Man Dies After Firefighters Won't Cross Street to Help, Daughter Says

reply to post by research100


That is crazy. I have heard about things like this before, and it strikes me that there are several things wrong with the way that things are done now.

First is the regulations. Any regulations which stand between a person, and saving the life of another, should not exist, and cannot be enforced with any moral legitimacy what so ever. In short, a member of the emergency services should not be beholden to any regulation which might stay their hand, and should not be at risk of reprimand should they go beyond the bounds of those regulations, in the pursuit of saving a life, nor should their loved ones be docked pension or death payouts, in the event that their family member die in the pursuit of saving a life, even if the attempt was made in contravention of those regulations.

Second, litigious persons. The morons who sue someone who has saved their life, are responsible for the manner in which regulations are enforced these days. Departments can no longer allow infractions of their rules, in order to facilitate the continued employment of hero grade personnel, because to do so would cost them too much in legal fees and payouts. By hero grade, I do not mean men and women who save lives within the bounds of the rules (and I seek to take NOTHING away from them in so saying), but those who risk EVERYTHING in order to save lives, their lives, their jobs, their own families future well being, the lot. These people are rare, but to have persons such as this in an emergency service team, is beneficial to all parties, except the legal department.

The fickle nature of man. This refers of course, to those citizens who pay more attention to the legal ramifications of an action, than the moral implications of a failure to act. It used to be, that a citizen who witnesses an incident, and sees some hero walk through the fires of hell to save a life, would merely say to themselves "what a legendary badass" and either attempt to emulate in their own lives the best of what they saw in the behemoth who just saved a school full of kids, or draw comic books which exalt such values. Nowadays, there is always some malignant jerk who will stand there afterward screaming about council by laws and infringements, or some property owner wailing about damage done to facilitate access, or some other thing. It used to be that communities would pull round a hero, but no more.

reply to post by TrueBrit


I too am tired of the hero worshiping of fire fighters. It is not one of the 20 most dangerous jobs, pays enormously well, with early retirement, lush pensions and most go on to take a second government job before age 50, qualifying for another pension.

I have known many, most are idle time servers, happy to sleep the days away while on duty, moonlight during their 72 hours off duty.

I used to be curious about their adventurous lives and ask questions designed to draw out these heroic personalities. Then one day, a 15 year veteran said: "We don't go into burning buildings, are you crazy? My mama didn't raise no fool."

I wonder if there is more to this story than we see. My younger brother is a FF for the city of Memphis TN and he tells me stories of people ringing their doorbell all the time needing help and getting it.

What is sad is that everything in their fire stations is locked down, the refrigerators have locks, the TV is locked down, the coke machine has locks on it...

reply to post by Roslyn618


Let me get something straight. I believe that Firefighters deserve every positive effect of reputation and every benefit attached to their work and offered by the state. It IS a dangerous job, and every time a fireman goes into a burning building, unsure of what he may find, unsure whether there might be accelerants, or material prone to detonation in a property, they are risking their lives to a massive degree. That they do the job at all is impressive and deserving of recongition, because not only are many people not capable of doing the job physically, but many are not capable of facing that risk once, let alone again, and again, day after day. They save lives, and minimise property damage, not to mention fighting wild fires which threaten entire communities. I would not call anything fire fighters do, anything other than dangerous to one degree or another.

However, this incident shows that there are firefighters who save lives because they are committed to its preservation, because it is their calling, because they could not do anything else in an emergency, but lend a hand and save a life, and that unfortunately there are also those who do it because they can, and it pays. Its a damned shame that this individual decided not to be a hero that day. His training would have made a difference when no one else could, and that he failed to assist says only very bad things about him as an individual. It does not take away a damn thing from the thousands of fire fighters who would have acted differently in the same circumstance.

Good to hear this isn't department protocol. If the neighbors house was burning down would this guy also wait while until someone from the public called? Just shout out to colleagues, let them call an ambulance, and get busy saving a life. It wasn't as clear cut as a fire but putting out fires comes down to saving lives so where did he get confused?

Did he confuse taking off on his own without informing someone (should not do) to shouting out and then hustling to get this guy aid? What had his supervisors taught him? How did he interpret it? It sounds like a really severe lapses of judgement - guy trying so hard to follow the rules he failed to take on the essence of a firefighter. It's too bad that happened - for all involved.