This article about a poor family seeing a video taken by a firefighter on scene hit me pretty hard. Last year I watched a couple on Dr. Phil (no I don’t usually watch, can’t stand the guy) that have had a difficult time getting over their daughters horrific death because of pictures taken on scene. The latter happened some years ago and was taken by CHP and has been tracked as a leak through dispatch. It was a decapitation of their beautiful daughter and you can imagine how the comments that would go up on forums that this poor family has found over the years. A lifetime of reliving the same grief because someone took a picture on scene.
Since we had an issue of integrity hit our department a little ways back, I guess this just hits extra hard. There are always going to be @ssholes in the world and that goes for every profession. I think it just hits extra hard if lines are crossed by fire or police because we trust them so much to take care of us. We all know that they are held to a higher standard than the rest of society.
But taking pictures on scene to post to your blogs has been something that has bothered me for a while as well. I’m not talking about the horrific pictures I talked about above, those are never appropriate to take. I do realize that anyone could be there publicly and take photos on scene, however, to be taking pics while being on the call just feels so wrong to me. It hits me as unprofessional because isn’t there something else you could and should be doing?
I see blogs that always have pictures from the scene and I don’t understand how they feel that is ok. It goes right along with my posts about TMI. I don’t feel that they should be posting the details of a call, let alone the actual pictures from that call. I may be alone on this thought. Heck, if I got into a good wreck or the house went up in flames, maybe I’d think it was cool that someone blogged the event with pictures. Hopefully I’ll never have to find out.
Taking pictures of horrific fatalities takes it to a whole new level of inhumanity and thankfully I don’t know of anyone personally that has or even talked about it someone that has. They would know where I stand immediately. I know they all need to vent together about calls but thankfully I’ve never seen phones pulled out with pictures. I really believe the first two incidences I wrote about are extreme cases and in general people wouldn’t dare belittle life.
I’m appalled that anyone is stupid enough to use email, text or IM to pass private information. It will be tracked back and I hope that they lose their job for causing the incredible pain they have to the family members. If you are taking pictures to show and chat about later, stop and think how you will feel when that goes viral and the family sees it. Because they will. You have no control once you share things digitally and you can never take it back. You have no right to make someone’s worst possible moment public.
Excluding the horrific pictures, do you think it’s ok to take photos when on calls and do generic blog posts about them? It’s ok if you do, just curious how your opinion of it differs and would love to hear your thoughts.
No way no how! When my husband is on a call, the person he is helping is having the worst day of their life (potentially) and having someone whip out a cell phone to take a picture is stupid, tactless, idiotic….I could go on and on. The only exception I can think of would be for an investigation, in which case only the officer in charge should be the one with a camera. Those photos should NEVER be shown to the general public without a waiver signed.
I do, however, like to see the ripping fire on a training burn. In a photo. After my husband is back home safe and sound.
Twitter: FireMom
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Well. As an ex-newspaper photographer, I can tell you that even when you’re legally allowed to take a photograph and you do so in a way that doesn’t “show” anything, people get upset.
One of our photogs was assigned to an accident that ended up being a fatality. The person was never photographed. They showed a side shot of the clean up of the wreckage and the personnel on scene. I’m pretty sure that was the next to highest incident of complaint we had during my tenure at the paper. Similarly, when I worked at the newspaper, if we covered a fatality, people wrote in to complain. Even though it was actually our job.
I’ve shown up on scene to take photographs a few times, if he went out on a call while the boys weren’t here. But I think I’ve posted two pics ever, as I always just pass photos on to the firefighters. My husband has a junk phone that doesn’t take photos, but he wouldn’t take one. As for those who do have smartphones, I’ve never seen them post a photo on Facebook of a fire afterward. I think they’re all in agreement on this one.
From an outsider’s perspective, I’d be royally peeved if someone who was supposed to be helping was standing around taking photos. If you’re taking photos, you’re taking away precious seconds from the victim. And if there’s a fatality, why on earth would anyone WANT to capture that on film or video? Seems like firefighters and police see enough awful things that they wouldn’t want any constant reminders, such as photos.
I’ll try not to write another book with my reply
Kristi – Yep, officer in charge or dept photographer should be only one taking pics and ONLY with dept equipment IMHO Trainings all up for fair game for everyone I feel. Posting on their personal blogs, etc wouldn’t seem inappropriate in the least.
Jenna – absolutely there will always be people upset. Kind of like I know better than to read comments online for newspaper articles about the dept, there will just always be those trolls sitting there being negative. All the newspapers and tv stations post pics of scene and honestly I think they do a very good job of not showing victims. I’m sure they’ve gotten some really grisly pics over the years. So kudos to them for having the integrity to NOT show them
Christina – Thankfully it looks to just be extreme cases of judgement that I don’t even think can be passed off as poor. I do understand that not everyone on a call is needed to get the job done. I just think that even if they were going to use pics for future training (not yucky graphic stuff mind you) that they would be using dept equipment.
The only time I took pictures while in and the only pictures I have ever seen taken “on scene” by anyone I know personally has been on wildland fires. They’ve always been very generic, of the fire, the smoke column, water/retardent drops, and during a break. I think wildland fires are different in the fact that unless you take a picture of where someone’s house once stood, (which is unacceptable) there is little chance of causing emotional distress. Also I have never known anyone to whip out the camera when its time to be getting the work done, all photos I’ve ever known were taken during a time that the crew was taking a break.
Now traffic collisions, house fires, medical aids, trama emergencies, etc. cameras do not belong in firefighter’s hands, all these calls require immediate action and continued action throughout the incident, if you’re needing a break then you’re too broke off to be thinking and worring about getting a snapshot. I think it is absolutly tacky to take pictures on scene in any circumstance where property, friends, family, or any other thing that we as people have an emotional attachment to would be able to see it and recognize it, thus causing emotional distress.
As far as writing generic blogs that’s ify. If the names of victims and location are not included and there are no graphic details, I don’t see a problem. I.E.
“Ran a call today, drowning, we were unable to revive the person. Though day.” Again VERY generic. Maybe I am wrong, maybe I understand being on the other side. I don’t know. What I do know are there are very definate lines that should not be crossed and if emergency personal just take a minute to think before posting, or a day they may change their mind, their wording, their photos.
Just food for thought, (and this is for any who possibly take “gray area” photos on scene) It’s never ok to post these to any public domain, but maybe, sometimes emergency personnel take these for personal reminders. You never know how these calls affect each individual, or what they trigger. Again if it is for this reason, they are not gonna plaster them on their personal blogs.
I am not saying it’s right or wrong, I am just putting it out there.
Thank you firegirl/wife for posting the other side honestly. I truly appreciate it. I can agree with the wildland completely. It’s ‘usually’ federal land, no homes, etc. The wildland pics can be truly awesome.
My only thing even with grey area photos is that you have a generic post and you have photos of the incident all together. I guess it’s because I’ve seen some grey moments cross the line IMHO and that line is only created by the individual
I agree. As a past victim of a house fire and now a fire fighters wife. Even a picture of their house burning down on someone’s page would make them sad. We live in a small town and one of the locally owned hardware stores caught on fire. I have to say, there were hundreds of people flocked watching. The dept. had to keep those people at a safe distance, but hey couldn’t make them leave. I am sure those people took tons of pictures, but proudly I did not see any one post them on facebook. The actual owner posted pics that the local newspaper took and put on line with in hours of the fire starting. There were some really cool pictures of the guys in action, working together, and hugging the family and such. I was sorta surprised at those, but hey were very touching and I am sure they had the families permission. Pictures like those I think are wonder and give firefighters more credit that they rarely get around here. My husband was in some of those and I have posted some to my blog. But I always keep in mind to leave out any people or signs identifying who’s scene it is. great post Val!!
I think pictures taken by the public are very different. I’ve actually grabbed house fire pics from friends on fb (because they were cool) and posted them on my fanpage to have the dept then ask to use
I know there is definite purpose in all the pics. HOWEVER, the sad thing is that some people need to remember that all business pics should be taken with business equipment. That’s all that should need to be said to people. Grab equipment from a vehicle if you have time to take pics while at work. It will only be used for training if it’s from company equipment.
HotWife: I think you may have misunderstood me in regards to the grey area photos. These photos should under no circumstances ever appear on a post, a blog, facebook, personal web page, photo bucket, youtube, our anything of the like (the world wide web). I was saying that for those who take these kind of pictures perhaps it’s for a personal reminder, so they can look back and remember that incident. When this is the case I can not with all my heart say that the action is wrong. Because maybe they’re using it to heal, or one day to explain why they act and react certain ways.
Case in point: I worked with a guy who was also military, one day I asked him what it was like over there (iraq). He told me words could not describe the things he saw, but that he could show me some pictures he had. I said “ok” he warned me that they were very graphic, but I wanted to have the best understanding that I could have of what my friend had gone through. And later when he would get up in the middle of the night to patrol the barracks, and when we would have to be careful about how we woke him up, or you could end up on the wrong side of a right hook. I could honestly tell him he didn’t need to explain it to me. When I asked him why he had taken the pictures, he said it was so he would always be able to remember what he saw. I believe those photos helped heal him and keep him sane, and they helped me understand him in a way that would never be possible had it not been for those photos.
I know firefighters are not in war and that there is a big difference between the two. But both see horrible things sometimes and I don’t think the coping mechanism is that different.
So just to make clear: grey area photos do not belong online, pretty much as far as I am concerned, if it’s not wildland, training, or you do not have permission from the people involved then it doesn’t belong online. But to say that firefighters have no right to take pictures on scene thats a hard one for me. Personally I wouldn’t do it, but I dont know what might help someone else cope. I feel that they really need to think harder about what they put online…but then I think most people need to think twice about what they put online.
Firegirl/wife thanks for the clarification. True, we all do need to think twice or even three times before posting on line. I know I let posts sit in draft for months now if they are more controversial in my opinion. This post sat for well over 6 months as I kept going back and tweaking things.
I don’t think I would ever put that on the blog because, it’s not really my story to share. Every once in awhile my hubs will take a picture when they are mopping up a scene – i.e., all persons have been treated and transported and they are waiting for a tow truck – and will privately e-mail them to me just so we can chat about what he’s been doing. He would never take them while there were still patients there or make them public though. And even though these pictures are generic, I can’t imagine putting them on my blog. Mainly because I don’t want it to get back to him but also what if on the off chance, a person involved or who recognized the car or something read it? It feels awkward to blog about something that honestly I know only the barest information about. And again, it’s not my story to tell.
Very true Sarah. I’d be worried from my standpoint that I would post incorrect information. That’s just me and something about my personality.
I am a firefighter’s wife and a photographer for our department. I do not take pictures at fatality MVA’s or fatality Fires, it is not only at department request but my own preference.
The photos I take have been have been used for investigation as well as training purposes for the departments on scene. I do have a public forum that I post the pictures to, with permission from the firefighters and departments in my area.
I have been thanked by the firefighters for giving them memories of the fires they have battled and the brothers they have fought with. I have been thanked by wives and mothers of firefighters for showing that their loved one never fights alone and many of them actually seeing the support they have on scene makes them more comfortable with what their firefighter does. I have also been thanked by home owners that lost everything because my pictures show that every firefighter on scene did everything they could to stop the fire and the pictures have been used for insurance purposes to prove an items existence. I do not post pictures from a scene until I know the call has been closed and every firefighter has gone home safe.
Most photos taken by firefighters on a scene are while they are in rehab. They are required rehab time on a fire scene.
In every profession in life there are people who will publicly post inappropriate material, but please do not lump all photographs from a scene into the same category.
Hi Shelly, thank you for posting your side of the camera
I’m definitely not lumping all photos into the horrendous acts that I opened the post with, as I stated at the end of the post those are a whole unethical issue on their own. However, photos that go with blog posts about a scene are somewhere in a legal grey area I think. Some will say it’s just fine, even encourage it, others will say it’s inappropriate. I do realize it’s kind of a case-by-case basis which in my opinion means that it probably shouldn’t be done without express permission just like you get. Again, this is in my opinion and why I’m asking others to post their opinions like you have done. Thank you.
Twitter: AlmostMrsL
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A lot of people in fire/ems I know post pictures of fires/MVAs on facebook. Obviously no identifying factors of the person. I’ve jokingly given many of my FF friends crap about how do they take pictures when they should be doing some work. On my EMS side, we don’t have time to take pictures. It’s go in, get the patient, get out. Most of them reply that with fire, there’s a lot of hurry up and wait that goes on after the fact, during the clean up. Any pictures of the actual event are usually taken by a blue helmet, which just means they’re rookies and can’t do anything on scene anyway, and from my understanding, that’s usually on the company’s camera. A lot of people do take the pictures from the camera for their own use though. I know this sounds horrible, but I also think that a lot of times, on this side of things, we become desensetized to the fact that there are actual people involved. It eventually becomes “that MVA on the interstate” or “the house fire on this road”. Most of the time you learn not to get too emotionally attached in order to deal with the tough things.
I don’t think it’s desensitizing. It’s compartmentalizing in order to keep your sanity. It does have to happen or you can’t survive the business for long. It’s also why they hang out off time so much together. They have to joke about it to each other to let it go. Coping mechanism.