An apparently suicidal man waded into San Francisco Bay on Monday, stood up to his neck, and waited. As the man drowned, police, fire crews, and others watched idly from the shore.
Why? Officials blamed a departmental policy, stemming from budget cuts, that prevented them from jumping in to save him.
Fifty-year-old Raymond Zack spent nearly an hour in the water before drowning. A crowd of about 75 people, in addition to first responders, watched from the beach in Alameda across the bay from San Francisco as Zack inched farther and farther away, sometimes glancing back, a witness told the San Jose Mercury News. "The next thing he was floating face down."
A volunteer eventually pulled Zack's lifeless body from the Bay.
Mike D'Orazi of the Alameda Fire Department said that, due to 2009 budget cuts, his crews lacked the training and gear to enter the water. And a Coast Guard boat couldn't access the area because the water was too shallow.
"The incident yesterday was deeply regrettable," D'Orazi said Tuesday. "But I can also see it from our firefighters' perspective. They're standing there wanting to do something, but they are handcuffed by policy at that point."
Alameda Police Lt. Sean Lynch also suggested his men did the right thing. "He was engaged in a deliberate act of taking his own life," Lynch told the Mercury News. "We did not know whether he was violent, whether drugs were involved. It's not a situation of a typical rescue."
But at a City Council hearing Tuesday night, some locals expressed outrage that Zack was left to die. "This just strikes me as not just a problem with funding, but a problem with the culture of what's going on in our city, that no one would take the time and help this drowning man," said one resident, Adam Gillitt.
The city said it would spend up to $40,000 to certify 16 firefighters in land-based water rescues.
One witness to the event told a local news station that Zack was looking at people on the shore. "We expected to see at some point that there would be a concern for him," said another.
I think all of us who work in helping professions face this kind of dilemma on a regular basis. There are things we would love to do to help our patients but we can't because we don't have the resources. We don't have the resources because of budgetary cuts/lack of funding. Funding is determined by people who don't work directly with patients and who are interested only in the bottom line. Our patients suffer the results and then we -- not the people who are witholding resources -- are villified for having no compassion.
This happens in the media all the time. It makes for fantastic press. Those of us who actually do the work of helping end up being blamed when things that are out of our control go wrong, even while behind the scenes we fight a very private, emotionally draining, and frustrating battle to change things.
The fact that the responders stood there while this whole thing came to its conclusion indicates to me that they wanted to help but they were possibly waiting for an opportunity that would not be risky to them. Otherwise, if they really had no compassion I imagine that they just would have walked away.
It was a risky rescue, for all the reasons already discussed here, and I would hate to think that a responder would die trying to rescue someone who was suicidal.
We, as nurses, do not like it when people who are not nurses criticize us re: aspects of our job that they don't actually know anything about. Those here who are criticizing the actions of the responders are doing the same thing.
The comparison to someone holding a loaded gun to their heads is accurate. The article gave a comparison to someone standing on a ledge. THERE IS ONLY SO MUCH YOU CAN DO. This man obviously did not want to be rescued. If he was able to turn and look at the shore several times, he also could have turned around and come back. HE DIDN'T WANT TO. How is a responder/rescuer supposed to FORCE him to do this, without greatly risking their own safety? It's just not possible.
I agree that it could have been avoided had the man gotten better mental health care prior to this incident. If he had very recently attempted suicide, why wasn't he being held somewhere involuntarily? We'll never know. People who have dealt with depression and suicidal ideation before KNOW what to say to people to stay under the radar. Some people blame his family for not getting him better care.........can't do that, either. They also only have so much power. If someone is bound and determined to commit suicide, they will do it, no matter what anyone else tries to do to help them. That's the bottom line.
Some people (either here, or in the article comments) want to know if the situation/response would have been different if it had been a child, or an accidental fall. There is no way to answer that. That wasn't the case. You can spin all the hypotheticals you want, but essentially, you can't answer those questions.
Would I intubate someone, while working in my professional capacity, even though I don't know how to? Can't say that I would. This is also not a proper comparison, though, because intubating someone does not put my own health/life at risk.
The original posted article is very biased/inflammatory........the first indication of that being the statement that the responders and bystanders stood "idly" by while this man drowned. That conjures the image that everyone literally just stood there, quiet as mice, and twiddled their thumbs. While I wasn't there, I do doubt that this was the case. I would bet money that they felt helpless, desperate, and that this scenario will haunt them for the rest of their lives.
It is a tragic situation, but I do not agree that "basic decency has slipped away"........that is a harsh judgment, and purely an emotional reaction. There are times when emotions cannot come in to play; a rescuer risking their own life, when the end result could very well be TWO dead persons instead of one, is just stupid, and that's just being honest. It's also based on hearing certain details, and not even close to the whole picture. That's not fair to the people who had to make a judgement call that could not have been easy to make.
Yes, FF's put their life on the line every time they go to work. That doesn't make "risking your life" your job description.
Mayor Marie Gilmore also weighed in, telling National Public Radio that necessary policy changes would be made.
"We can't go back and change what happened. We can't defend what happened," she said. "What we can do is move forward and make sure something like this doesn't happen again."
Perhaps one of the fire fighters or first responders on this thread can clear up a puzzle for me. With a policy in place that prohibited the fire fighters from entering the water or attempting land-based rescues, why were they even dispatched to the scene? It's insane to me that they were mobilized to a scene that they knew in advance they weren't trained to handle nor had an equipment that could help.
I can understand having an EMT crew on hand to attempt resuscitation once the man was brought ashore and the police there to, at a minimum, manage public safety on the shore.
But why send these fire fighters to the scene when all they were allowed to do was stand and watch this man die? It seems cruel to them and a significant misdirection of limited, valuable resources.
On another note, I am currently reading the comments on the msnbc.com article, and I have to stop.......they are making me angry. Glass houses, and all that...
Perhaps one of the fire fighters or first responders on this thread can clear up a puzzle for me. With a policy in place that prohibited the fire fighters from entering the water or attempting land-based rescues, why were they even dispatched to the scene? It's insane to me that they were mobilized to a scene that they knew in advance they weren't trained to handle nor had an equipment that could help.
I can understand having an EMT crew on hand to attempt resuscitation once the man was brought ashore and the police there to, at a minimum, manage public safety on the shore.
But why send these fire fighters to the scene when all they were allowed to do was stand and watch this man die? It seems cruel to them and a significant misdirection of limited, valuable resources.
I was a firefighter many years ago and an EMT until just a few years ago. IMO, emergency services responded to the call for several reasons.
First, when you're dispatched, you go. Period.
Second, there is no proper way to size up a scene and decide what can or can't be done without trained personnel assessing the situation up close and personal.
Third, the suicidal man may at any time have come back in on his own and would most definitely have needed treatment for hypothermia. He may also have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Any of the above could cause cardiac arrhythmia. which would also need treatment.
Fourth, bystanders may have put themselves in harm's way and become injured or hypothermic.
And fifth, although this is a lesser factor, can you imagine the outcry that would arise if they hadn't even shown up? "Boy, they call themselves public servants and they can't even be bothered to come when called."
People who regularly swim on cold water beaches have acclimated themselves to that kind of stress. The rest of us mere mortals need a wetsuit and other gear to consider making an extended foray (more than 10-15 minutes) into that kind of hostile environment. They probably would have used a pontoon rescue craft or some other type of shallow water boat, ropes, and other equipment. Not to mention they would have had extensive training in cold/rapid water rescue that has to be kept up with periodic refresher training.
Water rescue is not for the faint of heart. One wrong move and there can be additional victims. I live in an area with many volunteer fire departments and only the best and strongest qualify for the mutual aid water rescue/dive team. The have to pass rigorous physical testing and maintain their certification through constant training.
The fact the TV and movies make this kind of rescue look so easy doesn't mean it is.
An apparently suicidal man waded into San Francisco Bay on Monday, stood up to his neck, and waited. As the man drowned, police, fire crews, and others 
Glass houses, and all that...
mazy
932 Posts
I think all of us who work in helping professions face this kind of dilemma on a regular basis. There are things we would love to do to help our patients but we can't because we don't have the resources. We don't have the resources because of budgetary cuts/lack of funding. Funding is determined by people who don't work directly with patients and who are interested only in the bottom line. Our patients suffer the results and then we -- not the people who are witholding resources -- are villified for having no compassion.
This happens in the media all the time. It makes for fantastic press. Those of us who actually do the work of helping end up being blamed when things that are out of our control go wrong, even while behind the scenes we fight a very private, emotionally draining, and frustrating battle to change things.
The fact that the responders stood there while this whole thing came to its conclusion indicates to me that they wanted to help but they were possibly waiting for an opportunity that would not be risky to them. Otherwise, if they really had no compassion I imagine that they just would have walked away.
It was a risky rescue, for all the reasons already discussed here, and I would hate to think that a responder would die trying to rescue someone who was suicidal.