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msnbc.com...
‘Handcuffed by
policy’: Fire crews watch man die
City policy changed after budget cuts cited as reason rescuers couldn’t
act
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
6/1/2011
SAN FRANCISCO — Fire crews and police could only watch after a man
waded into San Francisco Bay, stood up to his neck and waited. They
wanted to do something, but a policy tied to earlier budget cuts
strictly forbade them from trying to save the 50-year-old, officials
said.
A witness finally pulled the apparently suicidal man’s lifeless body
from the 54-degree water.
The San Jose Mercury News reported that the man, later identified as
Raymond Zack, spent nearly an hour in the water before he drowned.
First responders and about 75 people watched the incident on Monday
from a beach in Alameda, a city of about 75,000 people across from San
Francisco.Witnesses included Amy Gahran, a reporter who photographed
the scene from the beach for Oakland Local.
Interim Alameda Fire Chief Mike D’Orazi said that due to 2009 budget
cuts his crews did not have the training or cold-water gear to go into
the water.
“The incident yesterday was deeply regrettable,” he said Tuesday. “But
I can also see it from our firefighters’ perspective. They’re standing
there wanting to do something, but they are handcuffed by policy at
that point.”
But Tuesday night, after hearing from angry residents at a City Council
meeting, the city promised to spend up to $40,000 to certify 16
firefighters in land-based water rescues, KGO-TV reported.
“This just strikes me as not just a problem with funding, but a problem
with the culture of what’s going on in our city, that no one would take
the time and help this drowning man,” KGO quoted resident Adam Gillitt
as saying.
A witness, Perry Smith, said Zack was visible from the shore of Crown
Memorial State Beach and was looking at people.
“We expected to see at some point that there would be a concern for
him,” another witness, Gary Barlow, told KGO.
Witness Sharon Brunetti told the Mercury News that Zack’s stepmother
stopped her on the beach and asked her to call 911, saying he was
threatening to take his own life.
Zack “gradually inched out farther and farther” from the shore but
occasionally glanced back over his shoulder at the beach, Brunetti said.
“The next thing he was floating face down,” the Mercury News quoted her
as saying.
Too shallow for boat
The Coast Guard was called to the scene, but the water was too shallow
for its boat. A Coast Guard helicopter arrived more than an hour later
because it had been on another call and had to refuel.
As for police, they didn’t have the gear for the cold water and
couldn’t risk being pulled under.
“Certainly this was tragic, but police officers are tasked with
ensuring public safety, including the safety of personnel who are sent
to try to resolve these kinds of situations,” Alameda police Lt. Sean
Lynch said.
“He was engaged in a deliberate act of taking his own life,” Lynch told
the Mercury News. “We did not know whether he was violent, whether
drugs were involved. It’s not a situation of a typical rescue.”
There are no lifeguards at the beach, said Isa Polt-Jones, a
spokeswoman with the East Bay Regional Park District. Signs at the park
advise swimmers to enter the water at their own risk.
The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
Read it with video at msnbc
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