Today's Post from Inspector Gadget...
Discussion
This is today's post from here
Insector Gadget said:
I have that nervous feeling you get while trying to drive, read a map, listen to urgent updates coming over the radio and talk to Control on the hands-free. As usual I’m on my way to a serious drama. As a PC a small percentage of the calls I attended were real dramas. Now, all the calls I attend are real dramas.
This is because there is only one uniformed Duty Inspector at a time in F Division, and we are expected to attend the serious incidents personally. F Division is so huge that there is more or less always a serious drama for me to rush to.
Dealing with the incidents does not present me with a problem. I have spent my entire career in response or specialist uniformed front-line policing of one kind or another.
One of my correspondents summed it up nicely once by saying it is like going to watch the same play each night, only with different actors.
This one is a double fatal road crash on some fast road in the North of F Division. Four more are seriously injured.
I’m using the map to see how to avoid the road closures the response teams have already put in. The Controller; he is phoning me every ten seconds with information I already know, easing the conscience of a man who can only stand by in horror by transferring the tension to someone else.
This is the worst kind of drama for us. It’s the kind where we have arrived before the other emergency services, specifically, before the paramedics. The officers from the response team are trying to save lives and calm the shattered pleas from relatives who were in the car behind and saw it all.
This has taken place outside a private school for girls. The daughters of the privileged have just returned from the ski slopes of Europe.
The snow is not as good this year in Villars-Gryon.
And now life will never be as good again because you shouldn’t see what they have just seen, and are still seeing, at 15 years of age. Or at any age.
My people work fast without speaking. They eye their Sergeant as he sweats under his armour. He nods at a car, points at a victim, puts a finger to his lips indicating a distressed witness and all the time on the radio closing roads, eyes tightly shut as he accesses his mental map of the area. They know what he means by every gesture and they respond.
I arrive. It’s my old section. I was their Sergeant once. I’m there to keep a broader perspective and to think strategically about what the Division need to do next. This lasts for as long as it takes me to see the first body.
Everyone is here now. Like some bizarre, colourful ritual; fire and rescue personnel, paramedics, an air-ambulance. The huge rumbling dual carriageway is a silent, deep red stained strip of concrete. I stand and catch my breath.
And behind me, the rich girls are weeping.
This is because there is only one uniformed Duty Inspector at a time in F Division, and we are expected to attend the serious incidents personally. F Division is so huge that there is more or less always a serious drama for me to rush to.
Dealing with the incidents does not present me with a problem. I have spent my entire career in response or specialist uniformed front-line policing of one kind or another.
One of my correspondents summed it up nicely once by saying it is like going to watch the same play each night, only with different actors.
This one is a double fatal road crash on some fast road in the North of F Division. Four more are seriously injured.
I’m using the map to see how to avoid the road closures the response teams have already put in. The Controller; he is phoning me every ten seconds with information I already know, easing the conscience of a man who can only stand by in horror by transferring the tension to someone else.
This is the worst kind of drama for us. It’s the kind where we have arrived before the other emergency services, specifically, before the paramedics. The officers from the response team are trying to save lives and calm the shattered pleas from relatives who were in the car behind and saw it all.
This has taken place outside a private school for girls. The daughters of the privileged have just returned from the ski slopes of Europe.
The snow is not as good this year in Villars-Gryon.
And now life will never be as good again because you shouldn’t see what they have just seen, and are still seeing, at 15 years of age. Or at any age.
My people work fast without speaking. They eye their Sergeant as he sweats under his armour. He nods at a car, points at a victim, puts a finger to his lips indicating a distressed witness and all the time on the radio closing roads, eyes tightly shut as he accesses his mental map of the area. They know what he means by every gesture and they respond.
I arrive. It’s my old section. I was their Sergeant once. I’m there to keep a broader perspective and to think strategically about what the Division need to do next. This lasts for as long as it takes me to see the first body.
Everyone is here now. Like some bizarre, colourful ritual; fire and rescue personnel, paramedics, an air-ambulance. The huge rumbling dual carriageway is a silent, deep red stained strip of concrete. I stand and catch my breath.
And behind me, the rich girls are weeping.
chrispy porker said:
and cue someone moaning about speed limits...........police state..........blah,blah.....
And the fact all we do is take statements, "do" people for speeding, hand out leaflets, and generally inconveniance(sp) motorists
Edited by ^Slider^ on Thursday 4th January 18:36
I hope you guys aren't confusing criticism of the system for criticism of yourselves as individuals for the way [the vast majority of] you do your jobs...
Personally I do not mean it like that as I have said before, and I think most realise that being a BiB is not an easy option
ETA - i think your reactions above show your side of the 'divide' that does seem to be opening up between police and public. As said before, there are many reasons for that divide, which do not help either BiB or MoP and it is this divide that should, I believe, be a large concern to the senior ranks.
My 2p's worth
Personally I do not mean it like that as I have said before, and I think most realise that being a BiB is not an easy option
ETA - i think your reactions above show your side of the 'divide' that does seem to be opening up between police and public. As said before, there are many reasons for that divide, which do not help either BiB or MoP and it is this divide that should, I believe, be a large concern to the senior ranks.
My 2p's worth
Edited by IT10 on Thursday 4th January 18:59
I have been to 2 fatacs that haunt me.
1, I held a man down in an ambulance for 9 miles as a paramedic tried to save his life as we drove at high speed to hospital. He screamed all the way. I was covered in his blood. He didn't survive A and E.
2. man was crushed under a coach. The jack wouldn't raise the coach as it was on grass, I could hold his hand but not pull him out.He died holding my hand and I will never forget it. Then his drunk mates attacked me because it was my fault.
Reading Insp Gadget has just opened up a gate for me to somewhere I don't want to go again I am afraid.
1, I held a man down in an ambulance for 9 miles as a paramedic tried to save his life as we drove at high speed to hospital. He screamed all the way. I was covered in his blood. He didn't survive A and E.
2. man was crushed under a coach. The jack wouldn't raise the coach as it was on grass, I could hold his hand but not pull him out.He died holding my hand and I will never forget it. Then his drunk mates attacked me because it was my fault.
Reading Insp Gadget has just opened up a gate for me to somewhere I don't want to go again I am afraid.
chrispy porker said:
1, I held a man down in an ambulance for 9 miles as a paramedic tried to save his life as we drove at high speed to hospital. He screamed all the way. I was covered in his blood.
Similar one, went to a 14yr old kid hit by a car. Fractured skull amongst many other things, hence he was puking all over me and paramedic in the ambulance whilst we held him down. We were covered in the stuff. Died right there in front of me.
Had a retired gent, he'd taken a little job in B&Q for some extra money, riding a little 50cc thing for pootling to work. He clipped a kerb, fell into the opposite carriageway, and his head was flattened by an artic coming the other way. Even though he had a helmet on, his brain was almost intact by the side of the road where it had exploded out, yet the helmet (and head) were literally flat.
As with all you guys, the list is endless, many many more stories of sudden deaths/suicides/fataccs etc. No wonder the BiB on here are begining to get a bee in their bonnets about the latest influx of members with their pathetic little rants from the safety of their keyboards. I rarely visit here now, I stick to the Lotus forum...
Just to take a different tack or two on this, if it was the railways and somebody had just jumped into the path of a train, something I've seen on the tube but not a mainline, then according to a similarly senior police officer with whom discussions were held at a transport seminar, there would be constant and intense pressure from the rail operating authority on the police response officer at the scene to get the track re-opened and the trains rolling again, on behalf of its customers. On a road or motorway, according to this officer, the relevant highway authority places no pressure whatsoever on the police to get major routes open again. As a result, they stay closed for too long. Hopefully, developments in 3D digital imaging techniques will help with the inherent speed of crash investigation and get things moving again.
As for gory scenes, definitely not my cup of tea. Saw a motorcyclist undergo a foot amputation in a meeting with a tree, the foot still in its shoe flew through the bedroom window of a house that the tree was outside of. Police retrieved the shoe and foot. The biker, wasn't concerned about the foot thing as tragically his neck was broken on impact. This was when I was walking home from primary school as an 11 year old, the house was almost opposite where my parents lived. At seondary school our playing field backed onto what Inspector Gadget would call a 'fast road', but we're not talking posh girly schools here, this was a state school. One lunch in the exam season a mini hit a tree opposite where we were playing football, a passenger went out through the rear screen and was decapitated. We got a letter sent to the exam board after that. Now as an adult I wouldn't be much use beyond basic first aid, unless they were shot up as well and I could remember my basic battlefield training (ugh).
Not sure what the good Inspector is saying to his readers there. A bit of life desanitisation for people can be useful sometimes. Was that it?
As for gory scenes, definitely not my cup of tea. Saw a motorcyclist undergo a foot amputation in a meeting with a tree, the foot still in its shoe flew through the bedroom window of a house that the tree was outside of. Police retrieved the shoe and foot. The biker, wasn't concerned about the foot thing as tragically his neck was broken on impact. This was when I was walking home from primary school as an 11 year old, the house was almost opposite where my parents lived. At seondary school our playing field backed onto what Inspector Gadget would call a 'fast road', but we're not talking posh girly schools here, this was a state school. One lunch in the exam season a mini hit a tree opposite where we were playing football, a passenger went out through the rear screen and was decapitated. We got a letter sent to the exam board after that. Now as an adult I wouldn't be much use beyond basic first aid, unless they were shot up as well and I could remember my basic battlefield training (ugh).
Not sure what the good Inspector is saying to his readers there. A bit of life desanitisation for people can be useful sometimes. Was that it?
I dont quite understand whats hes trying to do either. I can understand that RTA's are horrible and all sorts of gruesome things that are best left to rotten.com can happen. But the fact he posted it in a blog would suggest he's either trying to rationalise his feelings by talking about them in much the same way he described the officer at the scene was doing on the radio. Alternatively he wants everyone who reads it to praise him for being wonderful and having such a difficult job that no-one else could possibly understand it.
deevlash said:
I dont quite understand whats hes trying to do either. I can understand that RTA's are horrible and all sorts of gruesome things that are best left to rotten.com can happen. But the fact he posted it in a blog would suggest he's either trying to rationalise his feelings by talking about them in much the same way he described the officer at the scene was doing on the radio. Alternatively he wants everyone who reads it to praise him for being wonderful and having such a difficult job that no-one else could possibly understand it.
No,
Blogs that we do are not to let everyone know how great we are and how difficult the job is.
Its because sometimes you cannot say to your better half / crewmate or colleagues what it makes you feel.
Sometimes putting it in a blog makes it seem right to do so. To explain in cold words what has happened.
Trust me it makes me feel better sometimes
IT10 said:
I hope you guys aren't confusing criticism of the system for criticism of yourselves as individuals for the way [the vast majority of] you do your jobs...
Personally I do not mean it like that as I have said before, and I think most realise that being a BiB is not an easy option
ETA - i think your reactions above show your side of the 'divide' that does seem to be opening up between police and public. As said before, there are many reasons for that divide, which do not help either BiB or MoP and it is this divide that should, I believe, be a large concern to the senior ranks.
My 2p's worth
Personally I do not mean it like that as I have said before, and I think most realise that being a BiB is not an easy option
ETA - i think your reactions above show your side of the 'divide' that does seem to be opening up between police and public. As said before, there are many reasons for that divide, which do not help either BiB or MoP and it is this divide that should, I believe, be a large concern to the senior ranks.
My 2p's worth
Edited by IT10 on Thursday 4th January 18:59
I wholeheartedly endorse these comments. There is a divide opening up between the police and large sections of the public, which does no-one any favours. The reasons for the divide can be argued about until the cows come home, go out again, and come back, and some will never agree on what most people perceive the causes to be. The police have to put up with a great deal of stress and crap that most people would run a mile from.
But that does not excuse some of the bad behaviour from a very very small percentage of the BiB that occasionally some of us have had to put up with. Many of the BiB on these forums have in the past said that bad behaviour SHOULD be complained about so that it can be rooted out, to the benefit of all, BiB and public alike.
I now expect to be shot down in flames.
I guess if one has a special role in one's work the view of the world may become truly distorted and personally stressful.
In many ways paramedics (or ambulancemen as they used to be called) have always been heroic in my view in that respect - yet they all seem to be such regular people - at least the ones I have met and chatted to. I would guess that they have some way of turning off. The number of trauma events, many of which will not involve a police presence, that they are likely to attend daily must be crushing unless they find a way to switch on and off.
I have seen a few accidents happen in my time and the results of accidents that have recently happened (in the days before the roads were closed for the duration and when many people had no seat belts) and one occasion I recall well where a vehicle passed us, lost control and hit a lampost at speed. The driver did not survive. My father and I were first at the scene. We had front row seats. Driver was on his way home from a wedding ... not his I presume.
Somewhere in the process one registers what has happend and files it away and life goes on. But as a regular MOP I don't find myself in those situations often - in fact very infrequently indeed. Much like the vast majority of the population.
I guess if you go in for medical work you do so understanding what you may be faced with daily.
On the other hand police work is more diverse by expectation so there is no basis for an assumption that most calls are likely to end up in a blood and gore situation. Add to that the responsibility for co-ordinating events and trying to protect the public from the unpleasantness they may not really wish to see and it is easy to see why the whole event, and the never ending series of similar events in a busy day, may be so especially stressful.
But it is not the only reality. And sometimes people, even teenagers as I seem to recall I just about was when the wedding guest rammed the lampost in the exact centre of his bonnet and thus the non-collapsing steering wheel into the exact centre of his chest and face, irrespective of gender will see such reality.
If not first hand they will have it presented to them in various safety campaigns.
One can only presume that the onlookers described were not family members nor, hopefully, friends of those killed and injured.
Once that job has been dealt with the feelings that it may leave need to be filed away and remain dormant lest they inappropriately influence the next or subsequent activities for which they would not be meaningful. Otherwise the individual's world view will become rather distorted and out of synchronisation with the majority of the people they will be meeting. I'm not sure that would be a helpful situation.
In many ways paramedics (or ambulancemen as they used to be called) have always been heroic in my view in that respect - yet they all seem to be such regular people - at least the ones I have met and chatted to. I would guess that they have some way of turning off. The number of trauma events, many of which will not involve a police presence, that they are likely to attend daily must be crushing unless they find a way to switch on and off.
I have seen a few accidents happen in my time and the results of accidents that have recently happened (in the days before the roads were closed for the duration and when many people had no seat belts) and one occasion I recall well where a vehicle passed us, lost control and hit a lampost at speed. The driver did not survive. My father and I were first at the scene. We had front row seats. Driver was on his way home from a wedding ... not his I presume.
Somewhere in the process one registers what has happend and files it away and life goes on. But as a regular MOP I don't find myself in those situations often - in fact very infrequently indeed. Much like the vast majority of the population.
I guess if you go in for medical work you do so understanding what you may be faced with daily.
On the other hand police work is more diverse by expectation so there is no basis for an assumption that most calls are likely to end up in a blood and gore situation. Add to that the responsibility for co-ordinating events and trying to protect the public from the unpleasantness they may not really wish to see and it is easy to see why the whole event, and the never ending series of similar events in a busy day, may be so especially stressful.
But it is not the only reality. And sometimes people, even teenagers as I seem to recall I just about was when the wedding guest rammed the lampost in the exact centre of his bonnet and thus the non-collapsing steering wheel into the exact centre of his chest and face, irrespective of gender will see such reality.
If not first hand they will have it presented to them in various safety campaigns.
One can only presume that the onlookers described were not family members nor, hopefully, friends of those killed and injured.
Once that job has been dealt with the feelings that it may leave need to be filed away and remain dormant lest they inappropriately influence the next or subsequent activities for which they would not be meaningful. Otherwise the individual's world view will become rather distorted and out of synchronisation with the majority of the people they will be meeting. I'm not sure that would be a helpful situation.
I think, that at the end of the day, regardless of occupation, we are all humans and the tragic loss of human life will affect us - how we chose to express that is what makes us human.
BiB have some petty jobs and some shitty jobs, I don't respect a lot of the law, but I respect the vast majority of those who make the difficult decision to uphold them...
As a BA, the worst I see is daily is a project slipping, not someone's head 5 feet from their neck - yesterdays coach crash should bring that home...
BiB have some petty jobs and some shitty jobs, I don't respect a lot of the law, but I respect the vast majority of those who make the difficult decision to uphold them...
As a BA, the worst I see is daily is a project slipping, not someone's head 5 feet from their neck - yesterdays coach crash should bring that home...
[quote=turbobloke]Just to take a different tack or two on this, if it was the railways and somebody had just jumped into the path of a train, something I've seen on the tube but not a mainline, then according to a similarly senior police officer with whom discussions were held at a transport seminar, there would be constant and intense pressure from the rail operating authority on the police response officer at the scene to get the track re-opened and the trains rolling again, on behalf of its customers. On a road or motorway, according to this officer, the relevant highway authority places no pressure whatsoever on the police to get major routes open again. As a result, they stay closed for too long. Hopefully, developments in 3D digital imaging techniques will help with the inherent speed of crash investigation and get things moving again.
With the above scenario someone has taken the descision to end their own life by jumping in front of the train, I wouldn't think there would be a great deal of investigation required other than to make sure he wasn't pushed.
In the case of a fatal road accident, particularly if there are several vehicles and/or casualties involved, then there is potential for someone to be facing very serious charges and possibly going to prison. It is therefore essential that these things are investigated thoroughly, and the Police should be given the time they need to do that without pressure being put on them.
With the above scenario someone has taken the descision to end their own life by jumping in front of the train, I wouldn't think there would be a great deal of investigation required other than to make sure he wasn't pushed.
In the case of a fatal road accident, particularly if there are several vehicles and/or casualties involved, then there is potential for someone to be facing very serious charges and possibly going to prison. It is therefore essential that these things are investigated thoroughly, and the Police should be given the time they need to do that without pressure being put on them.
chrispy porker said:
when we're not speeding about delivering takeaways, allegedly.
Actually... I seriously don't have a problem with an "emergency curry run"... BiB take enough crap just doing their job and it's not like night shifts where the canteen is inevitably closed are pleasant to begin with (speaking as someone who's done shift work).
*shrug*
Over a period of some 30 years I have been exposed to some horrors that should not be.
Having been impotent to rescue someone known to me who was trapped in a blazing car and having watched, sobbing, while he stared fixedly at me until vanishing behind the flames; having seen (from a head-on position) a driver lose his head from the bridge of his nose upwards when his lorry hit a tree and several sheets of steel in his load didn't stop (taking off the top of the tree as well); having stuffed my fist into a bullet exit wound of the chest of one of my colleagues and watched as his blood, hopes and life poured into a dirt street in Djibouti; having seen civilians and servicemen blown before my eyes literally into pieces too small to identify; and having recently cradled the head of a dying (very aggressive cancer) friend as she and her eight-year old son waited (uselessly) for the ambulance to arrive; I empathise and sympathise strongly with those who have deal with such things on a daily basis.
Now I have to go somewhere quiet until my heart stops pounding, my head throbbing, and my eyes pricking. I should have heeded crispy porker's implicit warning ... but in some way I do feel better for posting this.
Sorry!
Streaky
Having been impotent to rescue someone known to me who was trapped in a blazing car and having watched, sobbing, while he stared fixedly at me until vanishing behind the flames; having seen (from a head-on position) a driver lose his head from the bridge of his nose upwards when his lorry hit a tree and several sheets of steel in his load didn't stop (taking off the top of the tree as well); having stuffed my fist into a bullet exit wound of the chest of one of my colleagues and watched as his blood, hopes and life poured into a dirt street in Djibouti; having seen civilians and servicemen blown before my eyes literally into pieces too small to identify; and having recently cradled the head of a dying (very aggressive cancer) friend as she and her eight-year old son waited (uselessly) for the ambulance to arrive; I empathise and sympathise strongly with those who have deal with such things on a daily basis.
Now I have to go somewhere quiet until my heart stops pounding, my head throbbing, and my eyes pricking. I should have heeded crispy porker's implicit warning ... but in some way I do feel better for posting this.
Sorry!
Streaky
LongQ said:
Once that job has been dealt with the feelings that it may leave need to be filed away and remain dormant lest they inappropriately influence the next or subsequent activities for which they would not be meaningful. Otherwise the individual's world view will become rather distorted and out of synchronisation with the majority of the people they will be meeting. I'm not sure that would be a helpful situation.
I think you're right. How long does it take to file that away and make it "dormant" though? An hour? The rest of your shift? A week? There must be a period, after such an incident, where anyone would be deeply affected by it. Streaky above seems to have had more than his fair share, but most of us have to deal with stuff like this on only a few occasions in a life time. BiB might have to deal with 2 or 3 in a shift, or in a week, or in a month. How far away have you filed the last one before you have to deal with the next?
Imagine you have just spent a couple of hours picking up bits of somebody off the road, and sweeping up the bits you can't pick up. Once that incident is cleared you get back in the patrol car, turn the corner and there's some moron driving like a cock. How easy is it to switch on the smile and be polite, when your brain is saying "Jees why can these people not drive with some sense?". You would have to be a robot to be able to do, and it seems to be the prevalent view here that officers acting like robots is the last thing we want (most of the time).
As Dibble (I think it was) said before, there are too many people too ready to criticise things they know nothing about, too ready to tar a whole organisation with the same brush, on the basis of one or two encounters, possibly with an officer who is already trying to process and file away and make dormant, the kind of stuff we are talking about here. It's not a job I would like to do, nor, I suspect, would many of the critics.
I don't have particular cause to praise the police - locally, their success rate in minor crimes that I have witnessed (and two that I was a victim of) has been absolutely zero, not because they didn't know who did it, but because there was absolutely no proof. Life was so much easier when a quick visit and a boot up the backside was a useful deterrent to some of those starting out on a life of crime.
You can't blame individual officers for the state that the system has got into.
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