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FIRE SERVICE AND GENERAL FIRE SAFETY TOPICS => Operational => Topic started by: Chris Houston on August 09, 2007, 02:36:14 AM
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Fire service defends duck rescue
From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/coventry_warwickshire/6937450.stm
A fire service which sent three fire engines and a rescue boat to save a trapped duck has said it was not a waste of resources.
The bird had been trapped in a drainage tunnel for five days at Earlswood Lakes, near Solihull, West Midlands, during the recent floods.
One of the Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service crews was summoned from Rugby - 35 miles from the incident.
Firefighters managed to free the bird after its owner called 999.
A spokeswoman denied the rescue was a waste of money and said there were no other calls to deal with at the time.
The spokeswoman said: "It's debatable whether a 999 call should have been made, but people do do it sometimes, and this is part of the service firefighters provide.
"This certainly wasn't a waste of resources. It's all a matter of prioritising which incidents to attend and it may have been that there were no other calls at the time."
She said that the firefighters would have left the duck if a more urgent call had come in.
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What are people's thoughts? Is saving a duck good use of resources? What about a dog, or a horse or a pet rat? Where is the line drawn?
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The line is drawn (if a mallard) just below the ring on it's neck. That's where you aim for with the cleaver. Now, a goose would have been much better ( bigger, feed more), but if it had been the one who laid the golden egg, well... Horse meat is fine too.
On a more serious note, this sort of PR will always rub up good and bad. Most is what the media editors decide depending if they are feeling soft and cuddly or otherwise. A bit much to bring a crew out 35 miles. it would be interesting to hear how the 999 receiving operator interpreted the call. Some people are affectionately known as 'me old duck'. So it could be the Op thought it was a person.
Nay lad, it's all gone to rats, some are barking mad but I'm just quackers. Wheres the orange sauce?
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What are people's thoughts? Is saving a duck good use of resources? What about a dog, or a horse or a pet rat? Where is the line drawn?
It comes down to the PDA of the perticular brigade involved.
I believe the LFB still send a pump, another pump from one of 4 stations that carries animal rescure gear, and a senior officer. This is all well and good for a larger animal, but a duck?
One wonders what they send to an AFA with humans potentially involved? One pump if your lucky.
On the subject of o.t.t attendances, anyone from London will know the PDA for any form of structural collapse.
Last month we had a motor car into a 4ft garden wall, nothing unusual, but because the garden wall had 'collapsed' there was in excess of 20 (That does say twenty) different machines / officers mobilised on the initial attendance.
Carbon footprint? What carbon footprint........
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If they had nothing else to do why not- it acts as training for the crews - they may have to rescue a person from a pipe or something in the futre and this may have been good practice for them.
Beter than mocking it up in the training yard.
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If a bloke can get into a pipe that a duck can't get out of, we should all turn up to have a look!
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My old brigade would turn out to any animal rescue if requested by an RSPCA inspector, and to farm animals - horses cows sheep dogs on a 999 call.
Things like birds stuck in trees (yes it happened-fishing line) and cats in trees would require the RSPCA call though. I have some pics of one job of a cow trapped on a roof.
As an animal lover I would support any humanitarian act to relieve suffering provided that if another call came in crews were in a position to respond.
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I query the PR spokesperson's quote "that the firefighters would have left the duck if a more urgent call had come in"
I wonder if that is true. In most cases, when an appliance and crew are at an incident, they are there - unavailable for other calls- until it's dealt with. Perhaps W Mids do it differently.
As for attending duck shouts? I am not sure, but I am more angry at the crew parking on a yellow line outside Tescos on their way back to the station just to buy some orange sauce. Personally, I would have parked in the car park and in any case, I prefer duck in hoi sin sauce.
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One pump should have been ideal but in this risk assesed world we now work in I think the attendece was about right!
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take in to account the sector commanders safty officers and the safty officers safety officers there would have been just enough ffs to effect the ducks rescue ;)
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We only attend if the RSPCA requests us to and don't respond on blues and twos unless either the OIC specifically requests it or the animal is in distress! We are also always available for other urgent calls.
It isn't true to say that when appliances are at an incident they are never available for other calls it depends entirely on what the nature of the incident they are attending is and what they are doing at the incident. for example, crews are always available when attending animal rescues or flooding incidents (again, unless the oic states otherwise in an informative message), also crews can still be at an incident but finishing off so they are available for other calls. There is nothing to stop control asking whether they are available if another call comes in!
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Anyone ever had a cow stuck in a tree?, yep it's true I swear, about 7am on New Years Day aswel!!
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When you say cow do you mean of the bovine variety?????????????
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One more gold medal for Rich :lol:
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Sorry to reintroduce an old thread but, consider this mobilising message I overheard today
(Appliance callsign) proceed to Automatic Fire Alarm operating at (address).
Caller stated that there is no signs of fire, but they can`t silence the alarm because they have lost the key to the panel.
Please can somebody answer
1. As a member of the fire service would you rather rescue a duck or sort out companies fire warning system?
2. As a tax payer should the fire service be doing the above?
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Regarding cats stuck up trees has anyone ever seen the skeleton of a cat up a tree yet? Clearly they all make their way down the tree at some time,
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1)its not the fire services job to sort out the fire alarm,certainly not to that type of response.Ultimately we would give advice to drive down consistent false AFA's, but if they ignore advice/continue to have false alarms then we will cease to respond(except in particular circumstances.)
2)rescuing ducks-as mentioned by others only at request of RSPCA,if and when equipment /personel available,always available for emergency calls,may present a good training opportunity,ususally good p.r.
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Pip, I agree entirely. As a fire safety inspecting officer I am constantly being asked by my Area Commander to reduce the number of unwanted fire signals, then I hear crews being mobilised to the above. I am not overly keen on call challenging but in this case it would be justified.
I would have loved to have been the Officer in Charge of the appliance - check around with a TIC, agreed there was no fire and left them with an alarm sounding.
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We have had an unwanted afa reduction strategy in place for about a year or so (with a dedicated team)that has reduced significantly(and ahead of target) our false alarms.On site,we are not allowed to reset alarm panels,and in the case quoted earlier,we wouldn't have a key anyway(except for the crowbar variety of course!)
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Come next year,those premises that have not registered with us will not get a response(again some exceptions for life risks) and those that have will only get a response if they confirm by 999 it is fire in line with CFOA policy).Those with multi false alarms won't get a response if they fail to adress their systems(again in line with CFOA policy)
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Isn't responding to these instances more about preventing the owner from hurting themselves trying to rescue the pet, rather than actually saving the animal?
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Come next year,those premises that have not registered with us will not get a response(again some exceptions for life risks) and those that have will only get a response if they confirm by 999 it is fire in line with CFOA policy).Those with multi false alarms won't get a response if they fail to adress their systems(again in line with CFOA policy)
Doesn`t this policy suggest fee of 35 pound to be registered. It is my understanding that this amount doesn`t cover the cost of administering the registration.
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Come next year,those premises that have not registered with us will not get a response(again some exceptions for life risks) and those that have will only get a response if they confirm by 999 it is fire in line with CFOA policy).Those with multi false alarms won't get a response if they fail to adress their systems(again in line with CFOA policy)
Doesn`t this policy suggest fee of 35 pound to be registered. It is my understanding that this amount doesn`t cover the cost of administering the registration.
Thats the figure we are charging-could not tell you if that covers our costs.It is a 'once only' charge.
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Getting back to the original duck thing, the journalist who wrote this story up in the sun used to be assistant editor of a local free paper round this way. We well remember his series of editorials railing against the fire service (mainly centred around accusations of laziness and cosy working conditions; god knows where he got that from) and were mystified as to why he was picking on us in particular as we usually get an indescriminately easy ride from the press.
It turns out (and this is only hearsay) that his partner had left him for a Firefighter and this was his manly journalistic way of working through the pain of rejection.
This was more than seven years ago so although he has moved on in journalism (in the sense that the sun isn't free) he still apears to be angry with all things fire brigade, so much so that even a good deed done for a duck on a slow day duty gets more coverage than Darfur or human trafficking.
Although this post in no way adresses the problem of wether Ducks should be rescued or not it might go some way to explaining why such a relatively common incident got so much coverage. Did anyone, other than Mr Walker, who bears no malice towards Ducks but hates firemen, really care ?
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no,I dont think they give a 'hoot'.
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They're only in it for the qwack
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They're only in it for the qwack
You beat me to that!!:)
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And again:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/7155656.stm
This time apparently involving fire fighters wading into a canal to get a duck. This issue still confuses me, especially when I think of the recent discussions about water rescues of humans....
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Ahh....How sweet.... The duck laid an egg after they rescued it.
Well that's breakfast and lunch sorted then!
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Is this not yet another case of Nepotism in the Fire Service. Is Station Commander Paul STARLING just looking after his extended family!
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This time apparently involving fire fighters wading into a canal to get a duck. This issue still confuses me, especially when I think of the recent discussions about water rescues of humans....
Chris what would you prefer- incident commanders having the authority to do whatever they think appropriate in the circumstances they face and in accordance with their assessment of the possible benefits, consequences and risk - or would you rather they were totally hamstrung by having to work with a set of rules that cannot be varied? If rules are written they will always err on the side of caution and in my opinion the standard of service will be poorer.
Allowing fire fighters the power of discretion will always result in a range of responses some of which will be hard to justify or understand without full knowledge of the facts at the time. I bet insurance assessors and underwriters sometimes see risk differently and would quote widely different premiums but overall usually get it about right. The alternative would be to have flat rate premiums. Would we be happy with that?
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Only just seen this...
On a slow day it's an excellent opportunity to get some much needed Water rescue practise. Rescuing imaginary casualties with your drill head on, doesn't always break the ice.
*budumtiss*
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Regarding cats stuck up trees has anyone ever seen the skeleton of a cat up a tree yet? Clearly they all make their way down the tree at some time,
Nearly there, that's one of the funniest lines I've ever seen in a fire service forum, and having been pee'd on rescuing a cat in my proby days its a subject that's warm to my heart, in a manner of speaking...
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I used the 'you never see a cat skeleton up a tree to an RSPCA lady on a job the other week, she scowled at me and the retorted 'no they die and fall down'. I then remembered I had left some thing on the pump which I required urgently ha ha. Yes that didn't go to well!
Along the way in my career.........correction job I have attended several animal rescues from a dog in a cess pit, to pigeons caught in netting 3 floors up, to a cat with its head stuck in a baked bin tin, oh and a pregnant cow in a swimming pool!! We will always be called to attend these incidents because we are the people perceived qualified to do the job - always have been and always will be.
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I recollect a fully grown cow that fell through a roof and was trapped in the rafters, ( the photo captions in the paper said cow on a hot tin roof- that dates me!) a horse on a roof in the same predicament and rescuing a bird stuck in a tree.
Then theres numerous sheep and cows stuck down old mineshafts (theres estimated to be 60,000 old lead mine workings within a 10 mile radius of Matlock) and animals - mostly sheep off the cliff faces. Is it worth rescuing animals from these situations? The practice comes into its own when its a climber fallen or a suicide attempt.
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Years ago I was part of a bemused crew called to 'Pigeon stuck on lamp post'.
Who the hell puts these calls in I'll never figure out. Anyway a couple of old ladies and an RSPCA were in attendance on our arrival, we played the game and started to pitch a ladder, as soon as the head got anywhere near the bird it flew off much to joy and amazement of the well intentioned trio of twits.
Then there was the young vet who was clearly under pressure at a horse in a ditch bound in barbed wire job. He took a nervous look at the horse and rather than sedate it for the rescue as we were expecting, stated that he would shoot it. Our IC pointed out that it had to come out of the ditch dead or alive so we'd may as well try the live version first; I still see it trotting around now.
Chased a chinchilla around a smoke-logged flat after the bottom of its cage dropped out whilst I was carrying it out to the staircase, eventually trapped the thing under my helmet and then got a rollicking for not wearing my PPE. Shame of it was that either the shock or the belting it got when I crunched my helmet down it killed the poor thing.
Then there was a buddy of mine pretending to carry out CPR on a rat for the sake of the distraught owner, absolutely hilarious.
Once got an award from the RSPCA for multiple animal rescue at a large fire on a farm, not bad seeing as I spent all night in the warmth of the Command Unit sipping tea and answering the radio.
But the best was a tropical venomous snake stuck in a length of conduit... that the owner was kind enough to bring in to the station for us to sort out!!!! Suddenly cleaning the ablutions became very popular.
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Our most recent animal rescue involved an injured cat in a stormwater drain. We couldn't reach it so had to 'gently' flush it out into a pit. Our Captain (elected head of the Brigade), stated in the hearing of the owner "We'll flush the drain, it'll either drown or be flushed out...". Poor little 17 yo moggy came out alive! Of course, the last word over the radio to dispatch was "Vicfire, Mooroolbark Pumper meow in station."