Man Tasered By Police For Trying To Safe Infant Son From Fire

[Strawboss]

Being a career firefighter with over 28 years of experience, its still sometimes difficult to see people on the worst day of their lives. Its also becoming much more difficult to have to try to explain to people that the whole idea of rescue is to prevent situations where more people have to be rescued, thereby endangering the lives of the very people who are there to rescue the original people. I won't sit here and judge a man who wants to save the life of his child he knows is in a burning house. But I can't knowingly stand and watch him rush back into that burning house without trying to stop him. I won't be able to tell him that he needs to let the trained firefighters that have the proper equipment, manpower, skills, and protective clothing on stand a much better chance of not only finding his child but bringing him out of that house and maybe being able to save its life. I can't tell him that if he goes in, he won't come out. Fires aren't like the movies, you can't see, and most important, you can't breath. I can't tell him either that his child is most likely dead for all the above reasons. I may not be able to tell him these things, but I will show him that I will go into that house and risk MY life attempting to save HIS childs life. If that means the police on scene need to taser him for all of what I mentioned above, then so be it. Sue me for saving your life. Just my view from the fire truck.    

[bigd]

You are assuming two things:

 

1) The child was still alive at the time the police stopped the father

2) That there was any hope at all of saving the child, even if still alive.

 

Could you accept that it's possible the police saved the father from a vain attempt to rescue an already-dead child that could only have lead to his own death

 

I understand that COULD have been the possibility (and understanding that we don't know the whole story....that could have really been the truth) but if there's even a SHRED of doubt in the fathers mind that the child is alive, I certainly don't think any police officer should prohibit a parent from trying to save the life of their child - even if the child was in a state that would have left them as a vegetable. I think that's parents rights, and no officer should stand between me and one of my kids.

[Strawboss]

The police have every right to prevent you from injuring yourself or putting others in danger. To run into a burning building putting yourself and others in danger is not parental rights. Police and fire do not have the ability to know at that exact moment whether or not someone is alive in a burning house. What they do know is a man is trying to run into a building putting himself and others in danger. And even if the child was alive, now we have to stop operations of trying to find and rescue the child and put our efforts into finding and saving the father, even lessening now the chance of finding and saving the child because we KNOW where the father is and that he was alive just before reentering the house. Emotions are a dangerous thing at an emergency scene. They cannot be a priority no matter how right or how strong we may feel about them. It gets people hurt and killed unnecessarily. That is reality and has nothing whatsoever to do with parental rights. I'm sorry I know this is not a popular opinion with many here. I don't like having to tell folks that their loved ones are dead, I've held dead babies in my arms, its not something I relish. But if there was any way to alleviate the pain by telling people that I did everything humanly possible to save their child and it meant restraining the childs father to  make that happen, then again, I'll sleep ok that night and for the rest of my life knowing I did my best.