unfortunately you presume wrong

Has that never happened? Have you never had a question you can’t answer? (not questionging your abilities!! - just surprised that doesn’t happen several times a week!)

I hope for the sakes of anyone working in emergency services that something like this never happens again. It didn’t really sink in for me until I saw footage of people jumping from the windows.

Realistically, now that that bridge has been crossed, something like this almost certainly *will* happen again, and I find it difficult to comprehend the thinking behind offering training in major incident response to certain groups and not others. In a situation like that, you’re frontline staff just as much as the road crews are.

Management shouldn’t be looking at “if”, it should be “when”..

Since these dramatic events major incident plans are much better. However they don’t include “what to say” to people.
While someone is stuck 127 storeys up a burning building, and the only true answer is for them to make thier peace with your deity, you’d never say that. I hope I’m never in that situation, but I expect that all you can do is try to provide some sort of human comfort in a dark hour.

That or “Follow your doctor’s instructions for this situation.”

I watched a similar/same doco here in New Zealand, and was also surprised by the advice being given by operators from 911, and the port authority people.

I was thinking that it was maybe part of the american service culture, to always try and give advice, even if they have *NO IDEA* what to do. Most people seemed to be told to stay put. Which I can understand in a small fire, but this was not a small fire.

Personally, I’d prefer to be told that a large plane has hit the building, we’ve got people on the way, but you’re on you own. (Which is what I’d expect anyway) so I’m free to take whatever action I deemed neccessary.

From what I saw on the telly and internet that day, I expected the top of the buildings to collapse, but didn’t think the whole buildings would go.

I guess the CIA now wishes it never funded Osama’s operations. :-/

PS I should add that I am not talking about something on the scale of the 9/11 attacks, but something perhaps more like the bus you mentioned a while ago that crashed into a supermarket (did I remember that right?)

Miranda: it’s an interesting question. As someone says above, there was that Kitty Genovese case when no-one called because everyone thought someone else had, and several people calling is better than no-one calling. On the other hand, we had forty-three calls on that bus incident, which meant a 5 minute-ish delay in calls being answered, the sort of delay which could result in someone dying. I think if I witnessed something I’d try and look for other people dialling 999 first, and not call if I were one of those people who end up saying “I was just going past and I heard a bang, now there’s a bunch of people gathered round” because in those circumstances, it’s pretty much guaranteed that someone else will have called, or that the person doesn’t actually need an ambulance.

If in doubt, call it in.

Most serious RTCs have at least half a dozen people call them in, and each one has a slightly different description of what happened. So it’s always usefull because sod’s law says the sixth person is the one that saw the chemical leak, or the trapped passenger.

However, when you get something as large as 9/11 there is no extra information that will make a difference.

Interestingly not everyone calls an ambulance… I remember a law case some years ago which I studied. A woman was attacked on the street outside her apartment block (in the US somewhere)…. about 2am and 17 people woke up to her cries, opened their windows and shouted at the attacker to leave her alone.

He ran off…. the woman then started to crawl up the steps outside her building.. the attacker came back and then resumed his attack before running off again after the same people yelled out their windows.

Now I’m not saying that I would have gone downstairs, but upon the Police talking to the witnesses, not one person went to the woman’s aid (even after the attacker ran off) and not one called an ambulance or the police. It took a bystander to do so, and by that time the woman had died. All the witnesses ‘thought someone else had done it’ or ‘didn’t want to get involved’.

So never assume that someone else has called the emergency services!

Britblog Roundup # 83

Welcome once again to that listing of posts you have nominated as being something we should all have a look at. You can add to next week’s extravaganza simply by sending the URL to britblog AT gmail DOT com. First

The new film “Right at your door” kinda deals with this - when stuff like this happens, no one really knows what is going on and any advice you get, is for all good intentions, probably faulty or incomplete advice.

I lost 2 friends in Sept 11, one physically and one who is now in a catatonic state after the things he did to try and help save people (he was a paramedic to put himself through law school). I, like so many others, found it really hard to come to terms with what had happened and have worked out my own “incident plan”. It sounds a bit paranoid but it works for me. I won’t say that it is perfect, you never know what you would do till you are in the situation, but I feel a bit more prepared.

My company has also done similar planning. So if we can do it, surely there is something at the emergency response level?