Nothing can bring back the people who lost their lives in the 7/7 bombings by terrorist extremists.

But what of our firefighters and medics? Those trained men and women who hung back from the wreckage, unable to do their job in case there was another bomb? Or perhaps, refusing to do their job?

They are not to blame for the deaths, however, they are the people who we in a civilised, first-world society rely upon to come to our aid.

There is growing evidence that that is not always the case any more in health and safety obsessed Britain and the 7/7 inquest has given new examples.

We in Britain don't criticise our paramedics and firefighters much (not so the police). Because we all have admiration for what they do and most of us could not imagine doing their job, they are guaranteed public support.

For me the most moving evidence at the July 7 Inquest so far came from two of the survivors on the Aldgate train. Some of the seriously injured passengers took up to 40 minutes to die, in agony, as they waited in vain for professional help.

One survivor, Steven Desborough, who described his own attempt to help the dying in the wreckage of the carriage which was travelling in front of him, was evidently still frustrated and angered five years on as he told the inquest how Carrie Taylor, 24, died in his arms while he waited for medical aid that took more than half an hour to come.

The other witness was Michael Henning, a passenger, who expressed frustration at the firefighters he approached, just 150 ft away who were waiting until they were sure there was no second bomb.

These people have been trained to save ordinary folk, victims who could be any one of us, who believe that someone in uniform will arrive in times of crisis to save them.

This saddened me enormously. Surely simple humanity would encourage a firefighter to make their own decision.

Surely when you decide to be a fireman, you know there will be risks but you want to save people. If you'd been off duty and on-board that train, I believe you would have done the right thing.

Surely there will be stories to come in this inquest, which will run into 2011, of firefighters and medics whose humanity made them ignore the health and safety fears of their bosses who just did the right thing.

That right thing might only have been to administer morphine to the fatally wounded and ensure minimum pain in those final minutes.

I could not imagine the cutting free and clearing up after a bad motorway smash and for that alone firefighters and ambulance crews have my admiration.

But I expect them to be heroes too and if people have died in pain as emergency personnel stood only a few yards away, then perhaps they should be ashamed.

What a disgraceful and disgusting blog by someone who clearly writes to throw up controversy!

There could have have been any number of operational or personal reasons the emergency services didnt approach the scene straight away, not least i'd imagine, that they have their own families to think of!

I'd love for this blogger to meet a member of the emergency services who face death every day in one way or another and see how they feel about this blog!

 

Daily Mirror website October 27

Tube's staff praised for 7/7 bravery

Heroic Tube staff ignored orders to evacuate and rushed to help victims of the July 7 bombings, an inquest heard yesterday.

After suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer detonated his explosives, killing seven, London Underground staff from Aldgate ran down the tunnel to others trapped in the wreckage - despite police warnings of another blast.

Station supervisor Olaniyi Falayi helped a woman skewered on a pole.

He said: "Officers were saying we didn't know the situation and it would be dangerous. My colleague and I decided to go anyway."

Coroner Lady Justice Hallett told him: "You were very brave."

The hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice continues.

Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/10/27/tube-s-staff-praised-for-7-7-bravery-115875-22661144/#ixzz13ZAnqdfl

Yes tube staff did help though and ignored fears about another bomb and at least two police officers went to help.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/8088192/77-inquests-Tube-workers-ignored-risks-while-colleagues-followed-orders.html

I find it hard to believe that professional, trained emergency services would hang back from helping others because of fears for their own safety.

We depend on these undoubtedly brave people to help us in times like this and I am stunned at the thought that they would make people wait in pain, bewilderment and fear while they made absolutely certain that it was safe to go in.

Undoubtedly, senior officers need to protect their men, but that should involve a quick and professional assessment of the immediate circumstances, not the long-winded period of prevarication that seems to have been the case here.

 

 

 

Of course - a "quick and professional" judgement made at the scene, over a very short time span?

 

A decision that will be picked apart until the public are sick of hearing about it by the media and an army of armchair 'experts' who were nowhere near the incident at the time and wouldn't have the strength of character to be able to deal with it anyway.

 

Emergency services have a duty of care to the public.  That also includes themselves.  It's a known fact that terrorists will place secondary devices to try to take out as many emergency services personnel as possible, massively increasing the damage, body count and impact of the event.

 

Anyone who criticises the emergency services for following well-established procedure, for thinking of their own families, their own ability to function (what good's a dead paramedic?!) needs to seriously examine their own thought processes and consider exactly how much use THEY would be in such a situation.

This is an interesting article on health and safety and the emergency services

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-123456/drowning-mans-pleas-firemen-refused-to-aid.html

Bob Alexander

Maidstone

It astounds me that a member of the public who obviously has no experience of the work emergency services carry out feels able to post such damaging remarks with no thought to those involved during that terrible day. As a previous poster had so rightly put it, there is no use for a dead rescuer and history has shown that patterns of bombings are increasingly becoming multiple events (Madrid, London) and more chillingly, targeted towards those that may come to our aid. The attempted Tiger Tiger bombings in London had secondary devices set up at the site of the rendezvous point for emergency services. We have set procedures for dealing with major incidents of this nature, and to detract from these courses of action would result in mass panic and collapse of control at the scene, with possibly even committing fellow rescuers to their deaths. The aim is to do the most for the most under the difficult circumstances and until specialist teams have evaluated the scene and deemed that there are no other hazards to the rescuers (chemical, biological, radiological, explosives), then full efforts can be made to deal with the immediate 'hot-zone'. I fear the outcry against major incident planners would have been far worse had emergency crews committed to the scenes and lost their lives through secondary devices or CBRN materials. Corporate manslaughter trials would have filled the courts for a good few years after the events, that's for sure. No major incident runs perfectly. Even with the best planning and practice-runs in the world, things are sure to go wrong due to the random and unpredictable nature of them. Let's just trust those who put themselves forward at the front-line on the day and hope that the despicable people who attempt to reign terror on our streets don't 'spice-up' their devices with much more terrifying components in addition to explosives....