Firefighter

Recently, 2 firefighters in Boston died while fighting a fire. This week, their autopsy reports were leaked to the media because traces of cocaine were found in one of the firefighter's system, and the other firefighter had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.10, where in Massachusetts the legal limit is 0.08.

Now, everyone is upset about the reports being leaked, and there is an official investigation in the works. From the families points of view, I can understand why you'd be upset - they lost their husbands/fathers and now these results come to light. I can't imagine the suffering that they were going through before these results were released, and now they have to deal with this too? It's awful.

BUT - the fact that the mayor, and the firefighters union seems to be MORE upset about the leaking of the reports than the content of the reports seems a little suspicious. They said that they are reviewing drug testing procedures, but no one has said "they have a clean record, they've always tested negative" - I wonder if they had been tested at all? It just seems...odd.

It's not like these guys are sitting in an office all day, not hurting anyone. They had jobs that required the use of heavy machinery, and they were directly responsible for public safety. Their job required on the spot smart decisions at a moment's notice. How would you feel if you were in a horrible car accident, and the guy that came to pull you out of your twisted car smelled of alcohol? Would you trust any instructions he gave you? Would you trust that person to try to revive your spouse, or use the jaws of life while your kid was inside a car? What about their coworkers? Firefighters have to depend on each other for their lives. You HAVE to know that the people you work with are able to do their job and do it well - it's a matter of life & death.

It's very unfortunate. I feel very badly that at least one of these guys made a bad decision, and ended up paying for it with his life, and dragging his family into hell in the process. It's sad to see, and I wish it hadn't happened. But at the same time, maybe we need to look at WHY it happened & how to prevent rather than critizing the media for bringing it to light. Maybe they should be focusing on how to prevent this from happening again, rather than prosecuting the people who leaked the story. These guys are paid with public funds - shouldn't we know when they are abusing controlled substances while on the job, and when they may be impairing the safety of those people who pay their bills?

While writing this, an incident from August comes to mind. We went to a pub in the town next to us - there was one very drunk and beligerent guy yelling, starting fights stumbling around. He was wearing a firefighter's t-shirt (like some of the guys in this picture), as were all his buddies (and the apparently very young-ish girl with him - she was at least 10 years younger than him, barely old enough to even be IN a bar). It was only 5 p.m. - and someone called the police about this guy. The police basically showed up, told him to knock it off & settle down (it looks like they knew him on a first-name basis) and then the police left. They didn't even make him leave the bar, let alone take him into protective custody. This guy was completely lit up. He smelled like alcohol, he was slurring his speech, he was litterally stumbling drunk. His friends were holding him up. AND he was itching for a fight - taking on the very people who were trying to help him.

I'm not saying that all fire fighters are bad - on the contrary. I know some very good people who are firefighters. However, it's like every other job: there are good people & bad people. Unfortunately, though, the few bad apples have a lot of responsibility for public safety and it just seems like a bad mix.