Health & safety PC crap gone wrong
Discussion
Been following this story
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_we...
It's not the first time I can remember front line firefighters being stopped from saving someone - a Tayside guy was carpeted for rescuing a man from the River Tay because bosses took exception to him going into water.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_we...
It's not the first time I can remember front line firefighters being stopped from saving someone - a Tayside guy was carpeted for rescuing a man from the River Tay because bosses took exception to him going into water.
matchmaker said:
Been following this story
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_we...
It's not the first time I can remember front line firefighters being stopped from saving someone - a Tayside guy was carpeted for rescuing a man from the River Tay because bosses took exception to him going into water.
Unless it's different in Scotland he's not even correct. My brother in law is a fireman in a rope rescue team, which are tasked with extracting people form exactly that sort of situation.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_we...
It's not the first time I can remember front line firefighters being stopped from saving someone - a Tayside guy was carpeted for rescuing a man from the River Tay because bosses took exception to him going into water.
The guy does sound like he's swallowed the rule book, and is just obsessed with procedures and documentation.
But, to play devils advocate - ultimately the responsibility for the safety of the firefighters sits with him. The first rule of any rescue is not to make the situation worse or to endanger more people. If he thought the risk of rescuing her was too great, then that's his call. Unless he really is a complete arse, I can't imagine it was an easy decision to make.
But, to play devils advocate - ultimately the responsibility for the safety of the firefighters sits with him. The first rule of any rescue is not to make the situation worse or to endanger more people. If he thought the risk of rescuing her was too great, then that's his call. Unless he really is a complete arse, I can't imagine it was an easy decision to make.
There seems to be little point in a full time fire service then. They have a £400M IT project failure and they have obviously wrongly interpretted the H&Sawa 1974. Compare and contrast with the New York fire service many of whom are are on part time retainers who died attempting to rescue the public from the twin towers.
Clearly risks need to be managed in any work situation, however the process of measuring likelihood v severity in the normal workplace is pretty simple. If the severity = death then you must manage the risk to the point where the likelihood = 0 or very close to zero. Obviously in a situation where someone has dropped down a mine the recuer is clearly facing death. If the fire service are literally just going to show up with a rope and a winch (items which could be found in my garage) then what the hell are we paying them for? The civil servant who did the risk assessment was correct in his analysis but falling down a mineshaft is a very forseeable event so they ought to have equipment and proceedures in place to make this rescue possible by making a shaft collapse survivable, at least for the rescuer. To simply turn up declare the risk analysis as too risky undermines the purpose of the job. Clearly this means if we get a really big fire with an explosive hazard then the fire service will just shrug their shoulders and say let it burn itself out its too dangerous to try to put it out. At that point 25k a year for a basic fireman is too much, 25k too much in fact.
Clearly risks need to be managed in any work situation, however the process of measuring likelihood v severity in the normal workplace is pretty simple. If the severity = death then you must manage the risk to the point where the likelihood = 0 or very close to zero. Obviously in a situation where someone has dropped down a mine the recuer is clearly facing death. If the fire service are literally just going to show up with a rope and a winch (items which could be found in my garage) then what the hell are we paying them for? The civil servant who did the risk assessment was correct in his analysis but falling down a mineshaft is a very forseeable event so they ought to have equipment and proceedures in place to make this rescue possible by making a shaft collapse survivable, at least for the rescuer. To simply turn up declare the risk analysis as too risky undermines the purpose of the job. Clearly this means if we get a really big fire with an explosive hazard then the fire service will just shrug their shoulders and say let it burn itself out its too dangerous to try to put it out. At that point 25k a year for a basic fireman is too much, 25k too much in fact.
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