The internet has been ablaze with forum posts and blogs about an incident that happened last week out in San Francisco Bay. It seems a guy wanted to commit suicide, and he walked out into Alameda Bay and sort of waited for hypothermia to take over. Meanwhile, folks ashore just watched. In the audience was a few members of the Alameda Fire Dept, who just stood by and watched the events unfold to the inevitable conclusion.
The topic of taxpayer dollars and rescue agencies is always on our mind around here at the triple R cafe. Before I make comments, here are a few choice articles on point: (with a short quote from each)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/inalameda/detail?entry_id=90073
The Fire Department also issued an order saying that firefighters couldn’t go into the water to do rescues, as there was no longer funding to train and certify fire department personnel.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18211072
ALAMEDA — The day after a despondent man walked into the water off Robert Crown Memorial State Beach in an apparent attempt to take his own life, firefighters said budget cuts within the department were partly to blame for his death.
And, a thread from a cruisers forum, with comments like this:(actually, an interesting thread that you should read in entirety. Not everyone thinks that tax payers should foot this bill)
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f106/water-rescue-failure-sf-61651.html
Reasonable action to save a person is what the public expects from it’s public servants whose jobs are to “serve and protect” the public. Whoever gave the order to do otherwise should be fired!
(and)
If he was hollering for help, waving his arms or clearly in distress, someone/anyone whether firefighters, police, bystanders or just strollers on the beach should have rushed to his aid, policy and rules be damned. But if the individual was clearly trying to do himself in, who the hell gives any of us the right to intervene.
So, it seems that the budget cuts of the past few years are beginning to show at the operational level. Public rescue agencies are cutting back, and suddenly, the community finds out that this rescue stuff isn’t free.
What I would like to see though, is more discussion about the actual costs, instead of the generalized phrase budget. How much does two hours of Alameda FD water rescue cost the taxpayers?
From what I can tell, there has been no real debate about the pros/cons and costs. The City Manager of Alameda declared her shock, shock! that there has been any reduction in FD assets, and has ordered an immediate change of policy:
As of today, the fire department is changing its procedures, so that whoever is commander at that incident can make a decision about whether or not to send people into the water to rescue swimmers. They’re also going to start training fire fighters in water rescue again. And they’re doing an inventory of their equipment to figure out what they have and what they might need. Ms. Goldman mentioned wave runners, inflatable boats and other easily portable water craft — apparently bringing the fire boat back into service is cost prohibitive and other types of boats would be easier to deploy.
We started covering this topic when it was mostly limited to rural areas with very limited budgets. As you can see, it has now hit the the major metropolitan harbors. Why not write some letters to your local officials and suggest that they stop spending $$ on non-emergency work like we do, and focus their attention on actual life saving. Maybe if the fire department didn’t spend so much money on towboats, they would have the funds to save guys who were actually drowning?
More media coverage. Looks like the various departments are engaged in a blame game:
News is breaking out all over today that the Alameda County Fire Department, which has a water rescue program, has released a statement clarifying that it wasn’t involved with the drowning of a 52-year-old man Monday at Robert Crown Memorial Beach, in Alameda, Calif.
The department apparently sent out the release after numerous media reports confused the Alameda County Fire Department with the city of Alameda Fire Department, which just serves the city proper.
A press release sent out by the Alameda Police Department Monday night had said that it asked other agencies, including the Oakland Fire Department, the Alameda County Fire Department, and the East Bay Regional Park Police District for “assistance” getting Raymond Zack out of the water that day.
The county fire department’s press release notes that it was never actually asked to “respond” to what appeared to be a suicide attempt by Zack at Crown Beach. But the city of Alameda’s Fire Department did call the county department — as well as a number of other agencies in the area — “to find out what resources were available,” Daren Olson, acting deputy chief of operations for the the Alameda Fire Department says. “The county fire department told us they didn’t have a boat in the water and it would take at least 30 minutes to get to us. So we ultimately decided that the Coast Guard, which is closer and already had a boat in the water, would be the appropriate people to ask for assistance.”
Unfortunately, the boat sent by the Coast Guard couldn’t navigate the shallow waters off the beach and its helicopter was first at another incident and then had to re-fuel before getting to the scene an hour later. The Coast Guard did ask the Oakland Fire Department to send a different kind of boat, but canceled that request once Zack was brought in,” Olson says.
By that time a swimmer was already bringing Zack’s body back to shore.
