no subject

The sad story of when simply wearing a uniform becomes enough for you to be able to overcome your human instincts. I'm sure those officers will be haunted by this event for the rest of their lives; I wonder if they had not been in uniform, I expect they would have acted differently and then be lauded for their off-duty heroism; alternatively, if they had had a go while in uniform they would have received similar praise despite crossing the boundaries of what they had been trained to deal with. If it were me in their situation, being confronted with a drowning child, I personally couldn't allow myself to hide behind that uniform, which evidently I would be entitled to do, though I can't actually criticize them for doing so. The two answers to this one seem at odds; at a gut level, who wouldn't want to call out two fit and able people on this for cowardice? Thinking about it further, were they right not to involve themselves in something they couldn't reasonably expect to succeed in without a disregard for their own survival? Which is right? What would you do?

For twenty-one years I've been trained to do all sorts of emergency stuff, from CPR to fighting fires to the nightmare of evacuating a ditched aircraft, but this makes me look (once again) at what I might be prepared to do either in or out of uniform. At the very shallow end, all crew, including myself, resent being asked to lift heavy bags into overhead lockers, something we get constant criticism for, but when you have hundreds of colleagues on long-term sickness for back injuries for doing precisely this, you absolutely don't want to join them. But... when you're asked by a little old lady with a walking stick it's a bit different to being asked by a 6'5" rugby player, and you happily do it. People still silently leave their bags in the aircraft aisle expecting me to do their heavy lifting for them without even a polite request while they hide behind a newspaper (sometimes I can barely conceal my lack of patience with such arrogance); if they actually summon the courtesy to ask me to do it my standard reply is to say "If it's too heavy for you to lift, it's also probably too heavy for me to lift", which I hope will open their eyes a little. If they choose to argue the toss I then politely but firmly request that they to do it themselves; I don't like quoting 'jobsworth' company rules at people over such trivialities. We are advised not to lift heavy bags other than our own, but this will never be policy because it detracts from the ethos of customer service. And yet if it was my own mother or father asking me to do it, I would happily do so, no questions asked, in or out of uniform, with no thoughts about possible back injuries.

At the very deep end, there's the scenario of evacuating a burning aircraft. We're advised not be dead heroes; I would of course get as many people out as I could, but if I'm being overcome by thick smoke I hope I would fall out of that door onto a slide at the last possible moment. But as it's never happened to me I couldn't actually say with certainty that this is how it would play out. No one expects civilians to overcome the technicalities of evacuating a burning aircraft, so to draw a parallel with the officers' situation, a crew member couldn't be criticized for not saving someone's life in an evacuation scenario if to do so were to threaten his/her own life, even if it meant they had to be first out of the door to save their own life with not even a chance of saving anyone else.

I have no point or conclusion to make here, it's just a train of thought I expect I will be carrying around with me all day. Comments invited.

ETA 1 (21/9): more response from the police, which gives a clearer picture of what actually happened and rejects the criticisms of the officers.

ETA 2 (22/9): Blunkett wades in. Not the support one expects from the person who created your job.