[badgerstatevolunteers] When it starts
- From: kevin Joyner <joynerkev@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: badger-state-volunteers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, badgerstatevolunteers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2011 09:40:48 -0500
When it starts, it is usually in New York or somewhere in California. This
is just the beginning folks as you are starting to see the true collapse of
a society.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news%2Flocal%2Feast_bay&id=8161285&hpt=ju_bn6
Alameda police, firefighters watch as man drowns
ALAMEDA, Calif. (KGO) -- Alameda police and firefighters stood by and
watched as a man drowned off Crown Beach in Alameda on Monday. Authorities
are now trying to explain why they had no choice but to stand on the
shoreline.
Alameda police received a call shortly before noon on Monday from a woman
saying her son wanted to kill himself. Raymond Zack, 53, then walked out
into the water off Crown Beach.
"I thought it was kind of weird that they weren't going out to bring the guy
in, you know, he was out there, his head was above water, he was looking at
everybody, there was plenty of time for them to react," witness Perry Smith
said.
For more than an hour, Zack stood up to his neck in the frigid surf off of
Crown Beach in Alameda.
"Well, we expected to see at some point that there would be a concern for
him and somebody would go out there and pull him in," witness Gary Barlow
said.
About 75 beachgoers could not understand why Alameda police officers and
firefighters stood idly by and watched the man slowly succumb to the 60
degree water.
"We're not trained to go into the water, obviously the type of gear that we
have on, we don't have the type of equipment that you would use to go into
the water," Alameda Police Lt. Joe McNiff said.
The man was a 150 yards out; it was too shallow for a Coast Guard boat and
its helicopter was on another call. It arrived too late.
"It's horrible," Barlow said. "How can we let that happen? How can our
emergency personnel allow that to happen? I don't get it, I don't understand
it."
The Alameda Fire Department says budget constraints are preventing it from
recertifying its firefighters in land-based water rescues. Without it, the
city would be open to liability.
" Well, if I was off duty I would know what I would do, but I think you're
asking me my on-duty response and I would have to stay within our policies
and procedures because that's what's required by our department to do,"
Alameda Fire Div. Chief Ricci Zombeck said when asked by ABC7 if he would
enter the water to save a drowning child.
Alameda firefighters could not even go into the water to get the body, so
they waited until a woman in her 20s volunteered to bring the body back to
the beach.
"The frustration is certainly understandable and I think the sensibility
would be probably that we're going to evaluate our response protocols,"
Zombeck said.
Alameda fire officials say they are going to have a serious discussion about
why Alameda, as an island city, does not have the ability to save people in
danger in the water.
* Some of the images in the video were obtained from:* oaklandlocal.com.
(Copyright ©2011 KGO-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)
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Kevin J
====================
“Far Better it is to Dare Mighty Things than to take rank with those poor,
timid spirits Who know Neither Victory nor Defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt
"I was not delivered unto this world in defeat,
nor does failure course in my veins. I am not a
sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd. I
am a lion and I refuse to talk, to walk, to sleep
with the sheep. I will hear not those who weep
and complain, for their disease is contagious. Let
them join the sheep. The slaughterhouse of failure
is not my destiny.
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