Yup. I do not blame the cops for not jumping in but I will blame them for being fucking assholes.
Man drowns as Arizona cops watch: "I'm not jumping in after you."
- Thread starter GK86
- Start date
Yup. I do not blame the cops for not jumping in but I will blame them for being fucking assholes.
ACAB and all, but this is the one moment where I'd be willing to give them a pass. You don't fuck around with water, especially if you aren't trained for water rescue. Humans like other Animals will kill you on instinct to save themselves if given the chance.
But also in this situation, it sounded like there was a dam close by, since on the video they were worried about the turbines getting him. So even if someone was trained for water rescue, the presence of a Dam makes it a million times harder.
So yeah, it's sad to say. But he was doomed the moment he ignored the cops warnings and decided to go in anyways.
That a picture of the Ambassador Bridge. I'm pretty sure the Canadian Side. In Windsor on our side of the bridge we put life preserves every couple dozen feet or so down the river as a safety precaution. Most Canadian Cities along the water in Ontario do so and I think it might be Ontario law that municipalities need them if they create a viewing area/park by the river.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if places in the USA didn't do it.
But also in this situation, it sounded like there was a dam close by, since on the video they were worried about the turbines getting him. So even if someone was trained for water rescue, the presence of a Dam makes it a million times harder.
So yeah, it's sad to say. But he was doomed the moment he ignored the cops warnings and decided to go in anyways.
That a picture of the Ambassador Bridge. I'm pretty sure the Canadian Side. In Windsor on our side of the bridge we put life preserves every couple dozen feet or so down the river as a safety precaution. Most Canadian Cities along the water in Ontario do so and I think it might be Ontario law that municipalities need them if they create a viewing area/park by the river.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if places in the USA didn't do it.
There's a lot of questions like what made the dude jump in for a swim but this is one of the few instances where I can't blame the cops for not jumping in. Trying to save someone that is drowning without training and equipment is asking for two people to wind up drowned.
Honestly can you cite something that says you're fine the vast majority of time? My entire life I've heard the opposite, so if that's incorrect, I'd genuinely like to know.
Hey, I'm a medic.
First and foremost—you typically do call people with the correct training. It varies depending on where you are, but typically EMT-Advanced and specific departments in fire/police deal with and are trained for water rescue. You have to call in for the correct support.
In 100% of these cases, from fire to law, you're typically trained to respond to these things in a certain way—none of which encourage being a "hero" because unlike in movies you usually get other people killed. Their verbal response was poor, but If they did call the right people they literally followed what they were trained to do. Literally it would be like getting pissed that John Doe standing by the scene didn't do anything. Half the time cops aren't really trained to do shit other than basic cpr and making things worse by shooting naloxone up everyone's nose who is asleep. Yes, this is a problem and it is basically the core of problem.
But yeah, lots of things are specialized in first responding, and even basic EMTs that get called to a scene are told to preserve their own safety first and to wait for the scene to be cleared out by cops (who are all trained to do that stuff) then you get to work. It's sucks, it's frustrating, but you can throw more dead people on the pile and everyone wants to go home at the end of the day. Nobody wants to die doing this shit.
Even if the EMT-A/Advanced Fire were called there's a good chance he wasn't going to make it either way if he drowned.
Not justifying their actions, or what they could have done as -humans-. They made their call and have to live with it. But the whole first responding world is operations and who does what and sometimes people can look pretty useless.
First and foremost—you typically do call people with the correct training. It varies depending on where you are, but typically EMT-Advanced and specific departments in fire/police deal with and are trained for water rescue. You have to call in for the correct support.
In 100% of these cases, from fire to law, you're typically trained to respond to these things in a certain way—none of which encourage being a "hero" because unlike in movies you usually get other people killed. Their verbal response was poor, but If they did call the right people they literally followed what they were trained to do. Literally it would be like getting pissed that John Doe standing by the scene didn't do anything. Half the time cops aren't really trained to do shit other than basic cpr and making things worse by shooting naloxone up everyone's nose who is asleep. Yes, this is a problem and it is basically the core of problem.
But yeah, lots of things are specialized in first responding, and even basic EMTs that get called to a scene are told to preserve their own safety first and to wait for the scene to be cleared out by cops (who are all trained to do that stuff) then you get to work. It's sucks, it's frustrating, but you can throw more dead people on the pile and everyone wants to go home at the end of the day. Nobody wants to die doing this shit.
Even if the EMT-A/Advanced Fire were called there's a good chance he wasn't going to make it either way if he drowned.
Not justifying their actions, or what they could have done as -humans-. They made their call and have to live with it. But the whole first responding world is operations and who does what and sometimes people can look pretty useless.
This is factually untrue. A drowning person will be panicked, exhausted, and their first instinct will be to latch onto you for dear life. And if you are not properly trained to swim while dealing with another person latched onto you and possibly flailing around then you yourself will be in trouble and become someone who needs saving as well.
Don't downplay the danger of that.
What's with all the he should have dove in and rescued him? One, if you don't have the proper training you will probably drown as well. Two, do you know how much the gear that police wear weighs? Well it is a lot so that cop would have to completely strip and by the time he does it may already be too late.
Sadly this it is very easy for a drowning person to take you out too sadly.
Boosting this because it's true.
Anyone telling you to swim out into the water to rescue a drowning person is trying to get you killed.
They can't because it's nonsense and you've heard correctly your entire life.
They shouldn't have let him climb over the fencing to begin with. There's no urgency or care in their voices.
Again, I don't expect them to drown too - I'm not an idiot but I sure do expect a little more human empathy from people that we're supposed to thank and worship.
Almost two years ago, I tried to kill myself by jumping over some railing that I had affixed a noose made of tie-down straps to. The pandemic was too much to deal with.
The police (a few good ones, shockingly) saved me from myself but not letting me go over the railing, otherwise I would have died, ended up paralyzed, or injured in some other way.
These cops let him climb the railing with barely a change in their tone. Fuck them. They could've done more. They could've cared more.
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Nah mate this ain't it. How many people have you saved while they were drowning? Hell, when I was a firefighter we were told not to go in unless you taken a water rescue course due to the dangers it possess. One person drowning will easily become two. Especially if someone starts to panic.
This is misinformation that can get you killed, so hopefully you learn better (and nobody listens to you).
I'm surprised cops don't have more training in basic water rescue
In fact I'd say saying this is quite irresponsible and you should remove it
I️ don't really believe this at all
In fact I'd say saying this is quite irresponsible and you should remove it
What actually transpired was police not caring that a man going through a mental health crisis hops the railing and proceeds to jump into the lake.
I work as a case manager for those with severe mental illnesses and have seen many crises. Not only should they have tried to redirect him from the railing, they should have absolutely tried to stop him from jumping the railing.
Look, I get that cops aren't trained in mental health crises but they clearly didn't even care. ACAB.
In the video, he is sitting and talking with them. They don't do anything when he moves to climb over the rail.
While we agree that jumping in after him could be dangerous, the cops should have absolutely stopped him from hopping the railing. They didn't even care that he did while he was clearly going through a mental health crisis.
Because that is their job and because it's the correct thing to do? I get it, don't jump in if you aren't trained, but don't let him jump over the railing either. There is absolutely something to criticize them for.
I've put my life in danger to help folks a few times and it wasn't my literal job description to do it.
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I'm sorry you experienced that, and certainly can appreciate your feelings on this issue.
Certainly there is a discussion to be had about why they let him go over the railing, and why they absolutely failed to appreciate how bad this situation could get very quickly.
This is a very WRONG and most important, DANGEROUS way of thinking my friend.
I appreciate that.
That's all I'm trying to get at. I don't think they should jump in and drown too but I think the events leading up to that could've been handled differently and with more human decency.
These are bad cops in my book. Fuck 'em
They absolutely deserve flack for not stopping him from getting into the lake and they deserve flack for the lack of concern in their voice when he was swimming based on the text. What I can't fault them for is not swimming after him to save him. As I can't recall any lifeguard training that ever endorsed that as a good idea. Still the second they failed to do anything to stop him from climbing over the fence. They should have had someone sprint to find something to rescue with him.
Are the cops usually trained to swim and also be able to rescue drowning victims?
Even if they were, wouldn't they have to take off their gears and uniforms before they can even attempt to jump in and rescue the person?
Can't see how any of'em could've jump in and rescue the victim realistically in timely manner.
Even if they were, wouldn't they have to take off their gears and uniforms before they can even attempt to jump in and rescue the person?
Can't see how any of'em could've jump in and rescue the victim realistically in timely manner.
I really appreciate how on any given thread there will be someone with a take completely removed from reality.
No but they're also not trained to be assholes.
That's just a job perk, I guess.
If we're LUCKY, it'll be just one person. Sometimes there are several.
That I will agree on. The time to save this persons life was before they touched the water. If the cops are to be blamed for anything in this instance, its that they weren't more zealous in stopping them from going to the other side of the safety fencing. That said, once he was in the lake his death certificate was already signed.
I just think that when a lot of people say "Oh just jump in the water after them", "It can't be that hard to drag them to safety" are fooling themselves. Especially when the Red Cross themselves has done plenty of surveys and they constantly come up with a metric that out of 80% of people who are able-bodied Americans, only 50% know how to swim or possess an above bare minimum level of capabilities in the water. And they at every single opportunity tell people to never jump in after someone else.
Water is dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.
Context on drowning stuff
The context of the type of water is largely irrelevant and you bringing this up highlights a grave misunderstanding of the threat. The water itself isn't the issue, it's the person that is drowning within the water that is a threat. Countless studies and assessments and real world examples have been explored and cited to understand this. A person drowning is in an extreme state of panic and exhaustion. Their critical reasoning skills are severely compromised as they enter desperation, seeking anything they can to cling to in order to refrain from drowning. They're unable to reconcile the buoyancy of their body in relationship to water, and feel like they're in a constant state of falling and faltering, as if they cannot "hold" anything and are sinking/falling into the water. They fundamentally lack the skills to stay afloat and survive in the water, and in turn because of this induce panic and worsen their own situation by rapidly flailing around in an attempt to ground themselves.
When another person enters the water in an attempt to save them, including exceptionally experienced and talented swimmers with incredible physical fitness, they regularly fall victim to the the person drowning who does not respond to the attempted save with relaxation and transfer of control to the person swimming but instead a desperate struggle to use the person swimming as a means of floatation. It's extremely difficult to ask a person who is in a state of absolute dread and panic, who believes they are literally fighting for their life (because they are), to completely relax and "let go" and transfer control to another person to help them in the water. And the person in the water who can swim is not suddenly gifted a power over the person drowning. They not only must assist the person in the water, which itself is physically demanding, but "fight off" the individual's physical resistance to relaxing, and that individual's fixation on grappling on to something/anything and "pulling/pushing" themselves out of the water (which, in turn, pushes you under).
We have entire fields of training specifically centered around assessment, management of, and response to people drowning for this very reason. We have professionally trained lifeguards for a reason, who in turn rely on the use of tools alongside their own training to most effectively save people while mitigating risk to themselves. There's also strategies a person can utilise if they find themselves in a situation like this, eg: diving downwards from a drowning person who is not responding is more likely to free you from their grip than swimming horizontally, as the person is more likely to "let go" as you go down. But historically and statistically the risk of drowning when attempting to save someone from drowning, by entering the same body of water as the person drowning and swimming to them, is extraordinarily high irrespective of a person's individual swimming skills and physical fitness. And the aforementioned strategies are entirely circumstantial and high risk by their own merits, as it takes only seconds (literally, seconds) for something to go wrong, for you to not be able to free yourself from someone's grasp and to not be able to get your own head above water when you need to breath, precisely when you need to, and for you to inhale water, and in turn put yourself at high likelihood of drowning.
And maybe this is something you don't understand because it doesn't seem to make sense or doesn't seem like a big deal. Or maybe you haven't read much about it or looked into it too deeply, and just imagine that this is one of those things where people overexaggerate a threat to protect themselves or institute too much bureaucracy in response to a person who needs help. But I cannot stress to you how dangerous what you're insinuating is. It's not a hardline thing. Of course there are instances where people have successfully saved someone drowning, which is wonderful. But to state "the risk is relatively minimal" is patently untrue and dangerous to insinuate, and I implore you to avoid acting on this if you find yourself in a similar situation. The best response to a person drowning is always to seek assistance from the shore; reach out, use anything that extends your reach, and throw in floatation tools. Give the person drowning something to anchor and hold on to, because that is precisely what they're seeking, that isn't...you know, you.
EDIT: And for context, while I'm not a lifeguard myself, I have several friends who have been professionally trained as lifeguards. I live in a country (Australia) with such a deeply ingrained swimming culture that basically everyone here learns to swim from a young age. I've swam in the ocean, lakes, and rivers. And everybody, regardless of professional swimming qualifications or casual learning, has it deeply engrained in them how to manage water safely. We're taught how to escape rips, how to assess the depth of rivers, the dangers of diving into unknown waters, and methods of self preservation when finding yourself exhausted or in danger in water. And we're taught repeatedly of the immense risk in entering a body of water to save someone who is drowning. People die every year doing this.
I only just watched the body cam footage and now I can see that they weren't making fun of him. From the initial framing in the OP, it sounded like they were.
What a terrible situation. I still feel like the cops could have tried doing more that didn't involve getting in the water. At the very least in my opinion cops that patrol around bodies of water should be trained in water rescue procedures.
Wait, what? Do they look like that picture or?
I lived in an ontario town with a river through it my wholelife, I now live 5 mins from a beach and river in a different town 20 mins away. Never seen anything like those.
I would like more facts but I find it hard to put myself in their shoes and do nothing.
I am not even a police officer and I would like to think we would all just help another stranger if we saw they were in need.
People are saying its a bad idea to get in the water and I can't say they are wrong but I don't know. I would hope they would have tried to do something as its someones life.
If they just stood there and watched him drown that is pretty fucked up.
I am not even a police officer and I would like to think we would all just help another stranger if we saw they were in need.
People are saying its a bad idea to get in the water and I can't say they are wrong but I don't know. I would hope they would have tried to do something as its someones life.
If they just stood there and watched him drown that is pretty fucked up.
Not on this. You can fault them for how they didn't stop him from climbing over the fence. However, you should never ever jump in to save a person who is drowning unless you are trained to. It will easily get you killed. I seen it happen and it makes a tragic event even worse.
Useless fucking ghouls, every last cop. Why didn't they stop him from climbing over the fence to begin with?
They don't all uniformely look like that. But I've seen a couple different styles. Windsor uses that yellow style you see in the picture. I've also seen other municipalities will put them in a green box, an orange box, some public beaches in smaller municipalities will just leave them on an enclosed hook that you can detach if needed.
The only places I haven't really seen them is if its at a beach with a manned lifeguard, since the lifeguard is supposed to be the safety mechanism. But if you pay attention near a pier or a public park that was specifically designed to have water as a main attaction (either for viewing, swimming, or the like), you'll find a couple of them.
That's naive thinking, most people don't stop to help anyone they see in trouble, they rather just move along since it doesn't involve/affect them.
We'll i'm mostly just saying, while i wouldn't jump in I'd be doing my hardest to find something like a rope to drag them in rather then mocking the situation like the article implys.
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Honestly, if you're not an incredibly strong swimmer then going in after someone will result in two people needing to be rescued instead of one. I get the impulse, but it can be very dangerous. That said, this is why doing stuff like getting CPR and lifeguard certified can be very important: they'll allow you to actually help in an emergency situation without either making things worse or putting yourself in danger as well.
Not going to find rope long enough for 30 to 40 yards off by chance. I am not sure how the fire department apparatus is equipped within that city but from experience not many units will have that long of a rope either or a means to launch it that far. Have to get water rescue involved. Unless I am misreading the transcript it looks like the cops called for back up but there is no way it would come in time.
I think the problem was that he was really far away. Like he jumped in, swam out, and then couldn't get back. The article says he was about 40 meters away which is over 100 feet. So unless you had specific tools, I don't know if there was anything that could easily reach him, unfortunately.
ACAB for sure. But I think they're at fault for failure to stop him from jumping at all vs not leaping in to save him.
I've seen a lot of stupid posts on this site but this one is a dangerous level of stupid.