First it was the guards who phoned in for help instead of helping a 15yr old girl who could have been stomped to death. Now this. What’s next?, Too dangerous (ie, they might be sued) for cops, firemen, etc to leave the station house? Oh, right. They’re too busy breaking into people’s houses to do real police work.
The five-year-old girl, her-six year-old brother and their father Chris Grady were in the car when it plunged into the river Avon in Evesham, Worcestershire, on Thursday morning.
Mr Grady and his son Ryan, managed to escape from the submerged car. They were helped clear by police officers on the riverbank. However, Mr Grady’s daughter, Gabrielle, was trapped inside the vehicle for 97 minutes before the closest police dive team, based in the next county, could arrive. The divers then took a further 12 minutes to rescue her.
The officers already on the scene were prevented from diving in earlier to rescue her by police safety regulations.
The little girl remained in a critical state in hospital yesterday while her brother yesterday began to make a recovery. He was well enough to sit up in bed and talk to family at his bedside.
West Mercia police admitted last night that safety regulations barred normal police officers from jumping into rivers to try to save people.
What the **** do cops know about river rescue? River rescue is a dangerous task that only trained, specialized professionals should attempt. Otherwise, they’re just going to end up dead themselves, further compounding an already dangerous situation.
What’s so hard to understand about this, Uncle Dave? Christ, they’re not invincible superheroes…
Looks like it, pedro. Maybe one of his cops should fish me out of the water.
Ok…you 2..
HITS keep this site up, when you 2 DONT PAY FOR IT..
————–
and on the lighter side..
The hospital in the USA would start billing as soon as they entered.
$1000 for ambulance service
$500 per day
$100 heating pads
$50 food..
And by the time a USA cit got out of the hospital it would be over $5000, IF THEY ARE LUCKY.
You mean didn’t use their taser guns to fish them out of the water?
If only real police were like their Hollywood counterparts.
Funny, while watching the COPS TV show here in the states, I’ve witnessed police officers:
– Not touch someone when they are hurt (CPR/closed wound injuries/broken bones)
– Not even try to remove someone from an overturned car (when there is no danger from said car)
– Watched a suspect almost drown in 5 feet of water after being chased only to have the officer not want to get wet. He almost escaped.
What ever happened to serve and protect? I guess the union/safety/heath rules apply.
Then there is the trigger happy taser first then ask questions later brigade.
Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of friends who are police officers and have the utmost respect for the ones who actually serve and protect, which seems in today’s world is not many ….
In America we are used to police (and firemen) being heroes. I grew up in the southwest and every rainy season we’d be treated to the story of some county sheriff jumping into a flash flood to rescue some little girl’s cat.
In the UK cops are taught to avoid danger. When I lived there I knew three cops in England and Scotland and they all told me of their nearly weekly indoctrinations by Health and Safety.
In the US if a cop does a foolishly heroic deed, he gets lectured to and a medal. In the UK, they lose their job.
#7 –
– Not touch someone when they are hurt (CPR/closed wound injuries/broken bones) – What are you saying? How can you give someone CPR without touching them?
– Not even try to remove someone from an overturned car (when there is no danger from said car) – Anyone trained in first aid knows not to move someone unless they are in imminent danger (car on fire, etc). You wait until you can stabilize the spine, else you risk paralyzing them. So, the cop was right to not pull the person out of the car.
– Watched a suspect almost drown in 5 feet of water after being chased only to have the officer not want to get wet. He almost escaped.- “Almost drown”? Says who? The cop probably decided not to engage the suspect in the water since he might be in even greater danger.
Emergency 51
The show highlighted the adventures of the then-fledgling paramedic program, and its popularity coincided with (and may have encouraged) the widespread establishment and improvement of emergency medical services paramedic programs across North America in the middle and late 1970s. Los Angeles County was one of the first communities – along with Seattle, Miami, and Pittsburgh – to start a paramedic program in connection with the fire department between 1969 and 1971. The show was also credited for demonstrating first aid techniques that enabled some viewers to save lives in real medical emergencies. When the medical community saw that the general public were using First Aid and CPR in response to this show, they started the teaching programs for CPR in every state. However, the show later had to add a disclaimer stating that the first aid techniques demonstrated should only be performed by trained persons.
NASA management systems were used to develop public safety programs in the 60’s. Costs went down and safety went up, as opposed to breaking the bank to save less people at higher costs.
Stay safe space rangers. I’m outta here.
“..guards who phoned in for help instead of stopping a 15yr old girl from being stomped to death.”
Really, Uncle Dave, she died? Really? I could swear I saw her on the news last nite, out of the hospital and all. Or maybe its some other incident you were referring to, I couldn’t tell from the link.
[You’re right. I worded it badly. Fixed. — UD]
I think the bigger question is why does a county that has rivers big enough to submerge a car NOT have some trained Search and Rescue volunteers to call on?
Where I am from, the Sheriff’s department has a core of civilian volunteers to draw on for rescues such as this. These volunteers are trained and rotate on-call duties. One of my best friends is on this roster and he has had to rescue people who have driven into creeks and rivers.
And this nation once had a population with guts to stand up and fight Hitler… alone. Unbelievable!
The girl has died.
#7
The unions are only partly to blame. The unions are reacting to the threat of lawsuit should an officer attempt a rescue or attempt to administer CPR and cause further damage. It is litigation that needs to be fixed.
#12: Fixed.
#13: Exactly. If you have rules that prevent untrained personnel from helping and don’t have a special unit in your county, your cops and firemen should receive the proper training.
“At the time of the original request Avon and Somerset Dive Team were involved in an underwater search for a missing person in Gloucestershire.”
I bet a major part of the response time in this incident was pulling out of one operation to respond to the higher priority. I would also bet that the local counties collaborated with each county fielding a different response unit (a bomb disposal unit here, a hostage negotiating unit there) in order to conserve resources.
I am sure if there was a ticket he could write underwater he would dive in. The money the state takes in tickets is what cops are really for. They fake the facts for everything else.
Last summer in Cumbria (another part of England), a police officer died rescuing people from floods. Not all police officers and forces are slaves to the Health & Safety pencil-pushers.
Rules, safety and job description are a big thing for many police officers. That’s why they didn’t attempt to rescue the children being massacred at Columbine. It would be like a professional journalist putting down his camera to perform needed CPR on a dying child. Who does that? Except heros, I mean.
RBG
The father saved himself first and left the girl to die.
It’s not the police who are at fault here.
This is a timely story for me because of a story on TV last night.
A girl died in a drowning and they interviewed a a local “hero” who said,
“I heard the mother crying, ‘help my daughter’ so I called 911.”
Wow, it’s easy to be heroic these days!
The father didn’t just “save himself”.
According to the story….
The children’s father was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
I’ve always said, God help the children of wacky
parents. Society rarely can save them.
They needed global warming to keep from freezing in the water.
Guess the last of the Brits who were worth anything died off in WW2 – the ones that were left to breed were apparently invertebrates with minimal cranial capacity.