Deputies Use Garden Hose To Fight Fire, Save Family

[DaveM55]

http://policelink.monster.com/news/a...91215_10cities


December 14, 2009

COMPTON, Calif.—Authorities say a woman and her disabled 14-year-old son were saved from a burning house in Compton when Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies battled the fire with a garden hose and used a pickaxe to break through security bars.

Sheriff’s Lt. Dorothy Howard says the woman and her child, who suffers from Down’s Syndrome, are hospitalized in critical but stable condition Sunday.

The fire broke out at about 3 a.m. A man fled the house and told deputies his wife was in a back room. They sprayed the garden hose down a hallway, allowing fire crews to get inside.

[LittleRedToyota]

nice job deputies.

[adymond]

nice job deputies.

I'll second that, but how the fuck do you leave your wife and child in a burning home?

Deputies +rep

Husband -rep

Well if we had it anymore .

[King 5.45]

I'll second that, but how the fuck do you leave your wife and child in a burning home?

Deputies +rep

Husband -rep

Well if we had it anymore .

Well, we don't, now do we?

Hubby there needs to have a serious sit-down with somebody.

[adymond]

Well, we don't, now do we?

Hubby there needs to have a serious sit-down with somebody.

If by sit-down you mean beat-down I agree. I just couldn't imagine leaving my wife and son, let alone the dog and cats, in a burning house just to save my ass. It's my job as a husband and father to protect and care for my family. [Just to be clear this is not some chauvinistic/sexist notion as I think the job of the mother is also to protect and care for the family, but in this case it was the father that abandoned his duty.]

[GunLawyer001]

. . .
The fire broke out at about 3 a.m. A man fled the house and told deputies his wife was in a back room. They sprayed the garden hose down a hallway, allowing fire crews to get inside.

I'll second that, but how the fuck do you leave your wife and child in a burning home?
. . .

Agreed 100%. I've commented on this before, there's a primarily urban phenomenon where every time a fire breaks out, everyone looks out for himself and willingly sacrifices spouses, kids, pets, friends. I just don't see this among the suburban or rural population, adults standing on the front lawn demanding that strangers go back in and save their chilluns.

In the suburbs, the guy would be standing on the front lawn with his wife and kids, holding his dog and the goldfish, smelling like smoke and wearing partially-melted Reeboks. In the city, they concentrate on working up a good banshee wailing before the kids are quite dead. Urban adults care about themselves, it's "I need to get myself out of here." In the suburbs, it's clearly "OUR house is on fire, WE need to get out, let ME check on the kids..."

In this case, was there some complicated set of instructions that the man was reading on how to use the garden hose HIMSELF to save his wife and kids? It was RIGHT THERE. Water. Fire. This ain't rocket science.

If my home burns, we're either all making it out, or I'm saving my estate the cost of a cremation. That's the way I roll. That's the way my friends roll, too. It's our job to save ourselves and our families, we don't say "that's the job of the fire department" and find a comfy spot to watch the house burn while we wail that nobody's saving our kids.

[mcmcallister]

damn strait gunlawyer, adymond, +1 to both of you

[adymond]

Agreed 100%. I've commented on this before, there's a primarily urban phenomenon where every time a fire breaks out, everyone looks out for himself and willingly sacrifices spouses, kids, pets, friends. I just don't see this among the suburban or rural population, adults standing on the front lawn demanding that strangers go back in and save their chilluns.

In the suburbs, the guy would be standing on the front lawn with his wife and kids, holding his dog and the goldfish, smelling like smoke and wearing partially-melted Reeboks. In the city, they concentrate on working up a good banshee wailing before the kids are quite dead. Urban adults care about themselves, it's "I need to get myself out of here." In the suburbs, it's clearly "OUR house is on fire, WE need to get out, let ME check on the kids..."

In this case, was there some complicated set of instructions that the man was reading on how to use the garden hose HIMSELF to save his wife and kids? It was RIGHT THERE. Water. Fire. This ain't rocket science.

If my home burns, we're either all making it out, or I'm saving my estate the cost of a cremation. That's the way I roll. That's the way my friends roll, too. It's our job to save ourselves and our families, we don't say "that's the job of the fire department" and find a comfy spot to watch the house burn while we wail that nobody's saving our kids.

I hadn't even gotten to thinking about the hose that was being used by the deputies being available for the husband. I kept getting stuck on him running out of the house. I just couldn't get past it. Almost like vapor lock of the brain.

Though I think you hit on something that may be important. Urban settings do not foster a sense of ownership whether that's a sense of ownership of property or even one's own well being. Even the more financially sound in urban settings either only own a unit in a condo building or they rent a property. It's no skin off their back if a fire wipes it out. Many are conditioned to think the government will take care of them (through a sinister design of the very government which is totally incapable and incompetent) in cases of emergency.

[Eugene V. Debs]

Agreed 100%. I've commented on this before, there's a primarily urban phenomenon where every time a fire breaks out, everyone looks out for himself and willingly sacrifices spouses, kids, pets, friends. I just don't see this among the suburban or rural population, adults standing on the front lawn demanding that strangers go back in and save their chilluns.

In the suburbs, the guy would be standing on the front lawn with his wife and kids, holding his dog and the goldfish, smelling like smoke and wearing partially-melted Reeboks. In the city, they concentrate on working up a good banshee wailing before the kids are quite dead. Urban adults care about themselves, it's "I need to get myself out of here." In the suburbs, it's clearly "OUR house is on fire, WE need to get out, let ME check on the kids..."

In this case, was there some complicated set of instructions that the man was reading on how to use the garden hose HIMSELF to save his wife and kids? It was RIGHT THERE. Water. Fire. This ain't rocket science.

If my home burns, we're either all making it out, or I'm saving my estate the cost of a cremation. That's the way I roll. That's the way my friends roll, too. It's our job to save ourselves and our families, we don't say "that's the job of the fire department" and find a comfy spot to watch the house burn while we wail that nobody's saving our kids.

While I agree the dude was selfish and cowardly in his actions, these crude generalizations of what city-dwellers and suburban-dwellers would respectively do when their house is burning down is quite disappointing, GL. I'm sure there are plenty of city folk who would gladly sacrifice their lives to get their family out of a burning building, as well as plenty of suburbanites who would pull a George Costanza and knock over old ladies and children on their way out.

You really don't have an objective basis for saying these things.

PS-- while I give props to the deputies for doing this, what would have been even more impressive is if they had each drank a gallon on the way to fire and pissed it out.

[whoshisface]

My neighbors house caught on fire when I was a kid. My dad grabbed the garden hose. It doesn't do a thing. A garden house is only good for making steam in a real fire. So either it was just at the start, which doesn't last long enough to unroll the hose, or it did little if any good at all. Not that the effort isn't fantastic. Best to water the roof tops of buildings not on fire with a garden hose! Where are the fire fighters here?