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I Downloaded an App. Suddenly, I was a Rescue Dispatcher. (houstonchronicle.com)
Holly Hartman, a journalism teacher for 22 years, writes an incredible story: After watching nonstop coverage of the hurricane and the incredible rescues that were taking place, I got in bed at 10:30 on Tuesday night. I had been glued to the TV for days. I read an article about the Cajun Navy and the thousands of selfless volunteers who have shown up to this city en masse. The article explained they were using a walkie-talkie-type app called Zello to communicate with each other, locate victims, get directions, etc. I downloaded the app, found the Cajun Navy channel and started listening. I was completely enthralled. Voice after voice after voice coming though my phone in the dark, some asking for help, some saying they were on their way. Most of the transmissions I was hearing when I first tuned in were from Houston, but within 30 minutes or so, calls started coming in from Port Arthur and Orange. Harvey had moved east from Houston and was pummeling East Texas. Call after call from citizens saying they were trapped in their houses and needed boat rescue. None of the volunteer rescuers had made it to that area from Houston, but as soon as the calls started coming in, they were moving out, driving as fast as they could into the middle of Harvey.
And that I can only communicate with drones or their pilots.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Suddenly, I was a vietnamese callgirl.
Right because we don't have problems already because so many of our LEOs are laughably badly trained, just bad at their jobs, etc. Replacing them with any random citizen who downloaded an app is going to go just so very well.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I've been relaying messages for someone in the Miami-Dade area. She has internet connectivity, but not cellular. Her only method of communicating with her mother is via cellular (call or text), and she doesn't have any other text type gateway apps set up. However, she does normally use Zello which is non-functional for her even though she has data. So I'm not sure if Zello is overloaded there, or if it requires more bandwidth than is currently available. Either way I'm posting this to point out that Zello is not functioning for at least some people in the thick of it, even though they can use FB Messenger and other messaging apps of the sort.
Better known as 318230.
What's the point of rescuing those people who displayed a total lack of intelligence by remaining in what they knew would become a disaster zone?
It was known for days that the hurricane was coming. It's not like it happened out of the blue. People had lots of time to evacuate safely.
Even those without access to a vehicle, or those who have mobility issues, had ample time to make arrangements or otherwise rely on government-provided evacuation services/shelters.
It's no secret that hurricanes can cause severe problems for people who do not evacuate. Even children know this to be true.
So why bother rescuing anyone who was stupid enough to stay? Why risk lives saving the stupid?
Bad idea. Let the cops handle things. You won't be able to absorb the legal liability.
Registered handguns? There are an awful lot of guns around Texas and I guarantee that the the only registered ones are Title 3. Heck - there are an awful lot of guns on the room behind me right now and the only registered item is a Spectre 2 suppressor. Texas is a free state and allows its citizen the basic human right of self defense. You loot - they shoot. And it's amazing how little looting there was/is compared to Katrina. I think that having a well armed population cuts down on that crap considerably.
A fellow .357 lover . . . that's a fine handgun sir!
Any help is better than no help.
This is how I became an instant air traffic controller. I stumbled upon this app, thinking it was a game, when suddenly I saidYou are cleared for takeoff
I followed it up immediately with the clarification This channel is reserved for drones and drone pilots only. Please clear the channel for them. Thank you for your cooperation.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Is that if you're in the affected areas it's pretty unlikely to work. You see they need either a good cellular connection of wifi to work. In a storm of the nature of Harvey and Irma one of the first things to go is electric power which renders both of those inoperable.
Only thing that works somewhat is radio - I have analog and digital radios just for that purpose.
Not always. Plenty of times people who are not prepared can make a situation worse.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Never seen a better advert on /.
>> Any help is better than no help.
http://listverse.com/2013/11/19/10-attempts-at-charity-that-stupidly-made-things-worse/
Honestly speaking, as a guy who is a firearms owner, I shoot better than any cops I have seen at my gun club (I have shot against them and they always lose) and I am probably NOT going to be shooting anyone in the back as they run away, unarmed, then walking up to them and shooting them in the head as they lay there.
Also, cops in the USA seemed trained to start screaming at people (and thus escalating the level of anger/frustration/violence) when they arrive on site. Unlike guys like me that first seek to DE-ESCALATE those emotions, to try to get everyone to calm down. I guess 'real' cops like to de-escalate the situation by turning anyone angry, frustrated or annoyed into a dead body...
My brother was in the Guardian Angels in the early 1980's, doing neighborhood patrols in San Jose and finding himself in more trouble with the police than protecting citizens from criminals. He quit after a month or two. The police then and probably today would discouraged people from getting involved beyond calling 911.
All states have some kind of good Samaritan law.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
make sure its full time with bennies.
Nothing so helpful as an untrained stranger coming into an unfamiliar situation holding a lethal weapon, pumped up on the excitement of justice and at any second likely to be startled out of their wits.
Think of the big headlines where someone unsure about a situation calls the police and an innocent person gets shot as part of a misunderstanding. Amplify that by a couple orders of magnitude and you have what crowd sourced police 'help' would look like.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Bad idea. Let the cops handle things. You won't be able to absorb the legal liability.
During a large scale disaster, you may as well say "Let the people die". Police and other government agencies are completely overwhelmed in such situations. San Francisco and other cities in earthquake regions realize that and train local citizens in CERT/NERT classes to take part in a neighborhood emergency response team knowing that it can be days before rescuers outside the area can make it in.
I was wondering when you'd finally start posting affiliate links again. Guess the Twinkies fund finally ran out?
"The police then and probably today would discouraged people from getting involved beyond calling 911."
Good old creimer mangled grammar.
Right, there are situations where you can be helpful and situations where you probably should leave it to the proper authorities.
Grabbing a shovel to help fill sand bags, [great] pitch in.
Rescuing someone being swept out to sea, [maybe] if you know you are a strong swimmer and perhaps have had some water front rescue training in the past. You need to be able to evaluate the risk you will yourself become a victim in need of rescue, if you are unsure you should probably just stay on shore keep your eyes on the victim or their last position so you can point them out when help arrives.
Running into a situation that maybe unclear with intent to help by brandishing and potentially using a lethal weapon [almost never] a good idea. If you happen to be one the scene when the trouble starts and have a clear picture of whats going on and are also defending yourself fine, I think its right and proper for you to have a fire arm and using it for self defense. Going and seeking out trouble with it is another matter.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
That may all be true, but it seems to me that the answer should be to increase enforcement of deescalation training and accountability among police forces since we have the authority to do so but for some reason haven't yet, rather than turning to a vigilante force that may or may not have deescalation skills but by definition has no means of enforcing those skills among those who currently lack it.
That's a good question. Fortunately, because the rescuers are volunteers, we do not have to answer it. If they feel like helping people, it is up to them — even if it can be argued, that they are rescuing fools, who'd be better off dead.
And then we can revisit the mandatory charity of providing health care to the fools, who haven't bothered procuring health insurance in advance, school-lunches for kids, whose parents can't afford them, etc. Whoever feels those people should be helped, is welcome to do that on their own — without the government confiscating money at the point of weapon from others.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Events like Hurricane Harvey overwhelm local infrastructure and authorities abilities to manage the situation. Under normal circumstances, emergency dispatchers in the Houston MSA may be dealing with a few dozen emergency calls at a time. Harvey exploded that by a couple of orders of magnitude.
That is very different. Things like police auxiliaries and CERT/NERT where citizens are identified, credentialed and given training to help out with a limited range of common needs is great idea! As far as disaster preparedness and response goes.
Having people download an app to play cop for a day in the way downloading uber lets you play cab driver is a different proposition entirely and sounds a lot more problematic to me.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Wow. This article describes what I tried to do in 1995 for the Kobe earthquake, 20 years ago. But it suggests ways things go wrong as well. In the linked article the journalist put massive effort in and helped some people. But she also told everyone repeatedly that help was coming, even when she knew there were no boats in the water. I do not want to judge, since it sounds like she was doing a superhuman feat that nobody else was there to do and that was the best that was humanly possible. In the end compassion directed her to make some decisions and compassion later haunted her enough to write the article, and explain everything so that others can help in the future.
At that time I was at a new Internet provider that opened for business just before the quake, and I hoped to get Tokyo University to act as a call center to pick up calls for help. There was no news coming out of the area and no phones, but Internet lines were working. We would put it together on a web page and coordinate grassroots disaster relief, sharing people's needs and who could bring help there. In the end we couldn't do it for two main reasons. News organizations refused to cooperate by sharing what they saw from a helicopter, and Tokyo U. said there were too many bureaucratic problems with cooperating. In the end while I was able to provide some support on my own, mostly by relaying information and helping people who were in the area to upload pictures, there was a limit to what was possible. And then the most amazing site was created by a Stanford student if I remember correctly. Nowadays there are lots more systems. I believe the phone company or was it Yahoo made one that lets you say if you are safe.
Since data connections are usually more resilient than voice service (and even voice over data apps degrade) there will likely continue to be a need for data-based systems in emergency situations. I don't know why the emergency support dropped to such a horrifying extent that nobody else could help. I hope the article stimulates more people to recognize the need for better support of communities in disaster areas. If 911 gets overloaded or ignores a key communications channel like this app, then perhaps there should be a way to bring more people on board from different walks of life in an emergency and coordinate online. In fact anyone online even far away from the disaster area could have done so. This journalist took up the challenge but it shouldn't have to happen that way ever again.
Notice about Christopher Dale Reimer:
I am Nancy Guerrero, the Director of Special Education for the Santa Clara County Office of Education. We use Chris' (a.k.a. creimer,cdreimer) picture in our document because he is the hardest case we have ever had to handle:
http://www.sccoe.org/depts/stu...
Our artists were inspired by the low carb diet that Christopher follows scrupulously for the small lunch box and by the picture linked below for the rest. I am sure that you will notice the similarities such as the bump on the side of his chest and more:
https://www.cdreimer.com/slash...
Please be easy on Christopher although, I am aware that some of our staff handling Chris post joke comments here and obvoiusly, the Santa Clara County Office of Education disapprove that behavior vehemently:
https://school.discoveryeducat...
But it isn't Chris' fault if he is the way he is. We do the best we can do with him and he is partially integrated into society. We try to cure his abnormal need for attention but he is kind of stubborn and won't listen to anybody.
Thank You dear users,
-Nancy Guerrero
This is true, which is why if you know such events are coming you prepare for them by drafting extra staff in to cope, through overtime, calling in extra shifters, or from out of state, or even just quickly day-train some volunteers. You know, be prepared, that thing that Trump lied about.
To add to the Texan mentality; nearly 80% of Rockport Texas was destroyed by Harvey. This included the schools.
The kids at these school had to register in other counties in order to continue their schooling.
The football team of Rockport, in order to stay a foot ball team, has forgone going to school this year in order to stay registered in Rockport, so they can play football this season.
A hurricane destroyed their entire home town, and they CHOOSE to be a year behind in school, just so they can play some football....
No, it isn't. Especiallly not on such a large scale thing like this. You need to know the ability of the people. You need to know where they are going. You need to be able to see if they come back. You need to process the information that they bring back, so further help can be done.
You need to see that you do not need to help the helpers, because that means you lose 3x the manpower, at least.
This is not about 5 cars that collided and you need to pull out people. This is the coordination of several thousand people that need to work together as good as possible. Not just the people who get them, but medics, people who will provide food and what not.
There are people who trained to do this. Offer your help and let them tell you what is needed.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Credentialed! Because you will respect mah authoritah.
Amateur radio operators provide life-saving emergency communications (EMCOMM) during a natural disaster. But the first rule that is emphasized to hams who participate in EMCOMM is this:
"Don't become part of the problem. You are there to assist, not become a victim or act as a first responder."
Typically, it's Fire that does rescues, more than Police. I've done both jobs and have had little issue with the public doing stuff in parallel because , well, in our country the state and its organs should be under the jurisdiction of the people, not the other way around. Having said that, I think '2 minutes of training' isn't enough. Having said THAT, given that the Cajun Navy rescues folks where others don't, I think it's incredible and awesome.
And case law that went to the supreme court of the USA says that emergency services do NOT have a job of saving one person but to maintain society - which is quite different.
In theory it is more problematic. But, tell me, what is better? Having people drown or having citizen volunteers do this? I'd choose the latter, myself.
What makes you think those things weren't done?
With the exception of a few unAmerican places like New York, we do NOT have 'gun registration' in the USA.
Additionally, how do you conflate this into an anti-Trump screed? FEMA guidelines are that you are pretty much on your own for first 36-72 hours after landfall of a major hurricane. Hurricane Harvey response was a textbook cooperation between Federal and local authorities and citizen involvement.
To a great extent this is why ham radio is still around. I applaud folks good intentions to jump in and help, but counting on cell towers to stay up is courting a bigger disaster. There will be storms/earthquakes, etc that will take down the cell towers, the fiber that connects it, the electricity the supports it,and the diesel supply chain that keeps back-up generators running. Ham radio frequencies can reach hundreds and even thousands of miles to areas outside of an impacted area and are often the only line of communication in a disaster. We also need to enable the FM receivers that are built into modern cell to support broadcast of "critical, need to know information."
That is why in times of crisis like a natural disaster this makes all the sense in the world. Our country has shown time and time again that we pull together when help is needed.
Flooding is a unique situation though, most boat owners are going to know how to use them so they are already more likely to be able to help than become victims themselves. As another post said, grab a shovel and start filling sand bags. Distribute food/water/clothing. When it comes to rescuing people if you're not sure you can help then don't, you'll just make it worse. But if you have a boat and see someone drowning then absolutely, you're much more like to make that problem better.
Got a high voltage live wire down and someone trapped in a car, wait for the professionals.
Ham radio operators have a similar type thing we can use called echo-link. You can't download it unless you have a Ham radio license though. Sometimes I don't have my mobile radio with me, so instead of carrying a walkie-talkie around, I can punch up a repeater using echo-link and use it similar to a walkie-talkie. 99% of the time, I'm just copying the mail on the weather spotters repeater.
Um... the Cajun Navy is a bunch of 80+ year old black guys in jonboats..
"Any help is better than no help."
You roll up on a nasty crawl, there are people with guns drawn and lots of yelling and screaming, maybe some blood on the ground. What should an over-armed under-trained local vigilante do?
Half or more of the guns might be held by other vigilantes who heard the same call, but without uniforms or badges, who is to know? The perp (if any) might even claim to be one of you. Hysterical and angry people screaming are hardly error-free sources of data.
Now the cops roll up and find out that not only do they have to deal with the original assault between two drunks, but have to sort out a dozen gun wielding local rednecks hopped up on adrenaline waving guns around spouting off about being sovereign citizens and who gets credit for the citizen arrest. If the locals have the wrong skin color they might "fear for their life" and just start shooting everyone.
Great.
It all depends on the situation, I suppose. One of my hobbies is sailing (I have a 27' sloop), and the basic rule on the water is that if someone is in distress, you respond to it if you are able, and it is safe to do so. This is a tradition that is almost as old as history itself. The last one I responded to was a guy in a power vessel with a dead engine, and slowly drifting towards rocks. I passed within a few feet of him, tossed him a line, and took him under tow.
That said, in the modern era, this is usually done in coordination with the coast guard. When a distress call comes in, they're up on the radio asking for any available vessel to respond. In some cases, they just want to have additional eyes on the scene, and in other cases to search and/or perform what rescue is possible until they arrive on scene.
One of the more interesting calls I ever heard, though, was the Coast Guard looking for someone who would be willing/able to take command of a 35' sailboat in one of the local bays. From what I could gather, what was going on is that a husband and wife had been out, he got injured and subsequently evacuated, and she wasn't comfortable single-handing the boat to get herself and it to the nearby town so she could join her husband. I was already 3 hours away at that point, but otherwise I'd have offered my services.
Is this the same as a disaster area? No, but it is a situation where "civilians" are performing rescue/safety type tasks, at the direction and usually in coordination with the authorities.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
He was probably spending more time "doing the deed" with bees in knotholes, that's why he was in trouble with the police.
I am not a rescue dispatcher but...
That probably explains why a few decades ago power companies and emergency services worked until winds were up in the 50 mph range. Now they fold up at 40 mph here in FL. Incidently this allows more looting and similar because its easy enough to be out in that level of weather.
Only appy apps apps can help the Cajun Navy, not LUDDITE human rescue dispatchers.
Apps!
Not always. Plenty of times people who are not prepared can make a situation worse.
In this type of situation: probably not. If local authorities are way undermanpowered, and if you have a boat and know how to use it to help someone in dire need, then USE IT. Just do Not go out and self-deploy to a scene. Make sure you have someone else coordinating and supporting your activities who knows where you are and maintains contact where you can get a call for additional resources if needed: make sure you have a backup plan, and understand the risks for each situation before going into it, so you don't suddenly put yourself in need of rescue too.
Yes, the best way you can help in an emergency is to apply your field of expertise if it is in any way relevant to the situation. This may mean operating a boat, or it may mean getting a balky Internet connection working.
Try this then: trance music + police band.
You have to play with the volumes of both until you get the right balance, but once you do it's strangely pleasant to listen to. Obviously, cities like Baltimore and Chicago have more chatter than Halifax.
I actually use this as background when I played Eve, it was a perfect level of 'activity' that made it seem so much less of a boring empty universe.
Probably NOT as entertaining if you are, in fact, an emergency services dispatcher.
http://youarelistening.to/chic...
Lots of cities available: Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Brisbane, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Halifax, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Memphis, Minneapolis, Montréal, Newark, New York, Oakland, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, St. John's, St. Louis, Saint Petersburg, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, San Juan, Wichita
EDIT: nice. Slashdot can't be bothered to use a posting system from THIS century, but they can detect and abort my post because I dared to paste a list! OMG.
-Styopa
No actually it is not.
Literally the first thing they teach you in emergency response training is not to "make another victim" (that is if you dive in to save them and can't get out now whoever comes next has 2 people to save not 1), and the same would apply to law enforcement.
Adding more people to a volatile situation make sit more volatile and the cops don't need to sort out who's a "citizen responder" from who's "a loudmouth threatening people with a gun".
So, no different than what some of the news-making police responses have been, where their training let them to converge with a full tactical team on a suicidal man, shoot him, and leave. Can we dare hope that these disasters involving trained officers are a minority?
That is why groups like the: III%, Cajun Navy, American Freedom Keepers, Highwaymen, Riders of the Confederacy -- go out in groups, set up a base of operations with a logistical support network, and generally have some training. Many of them are also ex military, ex police, ex medics, worked in logistics, and many of them are techs as well. They also usually have human intelligence on the ground before they get there, tend to make contact with law enforcement when they arrive so they know who they are so they don't freak out with a mess of guys in gear show up. You don't want people to mistake you for an armed group of looters! They try to connect with businesses and church people ahead of going. They tend to take multiple forms of communications gear, extra fuel, and whatever other resource they can with them that might not be available that they can carry.
That does not mean its always perfectly organized, pretty, free from chaos, nor that it is free from danger. If your area of operations is bacteria infested water, that alone is a danger. It does not mean you cannot end up a part of the problem even after successfully being a part of the solution. Especially if there is no logistical support available to you easily beyond what you can carry. Situations can change rapidly. A levee breaks or a river crests or a road is completely washed out after you get in. Stuff happens. I've seen some of these groups do some pretty amazing things with what they have to work with. Sometimes that is the only support that will exist.
An example of that danger from Hurricane Harvey is where several people took the only good option available when effecting a rescue or bringing in supplies would otherwise have to be brought in by air -- the monster truck or 5 tons with very high intakes and exhausts. These could get into areas that boats could not, and other vehicles definitely could not. They were even in areas that helicopters would be useless in. However, wheels have wheel bearings. They don't perfectly seal. At best they can be packed with grease to keep some of the mud and cruddy water out. After a few days of operating these in that water while sometimes carrying in heavy loads of supplies and ferrying people out, they literally drove them until the wheels came off. The issue of logistical support being unavailable put at least one of them in a bad situation. They did way more good than bad, but not having that support when the rest of society is washing away down the river is never a good thing, especially when the waters are rising all around you and you cannot effect a roadside repair.
All of that being said: A lot of rescue, national guard and support organizations simply bypassed the smaller towns leaving them to fend on their own. The militias and other groups saved a lot of people, coordinated their own usually completely free of your tax dollars support of communities, ran and helped organize the only distribution points available, coordinated with other charities, trucking companies (which is what I did on this end) to get supplies in and help stabilize things. They also did it faster than government response and resources could allow in a great many cases. Many of them are sticking around for as long as they are financially able to to continue providing support during the clean up phase. Or at least sticking around until that mission can be handed off to someone else.
People having downloaded zello provided a way to communicate where people had little else. It also led to a fair amount of duplicate calls for assistance because not everyone is on the same networks. Its still a great resource to have. The more options you give yourself ahead of a crisis the better.
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
Let's all be glad bush wasn't in office.
The big shootout in downtown Dallas a few years back had several civilians with weapons, but none of them tried to use them since the police were already dealing with it, and no innocent civilians got shot.
Sounds a little bullshitty to me.
Guy installs chat app and becomes a rescue dispatcher by listening to conversations between people caught in hurricane. It's like saying I became a cop because I have a scanner and listen to police transmissions. If he wasn't physically out there helping, then he wasn't helping at all.
Stupid millennials, always trying to claim credit for shit they didn't do.
With New Orleans, most people were "My home is flooded. Im gonna wait for the guvmint come rescue me".
In Houston, most people were "My home is flooded. How can I help my fellow neighbors in this time of need?"
False choice. An untrained volunteer dispatching other people in a disaster area can easily make the situation worse, causing even more people to need rescue, inefficient allocation of resources (ie. sending several boats to rescue the same persons or to the wrong location), etc.
If it's a police officer with a badge and authority given by the law, I'd happily cooperate.
If a non-police officer came up to me and tried to impose some kind of false authority by "citizen's arrest" or ordering me around, I'd shoot them in the face.
Don't forget the shilling for the spyware/malware known as Zello, which requires the following ridiculous list of permissions by the way:
Identity
find accounts on the device
Contacts
find accounts on the device
read your contacts
Location
approximate location (network-based)
precise location (GPS and network-based)
Phone
read phone status and identity
Photos/Media/Files
read the contents of your USB storage
modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
Storage
read the contents of your USB storage
modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
Camera
take pictures and videos
Microphone
record audio
Wi-Fi connection information
view Wi-Fi connections
Device ID & call information
read phone status and identity
Other
prevent app switches
receive data from Internet
view network connections
pair with Bluetooth devices
access Bluetooth settings
send sticky broadcast
connect and disconnect from Wi-Fi
control flashlight
full network access
change your audio settings
run at startup
control vibration
prevent device from sleeping
read Google service configuration
Sounds a little bullshitty to me.
Guy installs chat app and becomes a rescue dispatcher by listening to conversations between people caught in hurricane. It's like saying I became a cop because I have a scanner and listen to police transmissions. If he wasn't physically out there helping, then he wasn't helping at all.
Stupid millennials, always trying to claim credit for shit they didn't do.
Firstly it's a gal not guy, and if you'd read the fucking article you'd know she did a lot more than that. Although how much it actually helped I'm not sure.
This... just sounds all too familiar.
I get the human interest angle, and there's Disaster, and Hurricanes, and Courage, and Resilience Under Pressure.
However promoting the Zello angle seems a little lame. How exactly is this different than listening in on a police scanner? Or ham radio? An old-fashioned party line or a telegraph station? Doing a ride-along? Because Internets?
Adding "internets", "by computer", or "app" to a story does not fundamentally change the story. It's still about citizens asking for help. And rescue authorities, or courageous citizens coming to their rescue.
Am I being too cynical about the focus on the app?
so then I was neck-deep in water with a turd floating around me.
I fail to see how this betters my situation. Please enlighten.
If you don't obey the orders of the police, then you deserve to get shot. Even if they wrongly detain or arrest you, cooperate with them. You can get back at them later, legally. Your justice is not on the street, but in a court of law.
Be like Mark Discordia. Make sure it's $37.50 with bennies and lots of drugs and video games. Oh and don't forget the girls constantly tugging at your penis.
Sadly in the USA, it is might be better to not help the victim. This is due to how their legal system allow victim to sue the helper, and how the victim in the USA mentality willing to sue the helper. (search on google, you'll know 1, 2, 3)
So if you helped someone in the USA, you can be sued even if you are genuinely trying to help to save lives. it might be better to "Let the people die".
Prowess on the range has zero correlation on results in the field. Zero. There are a number of studies for this. Even the run and gun... They do them to maintain weapon familiarity. On the range, nobody is shooting back at you.
Watch fewer movies.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Can we dare hope that these disasters involving trained officers are a minority?
Though those events are tragic, the one solace is that they are relatively rare. Steps need to be taken to further mitigate the risk of such tragedies, but encouraging totally untrained or ill trained civilians would be exacerbating the problem rather than helping.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The key is willing AND ABLE. You are clearly an experienced sailor, and would not go into a situation where you would yourself likely go from rescuer to victim.
Would you respond to a distress call from someone who was being attacked by a band of armed pirates? If you were captaining a large vessel with a sizeable crew that was also armed, maybe, but I doubt you'd charge in there just you and a buddy on your 27' sloop. It would be a mistake to do so you'd end up just being another victim and needed rescue yourself.
Here again its about capability. What concerns me here is that lots idiots have a handgun and a smart phone and will think that makes them them a John Wayne character.
The population of people with 27' sloops attempting water rescues is smaller and probably mostly with people responsible enough to do the things needed to own a keep boat like that, a strong indicator they have above average sense and decision making.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html