Don't call for help in Scotland

An inquiry into the drowning death of two fishermen in Scotland had this to say about the reaction of local firefighters to the crisis...

"RESCUE workers listened to the last cries of two drowning fishermen as they waited for a Strathclyde Fire and Rescue boat to arrive because they had no training in water rescues."

They were yelling back and forth to the men in the water. Then the cries stopped. And they waited 20 minutes more. When the experts finally arrived, they didn't come with the expected boat. They came with a rope -- the same type of useless rope that the rescue workers already had.

So two men slipped to their deaths in the dark, cold sea, and the people who call themselves rescue workers stood there like mooks listening to them drown because they weren't "trained" in water rescues. The one man who had wanted to try a rescue was dissuaded because it was judged by his colleagues to be too dangerous.

This is not the first time in recent months that emergency workers of one kind or another have stood aside while people have died, perhaps needlessly, because the situation was deemed to be too dangerous for a rescue attempt or the designated rescue workers lacked training or they didn't have the requisite equipment to affect a rescue. Or whatever.

One might ask what earthly good these people are, and why are they being paid to show up for work each day.

What a bunch of flakes.