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.

[RobbyS]

I asked you first. Protocols are necessary and are not to be slighted lightly, but their end is, after all, to save someone who is in peril of his life. The exception proves the rule. On your side, if the gentleman feels he did the right thing, then he should take his lumps and soldier on. That would probably have a better effect on his colleagues than quitting. Brasshats always will be more careerist in thinking than the men in the field. Part of the territory.

[RobbyS]

I asked you first. Protocols are necessary and are not to be slighted lightly, but their end is, after all, to save someone who is in peril of his life. The exception proves the rule. On your side, if the gentleman feels he did the right thing, then he should take his lumps and soldier on. That would probably have a better effect on his colleagues than quitting. Brasshats always will be more careerist in thinking than the men in the field. Part of the territory.

[Washi]

It is interesting that no quotes of support from any of his team mates were included in the stories I could find.

His team mates are still employed. After watching him be hounded out of the CG for his actions, they are going to publicly express support for what he did?

[Eagle Eye]

It is my knowledge of everything that allows me to tolerate the ignorance of those like you.

[Stoat]

A spokesman said that the rules were in place because the agency did not want any “dead heroes”.

Well, now they've got a disillusioned former hero.

As well as an entire Coast Guard service that are now ticked off at their management, and unlikely to engage in any activity suggestive of personal initiative from now on.

A spokesman said that the rules were in place because the agency did not want any “dead heroes”.

Well, now they've got a disillusioned former hero.

[Stoat]

His bosses should be fired for terminal stupidity.

They will probably be promoted, as Socialist bureaucrats who make breathtaking, national mistakes usually are.

Better suited for running a day nursery than a rescue agency.

Providing, of course, that the day nursery has no children in it's charge.

[Stoat]

I wish this sort of insanity were the exception to the rule, but it is not.

Common sense is dead.

As is an appreciation for and a deference to a 13 year veteran's considerable training and experience, and the realization that sometimes events on the scene do not always lend themselves precisely to the rule book.  If he violated procedure, that's fine...give him some more training and have his Commanding Officer have a quiet word with him to insure that he understands not to do it again, but this business of not publicly firing him but hounding him out of his job is just so underhanded, low-class and cowardly there's no excuse for it.

I wish this sort of insanity were the exception to the rule, but it is not.

Common sense is dead.

As is an appreciation for and a deference to a 13 year veteran's considerable training and experience, and the realization that sometimes events on the scene do not always lend themselves precisely to the rule book.  If he violated procedure, that's fine...give him some more training and have his Commanding Officer have a quiet word with him to insure that he understands not to do it again, but this business of not publicly firing him but hounding him out of his job is just so underhanded, low-class and cowardly there's no excuse for it.

[Eagle Eye]

Look at post 65.

Then post 72.

Why you insist that EMS rules safety rules for response and rescue are “socialist” defies any measure of common sense.

I’m sure that if you were every in charge of anything in your life at all that had procedures and protocols that you’d reward each and every one on your team that rejected your protocols and did their own thing any time they felt like it. /s

From what I can tell, the professionals and those rescue training/experience don’t agree with what he did.

[The_Media_never_lie]

Yeah. Probably not the sharpest knife in the drawer though.

Not a factor. She'll do fine.

[been_lurking]

It is my knowledge of everything that allows me to tolerate the ignorance of those like you.

And it is your sense of modesty that makes you so endearing to others.

Which is more true, yours or mine?

[been_lurking]

the professionals and those rescue training/experience don’t agree with what he did.

Yet he still succeeded in his mission. He saved the victim without harm to himself or others.

I guess the rules really weren't all that important after all. It's not like they are laws of physics or something. They are simply rules written by men, inherently fallible human beings.(With the obvious exception of your magnificent self of course.)

Perhaps you should write the rules, then we would all know that they are perfect, for you could produce no other result.

[RightOnline]

The best laid battle plans collapse upon first contact with the enemy.

Same is true, if not more so, for such “procedures”.

You train your people, equip them to do their jobs to the best of their abilities......then let them freakin’ DO them using their best judgment under the circumstances.

You may have been Coast Guard, but your attitude is far too robotic. I wouldn’t want you at my side in an emergency without the “right equipment”.

[bikerman]

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

I beg to differ my wife is a nurse and she has the training for saving lives without equipment,stopping bleeding or giving cpr does not require equipment,climbing down a cliff in total darkness while two others are standing their without a rope watching is not to bright especially when their truck had everything needed and no one thought to bring a rope.yes he did save the kid but it could have been a tragedy if they both fell down the cliff and were killed.

[bikerman]

You may have been Coast Guard, but your attitude is far too robotic. I wouldn’t want you at my side in an emergency without the “right equipment.

my attitude? I wouldnt try to rescue you in an emergency without the right equipment.

[a real Sheila]

What happened to the friends with whom she was walking?
Did they fall into the ocean?

[Eagle Eye]

Rummaging through wreckage in a bombed building isn’t the same as handling triage in the parking lot or providing basic life support.

This nurse at OKC wasn’t trained nor equipped for entering that building and it cost her life.

“Emergency” magazine wrote about this back about 1997 and pointed out that her efforts actually caused more problems than the solved.

Lessons from the Twin Towers also point to rescuers not wearing respiratory protection (even when available) and now there is a high disease and mortality rate among that population.

I was taught to always stay part of the solution, never become part of the problem. Rescuers that do their own thing and disregard protocols do exactly that.

[Eagle Eye]

Yet he still succeeded in his mission. He saved the victim without harm to himself or others.

This time.

What you're saying is that if someone doesn't get caught or killed it is ok.

If you are in charge of a rescue team do you want a guy on it that acts on his own and shows disregard for protocols? Face it, if he is willing to put his life in UNNECESSARY risk then how much concern will he have for yours or the other team members?

Ever see someone doing something blatantly unsafe only to have them tell you that they always do it that way?

So does their lack of injury to date mean that they are actually correct in what they're doing?

Would you allow your kids to do something unsafe only to have them tell you that they did it and didn't get hurt?

How many times you gonna run your car after the oil light comes on during operation just cuz you did it once and nothing bad happened?

Do you want your surgeon taking shortcuts because the last time he did it nothing bad happened?

Not suffering a bad consequence this time doesn't excuse following protocols in critical tasks.

This guy was selfish. He was more concerned about how he would feel about the girls fate if she fell than he was about her or his fellow rescuers.

[FrdmLvr]

Maybe she just likes to get her picture in the paper in skimpy outfits.

[CodeMasterPhilzar]

I think my first question to him would've been: If you were called out for a cliff rescue, why the {expletive} did you leave your gear in the vehicle in the first place?

I mean, it is great that it turned out ok, but it could've been a much different story had he screwed up worse and one or both of them ended up dead. Heck, he could've ended up stranded himself and in need of rescue.

If it were up to me, I would've strongly impressed upon him the need to be prepared, that there are reasons for procedures, rules, and guidelines. Usually they come from hard won lessons, often won at the expense of someone's life. The real question for his leadership becomes, how do you congratulate him on a successful, even heroic rescue, yet not encourage such seat-of-the-pants reckless, cowboy-ish behavior that will, guaranteed will get somebody killed. Pull these stunts enough, someone is going to die.

So yes he's a hero, but yes, he screwed up too. He took a tremendous, possibly unnecessary risk, and was lucky enough to have gotten away with it. I've had family members on volunteer fire departments. Friends on professional fire departments and HAZMAT crews. I volunteer on Pikes Peak for the hill climb race (I live in Colorado). I have friends on SAR and high-angle rescue teams. You don't take unnecessary risks, you don't make the situation worse than it is, period.

[SampleMan]

I’m unimpressed with your statistics and example. Far, far more people die from hesitation than not.

When you’re trapped in a car burning alive, do you want the untrained bystander to pull you out or call 911?

Rescuers get hurt and die, sometimes more rescuers get hurt or die than could have died if they did nothing. People that can’t except that shouldn’t go into that line of work. Taking that risk is what makes us human. The “safe choice” is too often quite inhumane.