Health and Safety Red Tape Blamed in Drowning Incident
Animosity over health and safety regulations has again appeared. This time there is criticism for all of the “red tape” surrounding safety and health that is seen as preventing fire fighters and police from conducting proper action.
At Gosport, Hampshire police put up “keep out” tape and two fire engines were parked as close to the lake as possible. Police cars and two ambulances were also at the scene. There were dozens of trained staff members on hand at the lake. Two fire fighters were in rubber suits going out to rescue a man face down in the lake.
The issue in this incident is that a half hour passed from the time emergency services were called until the firefighters were allowed to enter the water. All of the early arrival officers and firefighters had to wait for the “specially trained” team to arrive. The 41-year-old man died after falling into the lake due to an epileptic seizure.
What has people involved upset is that the water was only waist deep. There was not an overwhelming chance that the man would have survived if emergency personnel had gotten to him sooner, but the delay certainly did not help. Improved health and safety training is being called for to ensure that more rescuers are able to enter water situations and to stop such incidents from happening again. The death was ruled as accidental, but the rules that stopped any emergency staff from going into waist deep water are being attacked.
