Positivity Post: A Very Un-Positive Update
Today’s Positivity post (”Bystanders Saved Boy from Drowning”) about an unnamed 3 year-old being saved from drowning by Anthony Graham and others is a great story with a happy ending — for the 3 year-old.
But the story does have a paragraph that, on a less crazy day, would have caused me to consider another post for Positivity (because I try to post only completely good-news stories with no ambiguities), or would have caused me to look further into why the following occurred:
He (Graham) carried the boy to the lifeguard stand but witnesses said on-duty lifeguards refused to give the boy CPR without a mouthpiece to protect themselves.
In a comment that I won’t post because I’m mentioning it now, Amy Ridenour has quite properly asked, in stronger words, whether the lifeguards are being investigated, prosecuted, or worse.
The answer, after twice viewing the video at the page where the story is (click on “Questions Raised after Near Drowning”), is “I don’t know.” It appears that everyone’s stories are so conflicting that it’s going to take a while to sort it all out. My instincts tell me that a lot of people are in cover-up mode, and that those doing the backing and filling are not the ones who did the real rescuing. But I’m unfortunately not there to sort it all out.
I’m happy, as of course we all are, that the 3 year-old is alive. I’m outraged that something as apparently easly as figuring out the truth about a “simple” rescue incident is proving so elusive, and that the 3 year-old would, according to the original version of the story, likely have died if non-lifeguards with the required skills hadn’t been there to save him.
If anyone has news, either today, a week, a month, or a year from now about how the investigation of this incident turns out, e-mail me.
__________________________________
UPDATE: It’s hard to believe we’ll ever know what really happened after wading through blather at this story, and at this one.
If the lifeguards did refuse to give him CPR without a mask, and had the child died without it, their refusal should be a serious criminal offense, in my opinion.
I did a search this evening for some more stories about this and there is a wide disparity in the news media reports. This link to a TV report (http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO24641/) and this one (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/08/08/lifeguard_actions_defended_in_rescue/) in the Boston Globe paint a very different picture — one of CPR actually being given to the boy by the lifeguards.
I obviously don’t know what happened, but it may be that the original report was the result of confusion at the scene. According to the Globe, the fellow who is credited with the rescue says the lifeguards seemed confused but he does not recall any lifeguard saying anything about needing to wear mouth protectors.
The Globe report describes a scene that seems chaotic.
Comment by Amy Ridenour — August 11, 2006 @ 12:58 am