Fire Critic An Unadulterated View of the Fire Service
I have said for a long time in my department that we have a job that is hard to lose. It is hard to get fired. Yet time and time again, some find the easiest ways to get fired.
What I am referring to in this post is firefighters who make the wrong decisions. In the latest case, it is a Spalding County, Georgia firefighter who is currently suspended with pay for taking video at the scene at a gruesome and fatal accident. The Spalding County firefighter is under investigation for the taking and sharing the video he took on his cell phone.
Victims have names, families, loved ones, and identities. We need to respect that.
The video was taken 4 months ago, on July 17th, when 23 year old Danya Kempson Schacht was killed in an automobile accident on highway 1941. She had two children.
That video ended up being sent to the victims parents, Lucretia and Jeff Kempson.
Unacceptable!
I believe in due process. This man should be afforded the justice of being innocent until proven guilty.
However, it seems as though the writing is on the wall.
Why do I think he should be fired?
That is simple. If indeed he took the video and shared it as the story states, he should be fired. We aren’t the news media. We are firefighters. If he wants a job behind a camera, he should go get one.
The Kempsons received a text message containing the graphic video two months after the crash.
“At the moment we heard about this, the anger was just, there’s no way this could be,” Jeff Kempson said. “I was praying when I looked at that video it wasn’t her.”
The images are painful enough, but the Kempsons said the audio is agonizing, too, since they say it reveals a lack of concern and urgency by first responders.
“They didn’t care for my daughter,” Lucretia Kempson said. “I have a hard time that she wasn’t treated with love.”
We (firefighters) are killing our once polished perception by the public…one dumb ass firefighter at a time.
Links to the Story:
- Firefighter Suspended After Deadly Crash Video Sent to Victim’s Parents
- Outside investigator brought into Spalding County, Georgia cell phone video case. County attorney calls it ‘a grave error in judgement’.
- A firefighter with a cell phone camera brings another image problem for the fire service. The story from Spalding County, Georgia, like the video itself, goes viral.
