Posts by Matthew Poole
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Do any critics of the cops action here have a 1st Aid Cert?
It would appear not. Or if they do, they slept through the introductory remarks by the instructor, and significant repetitions throughout the course, about how their safety is paramount.
I once saw a very extended list of person-safety priorities, intended for emergency services personnel, that went along the lines of:
You
Your partner/crew
Your further-responding crews/other responding services
Bystanders
Non-bystanding neighbours (eg: buildings down-wind of a gas leak)
The victim(s)Is first aid taught in schools? I got taught very basic first aid in standard four, and thought it was very worthwhile. Don't know if the safety message was imparted then, but it certainly would be now.
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The concept that people mustn't take the law into their own hands, and protecting people from crime is the role of the police is all well and good, but if in reality that protection has quite a few riders attached to it, and in there is no guarantee of any protection, is that really acceptable?
The police have never guaranteed to protect you. Never, ever. To do so would require an armed officer at every entrance to every premises. All they can do is respond when advised of a situation requiring their intervention. If they happen to get there in time to take proactive measures, well and good, but if not then all they can do is deal with the aftermath.
You've shifted your perception. Before, you were angry that the police wouldn't rush into any situation they encountered without first ensuring their safety. Now you're angry that they didn't stop the shooting to begin with, in part because of their insistence that people not take the law into their own hands. That's an entirely different kettle of fish. That's not a failure to aid Mr Singh, that's an obstruction of his safety.
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BTW: I'm not suggesting Chris Comesky is slimey but I'm wondering if you are.
I used his name because he's Xue's lawyer. It wasn't meant to imply anything, it was simply using a name because one could be used in context.
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It's worth noting that the ambulance service was making no apologies for the wait. They didn't want their people dead either.
Why is it that nobody's criticising them for this, I wonder? I'd love to see the court battle between an ambulance officer who ignored a cop's order to stay at the SFP (and got arrested for obstruction), and the cop who interfered with an ambulance officer seeking to provide urgent medical attention to a person who'd been shot. Interfering with a rescue is the crime, I believe. It'd be epic.
If the ambos had really wanted to get in there, they would've told the cops to go jump and just gone. But because they value their safety, they wouldn't ignore the instructions of the police OIC, or their own SOPs. So, clearly, the ambulance officers are just as gutless and cowardly as the police. -
From the perspective of the poor sod whose been shot (and not to detract from what you've said), leaving him until it is safer to enter could be seen as pretty callous from his perspective, couldn't it?
Oh, of course. As I've said, it sucks that such choices are necessary. Thankfully I've never been on the sharp end and had to make that kind of decision, but I can't imagine too many things harder for people who spend their time helping others.
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I thought the callous part was not going to the assistance of someone who got shot.
Callous on whose part? The ambulance officers who obeyed their protocols, and doubtless the orders of the police officer-in-charge, and waited at the SFP until given the all-clear? Or the police who, mindful of their duty to protect the responding medics and also of their own safety, wouldn't allow the ambulance officers to approach until they had ascertained that the scene was secure?
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and although I'm somewhat horrified, at least I have a fairly good idea of where I stand if I'm ever unfortunate enough to need help and I will adjust my expectations accordingly.
Sorry to burst your bubble so brutally. Your previous perspective on the importance of your life in an emergency is pretty much the exact mirror image of any trained personnel who come to assist you. You want to get out alive, at any cost. So do they.
Hopefully you'll never be in such a situation. They don't occur terribly often. Normally the circumstances are such that an immediate rescue can be effected, or at least emergency first aid given while the resources to carry out a difficult rescue are mustered.To nail it right home, though, the emergency services have protocols for terminating a rescue attempt. If the danger to the lives of the rescuers becomes too great, they will be ordered to pull back. They'll be dragged out by their feet, kicking and screaming, if need be. It's most common in structural collapses, where the pile begins to shift or behave unpredictably and the risk of death to rescuers becomes unacceptable. They're there to save lives, not give their own.
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I'm a bit gob-smacked by it, but maybe I'm just naive.
Go and take a first aid course. If you have, you didn't really think that they were joking about taking care of oneself first, did you?
At least we've established that you're not actually as unbelievably callous as you first appear. You just have unrealistic expectations of what people whose lives are on the line on a regular basis will do.
Being in the emergency services in this country is actually extremely safe. We very rarely lose cops or fire fighters in the line of duty, and I don't know if an ambo's ever died on the job. The safety culture is heavily ingrained into all the services here, which is why it's a rare senior officer who has to go and visit a family to tell them that one of their nearest-and-dearest won't be coming home ever again. The anguish seen after Tamahere is a thankfully incredibly infrequent happening.
Part of that is the from-day-one message that they're more use alive than dead. A injured rescuer is another person who needs help. Potentially the original victim will die because the rescuer's medical needs are more pressing. How is that any value? -
I will even reiterate that if the consensus is that the public should not expect help when there is such a risk, fine.
Even if such a consensus is not reached, the emergency services won't change their modus operandi. They will continue to look out for their own safety above all else, and if injured people die as a consequence then that's terribly unfortunate. It's brutal, but no district/regional supervisor wants to be making that phone call/visit.
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Should the general public have an expectation that the Police will help them in an emergency, or should the general population actually be quite clear that in an emergency they are on their own and that they should not expect any help until the risk is deemed acceptable?
The latter. And it's not a new circumstance. The same applies for emergencies involving the other services, too. None of them will charge into a situation that's potentially dangerous if they can take steps to minimise/mitigate the risk involved. Had Royd Kennedy left Shirley Young to burn to death under the tanker at Manukau, no fire fighter would've questioned that judgement call. In hindsight it would've been the wrong call, given that she was able to be saved, but at that point in time it would have been reasonable to say that the risk to his life was too great to justify going in after her.
Again, and I'm not the only person who's said it, emergency services workers look out for themselves first. They won't charge in to save you if there's a risk that they consider can be mitigated. You seem to think this is unreasonable, maybe even a dereliction of duty, and that the police have somehow turned into a bunch of pansies who don't want to help people. You're the one using emotionally-charge language, we're just responding to what you're saying. I quote "should the general population actually be quite clear that in an emergency they are on their own". You, not me. How else can that be read than that you don't think the emergency services should be allowed to account for their own safety before venturing in to provide aid?