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May 13, 2004
Reminder that life is a dangerous business
My colleagues and I are watching with interest the efforts in Glasgow to rescue the remaining victims friom the pile of rubble that was once their workplace. It is too early to speculate on the cause but several possibilities will no doubt feature in the investigation. The process involved the use of powders for coating. So a dust explosion is one aspect, the powder coating required firing in an oven, so the gas supply to the ovens will need looking at, and then there is the possibility of a chemical reaction going wrong.
We tend to forget in this age of technology and "safety cultures" that life is a hazardous business. As our reliance on technology increases it is becoming increasingly difficult for the operator of a variety of manufacturing plants and equipment to actually monitor what the machine is doing. Some safety systems actively prevent physical checks and the operator is forced to rely on what the machine itself is saying about its "health". Which is fine - until the monitoring computer malfunctions. Sometimes our safety fetish backfires. I sincerely hope that this does not turn out to be one of those occasions.
This incident puts me in mind of several others recently which have taken lives and of the fact that it is often the fire fighters who are taken for granted when all the shouting and tumult is over. I had a sharp reminder yesterday while hosting visitors from Serbia - two of whom are serving fire fighters in oil refineries near Belgrade. They were at their posts fighting fire while we were bombing them and their refineries. That is their job and that is mine. There are 3,500 names on the fire fighters memorial in London of fire fighters who did that through the years 1939 - 1945 in the UK and no doubt there will be fire fighters in Baghdad who have stood at their posts and fought the fires ignited by our bombs as we blitzed Saddam and no doubt even now as the lunatics try to bomb and shoot their way to power.
Life is not cheap anywhere; it is a dangerous pastime, however, and if the food, the water, the bugs don't get you, the gunman, the dangerous driver, the drunk or some other "accident" might. It is the fire fighter's job to try to save as many as possible in most dangerous situations, wherever they are and whatever nationality they are. Spare a thought for them all in your prayers; many will be working with inadequate equipment, inadequate protective clothing, and on pitiful pay. Some may be dying in the service of their community as I type this, but they will all do their duty come what may.
Perhaps this is what our employers have forgotten as they try to evade and change agreements over pay and conditions for the UK's service. Perhaps it is time they stopped chanting their mantra of "modernisation" and took a look at what they are taking for granted. Today one told me to my face that they knew they could do as they pleased with the service and force through cuts and changes because they could rely on us "not to let the public down and to make it work."
He's lucky I could restrain the sudden impulse to kick him where it would make sure he could never breed again. I am not a "Union" man, but much more of this sort of arrogant ignorance and I will become one.
Life is a dangerous game; those who choose to serve their communities in the fire service live with the knowledge that they may not return from a shift one day. I am proud to have given 33 years to this service and to the communities I have served, and I am proud of the service we have created. Those rescued from the collapsed factory in Glasgow will, I hope, be grateful for the care of the fire fighters there, just as those helped by the fire fighters in Belgrade or Baghdad will be grateful for the help they received.
Please hold the rescuers and the victims of the Glasgow blast in your prayers; this is a traumatic time for the victims; I can assure you that it is equally so for the rescue teams who know that there are people under the pile, yet are constrained to work "safely" as much for their own safety as for the survivors trapped beneath it. They will need your support and prayers for as long as possible.
Posted by The Gray Monk at May 13, 2004 05:43 PM