Coastguard who saved girl twice quits over health and safety row ("We don't want dead heroes")

Times Online (U.K.) ^ | January 12, 2008 | Steve Bird

[Stoat]

Coastguard who saved girl twice quits over health and safety row

 

 

Steve Bird

A coastguard who risked his life to save a teenage girl stranded on a cliff ledge has resigned after he was criticised for breaching health and safety rules during the rescue.

Paul Waugh, 44, was so concerned for the 13-year-old girl that he clambered down to her in gale-force winds without waiting to fit safety harnesses.

The father of three, who was hailed as a hero and received an award for stopping the girl from falling 300ft as she waited for an RAF rescue helicopter, announced yesterday that he was leaving the service after 13 years.

Officials at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said that Mr Waugh, from Cleveland, had breached health and safety regulations because he had not been roped up for the descent. A spokesman said that the rules were in place because the agency did not want any “dead heroes”.

Mr Waugh said: “I am very sad that I have had to leave because I loved my job, but it is one of those things. You save a life and this is how they treat you. I am sorry, but I would not leave any 13-year-old girl hanging off a cliff.

“Saving her life was the important thing. The cliff edge was crumbling away and I didn’t think I had time to wait. It was pitch black and all you could see was a little girl’s frightened face. She was even planning her own funeral. If I had left her and ran back to the vehicle, got the safety equipment and then ran back, she could have fallen. She had been stuck there for 45 minutes and the cliff ledge had actually gave way so she was hanging by her arms off tufts of grass.

“If she had fallen and I had stood watching her, my life would not have been worth living.”

The former miner gave up as a volunteer for the agency, blaming “immense pressure” from management at Bridlington Coastguard.

The girl, Faye Harrison, had been walking with three friends along the cliff top at Brotton last January when they followed the wrong path down the cliff. As it got dark they became disorientated and stranded. A dog walker raised the alarm after hearing their screams for help.

Mr Waugh was paged by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, and with two others went to the scene. Because of a locked farm gate they could not get the rescue vehicle, which contained harnesses and ropes, to the cliff. Mr Waugh clambered down to Faye and held her to prevent her from falling. About 30 minutes later they were winched off by the helicopter.

Mr Waugh said: “I broke a rule and did not use the kit but I saved a life. I don’t call myself a hero. I would have helped even if I had not been in the coastguard. If I had done nothing I would have got slated, but I saved her life and I still get slated.”

Faye, now 14, from Saltburn-by-the-sea, east Cleveland, said that Mr Waugh, who also rescued her on another occasion when she was trapped by the tide, was a “true hero”.

“I am disgusted by the way Paul has been treated,” she said. “If he hadn’t been brave enough to climb down to me I don’t think I would be here today. I was terrified and started thinking about my funeral. Paul is a hero.”

The girl’s mother, Michelle Bint, 38, said: “I know Paul wasn’t sacked, but the coastguards left him no other choice but to quit. It’s hard to believe that health and safety guidelines come before a human life.” She said that Mr Waugh was a popular figure in the area and that she knew that he would “never stand by and let Faye suffer”.

A spokesman for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said: “We wish Paul well in his future endeavours and the MCA is very grateful for his past activities and work in the Coastguard Rescue Service. However, the MCA is very mindful of health and safety regulations, which are in place for very good reasons.

“Above all our responsibility is to maintain the health and welfare of those who we sometimes ask to go out in difficult and challenging conditions to affect rescues. The MCA is not looking for dead heroes. As such, we ask our volunteers to risk-assess the situations they and the injured or distressed person find themselves in, and to ensure that whatever action they take does not put anyone in further danger.”

Mr Waugh was named hero of the year by a national Christmas savings club, won a Vodafone lifesaver award and was nominated for a national newspaper’s bravery award. The MCA relies on 3,200 volunteers working in 400 teams, and 64 full-time coastguard staff manage operations.

[blam]

Faye ought to get some pants that fit.

[eastforker]

Nanny State Socialism: It doesn’t matter if a young girl would have died, you broke our rules and so we will hound you out of the job that you love.
Disgusting.
It is evident you have no knowledge as to why these rules are in place and why they must be followed in a rescue operation by those that are considered professionals. What one does as a private citizen is another matter all together. When part of the team breaks the rules it puts all the other team members at risk.

[Stoat]

Faye ought to get some pants that fit.

She probably spent six hours sitting the bathtub with them on in order for them to shrink down around her to this point.

She probably thinks they are just fab.......

[STONEWALLS]

....Faye looks like Lady Di in that photo

[been_lurking]

perhaps those of you critisizing bikerman would consider a possible alternative story:

Coastguardsman slips attempting rescue, kills self and 14 year old girl

And have you concidered the alternate headline that the story addressed?

"14 year old girl plummets to her death while Coastguardsman watches."

He made a judgment call. He saved a girl's life. That is fact. All else is speculation and Monday Morning quarterbacking.

[Stoat]

....Faye looks like Lady Di in that photo

Hopefully she will live a bit longer.  She's already been rescued twice, she's pushing her luck.

[twntaipan]

Bureaucracy cannot lead to exceptional action and exceptional results. Bureaucracy would rather have dead girls than dead heroes.

[afortiori]

From the picture, my guess is he resigned from the Guard to count the days one-by-one until she’s, ahem, “legal”.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Faye does seem to be accident prone, though.

What really appalls me is that anyone thinks it’s the government’s job to rescue them when they [repeatedly] engage in foolhardy activities.

[reg45]

“England expects every man to do his duty - unless it risks his health or safety”.

[PeteB570]

Point of order.

He did not save her life. He went to the site as part of a three man Rescue Team. He went over the side without equipment and stayed with her until they were both rescued 30 minutes later by a chopper crew.

By working with the other two on his team could she have been rescued in 10 minutes?

Hind site is 20/20 and I’m glad the two of them were saved.

It is interesting that no quotes of support from any of his team mates were included in the stories I could find. Also that only one of the two others on his team that night was included in one of the pictures.

As I’ve said in other posts on this subject - I think there is more to the “pressure of management” and his resigning than is known right now. Something about the team dynamics that is missing from the story.

[SampleMan]

I think you dismiss the human element to easily. Had he not gone down and she died while he was waiting to do it “right”, I suspect his life might have been irreversibly ruined. People that deeply care are like that.

I wish the cops at Columbine had charged in, vice waiting to execute the textbook entry.

[Eagle Eye]

Had he not been successful he would have put other lives at risk as well.

In what seems like an unselfish act, he was very selfish in only thinking about himself.

The first rule of emergency response and rescue is not to become part of the problem.

[Eagle Eye]

Firefighters have rules such as only entering a burning building in buddy teams.

Is that socialism, too?

Or could it be that you don’t know anything about emergency response and rescue?

[Eagle Eye]

Minutes after the Oklahoma City bombing a nurse rushed into the wreckage to help search for victims.

She had neither training nor equipment for this type of rescue work.

Debris fell on her unprotected head and killed her.

Those responding and attending to her could have been looking for bomb victims instead.

And her family wouldn’t have lost a wife and mother.

Sometimes the action of the Lone Hero works but usually only enough to encourage the ignorant to think that ignoring rescue rules and procedures is a good thing.

[Stoat]

Or could it be that you don’t know anything about emergency response and rescue?

I know enough to be wary of second-guessing people who are on the scene based upon news reports, and I know enough to understand that there are occasionally exceptions to standard operating procedure.

But, I doubt that this will make any difference to you because you obviously know everything.

[packrat35]

“If she had fallen and I had stood watching her, my life would not have been worth living.”

Safely rules are fine and dandy but sometimes a man is gotta do what he's gotta do!

[TMSuchman]

Let him come over here to us, I would welcome him here with open arms to join OUR “Coasties” He would be a welcome member to them. Just my opion though...

[packrat35]

Thats how I read it also.

[Nik Naym]

“If nobody ever did anything stupid, a whole lot of people would be out of work”

That would make a great tag line.