Rules should be moveable
THERE have been some complaints in recent years that some politically correct decisions are sometimes not the correct way to proceed.
For example, when the Manchester Arena bomb went off the management of the Manchester Fire Service would not allow their firefighters to respond immediately to the problem.
There have been other situations where police officers are not allowed to dive into a lake if a person has got into difficulty in the water.
I suppose it is always difficult to know the best response to take when a crisis presents itself.
Maybe the answer is to leave the decision to the discretion of each firefighter or police officer himself or herself to make the decision on which way to proceed.
I am aged 69. All this is a far cry from how tragic situations were dealt with when I was a lad.
However, you can perhaps see some validity in the rules that apply today, because the first police officer to respond to the chemical poisoning of the Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter has himself imbibed some of the poison that has put the other two victims in a coma.
And so that in itself presents a strong case why a police officer may not always wish to put himself in a life threatening situation in order to aid a victim.
Howard Gardner,
Sale