Health & Safety gone MAD! A national disgrace.

[RigidRaider]

Read this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/7183017.stm

This is the most disgusting example of backside-covering I have ever seen. The man deserves a medal, not to be dismissed in disgrace. Now use this form to contact the MCA and express your disgust:

http://www.mcga.gov.uk/c4mca/mcga-home/mcga-contact-us.htm

 

[Thermo]

when i was a diver for the police we had a lot of dealings with the health and safety executive. they are some of the most level headed people with a lot of common sense you could wish to find, working in a government department. They used to be baffled by stories such as this. It is always about assesing the risk and minimising it where possible, but in certain circumstances they accept it cant be done

The trouble is so many companies and organisations are frightened of litigation and have employed health and safety officers, who are their to protect the company/organisation and not the people involved it is laughable.

 

[ColJack]

"they left the vehicles at the locked gates"

knowing that someone might be stuck on a cliff wouldn't you just drive through the bloody things??? generally, mountain / cliff rescue vehicles are big 4x4's ( land rovers I would think ) with winches and bull bars..

"they left rescue gear in the vehicle to get to the scene quickly"

it's a cliff rescue, what did they expect to be able to do without ropes?

they run across the field without ropes or harneses, see a girl hanging on for dear life and climb down to rescue her.. at which point there are then 2 people in jeopardy...

it's all very well that he saved her, but consider if he lost his grip / footings while helping her to safety.. he falls and takes her with him...

 

[Richardp]

I was a coastguard for 14yrs, another year and I would have got my medal but all the health and safty crap ****ed me off, we had to do far more and without any pay so I jacked it in after an argument with the district coastguard officer who was a jumped little twerp! I still see him and he still is a twerp with no idea about the sea.
what ever!

 

[gcol]

There's not really enough information in that article to pass comment. She'd been there for 45mins, I'd be interested in knowing how long it would have taken to get the right equipment.

 

[Richardp]

I wouldn't mind betting that he just leaped down there without thinking about safety harnesses etc, after all, its all relatively new and it probably was more a gentle slope than a cliff, I mean, the rules are drawn up by people behind desks in London, we had to rig up all sorts of safety apparatus to get down a cliff face were we could have climbed down safely just 100 yard further along.

 

[tim west]

I cant see the difference between this case and people being taught to never put themselves in danger when seeing someone being electrocuted, they tell you to find a non conducting object like a piece of wood to remove the person from the source of electricity, by the time you find a suitable object the person could be dead,
or when on a plane and the oxygen masks fall down, to put yours on first before attempting to help others,
most people take that as sensible advice so whats the difference in this case?
The message is clear dont put yourself in a life threatening situation to save another, make sure you are safe first. One difference here is that the rescuer has had training to understand this and has decided on his own back to disregard that advice and now complains about the consequences!

 

[Richardp]

He should have had a square cucumber

 

[blondini]

The guy wasn't dismissed, he quit. Why?

IMO he did what any decent person would have done when faced with a girl who may have been about to fall to her death. If she had been hanging on for 45 minutes before help arrived, she would have been tiring. And if she had climbed down there herself before getting into difficulty then someone more capable and experienced should be able to make the climb down and assist her.

IMO the MCA were also right to investigate the incident because he did get into a situation where he had to put himself at needless risk. The safety equipment should have been there, why wasn't it? What could have been done differently? The incident should be analysed so that lessons can be learned.

 

[roughcaster]

The guy wasn't dismissed, he quit. Why?

IMO he did what any decent person would have done when faced with a girl who may have been about to fall to her death. If she had been hanging on for 45 minutes before help arrived, she would have been tiring. And if she had climbed down there herself before getting into difficulty then someone more capable and experienced should be able to make the climb down and assist her.

IMO the MCA were also right to investigate the incident because he did get into a situation where he had to put himself at needless risk. The safety equipment should have been there, why wasn't it? What could have been done differently? The incident should be analysed so that lessons can be learned.[/

quote]

Paul Waugh really does deserve praise for rescuing Faye Harrison from the cliff. He has been a volounteer coastguard for 13 years and is one of some 3,500,(male and female) volounteers that form the teams who are on call 24/7 around the coast of the British Isles.They are actually paid for callouts (the minimum wage), but are not in it for the money, it is a commitment,and is done with pride. I was out today with the Coastguard, not on a call out,but doing our three yearly first aid refresher, to update our certificates. We discussed this particular incident and came to the unanimous conclusion that Paul Waugh was WRONG to break the safety guidelines, laid down for all of us. This would be strongly echoed around the coast by a majority,without a doubt. Paul and the other 2 team members arrived at the scene on foot,because their vehicle was trapped behind locked gates a field away,and because they wanted to get to the incident as quickly as possible,they left their rescue/safety equipment in the vehicle. A cliff rescue team with no equipment cannot operate,and if there had been a dramatic turn of events, 2 people would have been in peril, with no equipment at hand. We have cliffs along our stretch of coast that we are charged with,we also have sandy beaches,say 50/50. Access to the cliffs with us is often through locked gates, but we have keys for all of them. Sometimes,even that will not take us directly to every potential incident location. We resort to carrying the gear on foot,all of it,stakes,ropes,winch,harnesses etc. if we can't get near enough to the scene, but at least we have all of it with us,including a good crowbar for any changed padlocks etc.Firefighters,mountain rescue,cave rescue etc all have safety guidelines, break them and things go well, you are hero, a David against Goliath, break them and people die,you're on your own.

Roughcaster.

 

[libby lou lou]

What's the clown of a girl doing in the position she put her self in,again?

He'd rescued her before from a rising/incoming tide?

Why did she not learn the first time ?

 

[Alison556]

That's a hard one to judge. It's difficult to know what you'd have done in that situation and I do understand why he did it.

I don't know what is involved safety equipment wise for cliff rescue, but I assume even a rope and a harness would have been enough to have got to her safely and surely that wouldn't have been much to carry?

I was in the ambulance service and we had to carry our gear with us. On one occassion, me and my partner had to try and get over an 8 foot wall with defibrillator, oxygen and kit bag. No easy task but we did it and it didn't take us that long. Had we got over the wall and then seen what we had to deal with, looked for a key to open the locked gate and then go back for equipment, the patient would have died but the couple of minutes it took for him to shove me up the wall, pass up the gear and get it down the other side was still quicker than not taking it at all and having to go back for it.

 

[Atilla]

What about the two part time coppers who stood and whatched the youngster drown in the local pond??

Management supported them (if i recall correctly) again, citing health and safety reasons for not trying to help.

Damned if they help, damned if they don't.

 

[Nige F]

I cant see the difference between this case and people being taught to never put themselves in danger when seeing someone being electrocuted, they tell you to find a non conducting object like a piece of wood to remove the person from the source of electricity, by the time you find a suitable object the person could be dead,

Might be a good idea to use something non-conductive

 

[johnny_t]

The guy wasn't dismissed, he quit. Why?

IMO he did what any decent person would have done when faced with a girl who may have been about to fall to her death. If she had been hanging on for 45 minutes before help arrived, she would have been tiring. And if she had climbed down there herself before getting into difficulty then someone more capable and experienced should be able to make the climb down and assist her.

IMO the MCA were also right to investigate the incident because he did get into a situation where he had to put himself at needless risk. The safety equipment should have been there, why wasn't it? What could have been done differently? The incident should be analysed so that lessons can be learned.

My thoughts entirely - He wasn't 'dismissed in disgrace' as the OP states, rather he was nominated for an award and then left in a huff because he was told that he really ought to wear a harness next time.

The investigating may well stop another coastguard dying in the future, but instead he has chosen to turn this into another Health & Safety Mountain out of a Molehill furore.

I have very little sympathy for him, I must admit....