Stories like this crop up from time to time.
A couple was forced to rescue a trapped driving instructor from 4ft of floodwater while firefighters stood by because they were ‘only allowed to go in waist-high’.
Filmmaker Jamie Price and his partner Danielle waded into the deep water because the motorist ‘looked like he was drowning’ when they arrived at the scene in Ingatestone, Essex, yesterday.
Two Essex fire and rescue crews, an ambulance and a police car were parked near the stricken vehicle, but Mr Price said he was shocked to see the emergency services were not doing more to help.
He told MailOnline: ‘I noticed the driver was still in there and I thought, “Why is there a fireman standing beside him on the radio leaning up against the fence?”
‘I’m thinking, “Why are they telling him to stay there, why are they not helping him?” So I asked him and that’s when they said they were waiting for other crews to come because they’re only wader trained, and it’s too high for them for their training and what they’re allowed to do.’
The whole point of being in the emergency services is that they take risks to save others. The health and safety at work act was never designed to result in this. Effective safety management does not mean standing by and allowing someone to die because of health and safety. It means managing the risk effectively. How anyone can be a member of the emergency services and stand by while members of the public do your job for you because you are too cowardly to do it yourself is beyond me. Really, it is. If you aren’t prepared to take risks to rescue people, get a job stacking shelves in Sainsburys and let someone do it who will.
This professionally inculcated cowardice is everywhere – I expect it from the snowflake coppers, but now Firefighters, ffs…. I often think of my mother, who as a volunteer ambulance driver during the Plymouth Blitz drove her loaded ambulance down North Road while the German bombs were actually landing a hundred yards ahead of her…. We’ve lost the right to survive.
I’d guess that those coppers and firefighters who just stood by and watched would defend themselves by saying, “if we’d gone into the water, even if we’d have saved the driver with no problem, we’d have been sacked.” Not that that necessarily excuses them, but…
“We’ve lost the right to survive.”
When society collapses due to Net Zero insanity and the government running out of other people’s money, the ability to survive might be rather more directly applied.
Yes, this bloke thought he was addressing a “fireman “, but it was actually a “firefighter” which are obviously not the same.
During the war, my father was an Auxiliary Fireman.This was in addition to his day job where he worked 0800 to 1800 every day and also half Saturday. He spent all of his spare time at the Fire Station either training or on call. During the Blitz he and his mates attended calls whilst the bombing was still going on, protected only by their serge uniforms and steel helmets .Having spent all or most of the night putting out fires, the auxiliaries were still expected to turn up for work the next day
After the blitz was over the job became easier although a 24 hour fire watch was still maintained.
His reward for all this was the award of the Defence Medal which he never claimed.
He and his mates never thought ” we cant do this it is dangerous ” they just got on with the job.
As you say “What have we come to?”
As I’ve just pointed out, bet their DEI training was top notch though!