In the Nanny state nothing is more threatening to Nanny than independence of thought, action and displays of leadership and courage.Who better to demonstrate such positive traits than a hero?
As such, it should come as no surprise to learn that Nanny has banned heroism and heroes.
Paul Waugh, a volunteer coastguard who was nominated for an award for rescuing a schoolgirl from a cliff, found this to his cost recently.
Mr Waugh rescued Faye Harrison, 13, who in January 2007 was hanging on by her fingertips and about to fall 200ft (60m) at Salburn-on-Sea, Teesside. He climbed down and held on to her for 30 minutes, until she could be winched to safety.
Unfortunately, he was not wearing safety equipment as it would have taken time to go back to his vehicle which was some distance away.
Mr Waugh, despite rescuing the girl, was later told by Nanny that he had broken rules.
The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said it was not looking for dead heroes.
Mr Waugh said:
"I understand I broke a rule,
but I felt it was a matter of having to
because she only had minutes to live.
She said that herself, she was planning her own funeral.
When you see a little frightened face looking up at you,
all you want to do is help.
There's no way I'm going to stand back and watch a
13-year-old girl fall off a cliff."
Faye later nominated him for a life saver award as her "guardian angel".
However, Mr Waugh, who was with the MCA for 13 years, was told that the organisation had carried out an internal investigation into the team's handling of the incident, and the health and safety issues surrounding the rescue.
He has decided to leave the MCA rather than put up with any more health and safety bullshit.
Quote:
"I'm leaving now due to the hassle
I've had over the last nine months.
In fact, I've been depressed over it.
Yes, fair enough, I broke a rule,
but when I started my training a long time ago,
I was told, one time, you'll work outside the box.
And in this case I had to help her, she was ready to fall.
I'm very, very sad. It's a shame I'm having to go."
The MCA said it was very grateful for his past activities and wished him well in the future.
The statement said:
"Our responsibility is to maintain the
health and welfare of those who we sometimes
ask to go out in difficult and challenging
conditions to effect rescues.
As such we ask our volunteers to risk assess
the situations they and the injured or distressed
person find themselves in, and to ensure that
whatever action they take does not put anyone
in further danger.
We are proud of our safety record and we will
seek to maintain the safety of our volunteers,
and minimise risk in what can be inherently
difficult situations."
No, that is wrong, their responsibility is to rescue people!
This is not the first time that Nanny has banned heroism, see here.
In Nanny's world, a dead girl is far better than a living hero.
I think Nanny is unsure whether it is good to keep people alive, hence the ambivalence in this case.
ReplyDeleteThose CO2 reduction targets are going to be very difficult to achieve for one thing.
Then there is the standard risk (without wishing to cast any aspersions on the attitudes of the actors involved in this particular report, but a standard risk is a standard risk for decision making purposes ...) that young ladies of that age often become mothers to multiple children and create a burden on Nanny's budget. As such the decisions relating to their welfare do need to be taken with great care to ensure a balanced net result for society. Understanding how and why the person involved found themselves halfway down a cliff may also be a consideration when making the decision in terms of benefit or debenefit to the gene pool.
If all of these matters were covered in the training there will have been enormous potential for the rescuer to break a number of rules. And as we all know, its the numbers that are important.
Sigh ...
Grant
Oddly enough, I understand that this is not the first time that the young lady has been rescued by Mr W.
ReplyDeleteSeemingly when she was a year younger she had to be rescued by him, when she got trapped by the tide.
It is entirely possible that there is more to this than is at first apparent.
ReplyDeleteIt would not be the first time that a person with a particular interest in potentially dangerous volunteer work had arrived in that situation.
Nor would it be the first time that a young member of the community, especially a female one, had learned unusual lessons from a previous event and taken them to heart.
I take my hat off to the hero!!
ReplyDeleteThe MCA must be contenders for not just prat of the week, but for prat of the decade.
When those uniformed people start doing risk assessments etc, people start to die. We are all familiar with the case of the plastic policemen standing by while children drown because they had not been trained. Anyone that cares about people, could not have stood around and did nothing.
'Elf'n'safety and political correctness have ruined this country.
I am surprised they have not fined the hero....kerching... as they seem to fine people for everything else.
Makes you proud to be British doesn't it.
He should have dashed to the nearest phone box ripped off his shirt and called super community support officer. Nanny's chosen super hero would have arrived in 2 hours flat, complete with hi-vis vest and a copy of health and safety regulations pertaining to clifftop hazardous situations (NVQ Level 4) He would have then stood around before declearing the situation too hazardous and beyond my 'remit as support to the local police' before letting the woman fall to her death.
ReplyDeleteNanny adores people such as community support officers, but loathes anyone who actually has the courage to risk life and limb to help others.
If all sorts of people start running around being heroic (i.e. ignoring Elfin Safety’s rules), this necessitates making INDIVIDUAL decisions, i.e. those which might suggest that Nanny doesn’t have absolute control of everybody’s thought processes. Since this sort of blasphemy might be contagious, it must be discouraged.
ReplyDeleteIf it means that a few people die, so what? Their deaths wouldn’t be in vain; Nanny – as we all now know – has a new ‘start-up’ venture planned, flogging body parts to the highest bidder.
‘Kerching’ to borrow a word.