Another Death Determination FAIL by FD

[Dustdevil]

Okay, seriously... WTF?

http://cms.firehouse.com/content/article/article.jsp?id=65517&sectionId=46

Homeowner: Fla. FFs Buried Speaker, Not Dog

Posted: 09-12-2009

Updated: 09-14-2009 11:32:24 AM

BY DAVID ANGIER

The News Herald, Panama City, Fla.

BAYOU GEORGE, Fla.

-- Rarely is a dispute as strange and grisly as the one that stemmed from what Travis Davis says he found under his bed.

Davis and his wife, Sheila, lost their home and dog Gizmo in a fire Aug. 14. The fire started in the clothes dryer about 4:30 a.m. as Sheila Davis was doing laundry. She woke her husband and put Gizmo, a 3-year-old Pekinese, outside as she got a garden hose and tried to douse the flames herself.

The fire went beyond her control, and firefighters were unable to salvage the mobile home or its contents.

And while Travis and Sheila Davis got out of the residence unharmed, Gizmo had gone back inside to seek out Travis, and the dog hid in his usual safe spot: under Travis' bed.

Travis Davis told firefighters they would find the dog there, and Travis was called later and told they had discovered the corpse.

"They asked me if I wanted them to bury the dog in the yard and I said yes," Davis said Friday.

A firefighter brought out an object wrapped in a towel and buried it next to another family pet that had died some time ago, Davis said. He thought that was the end of it, until Thursday when he and his brother-inlaw Lee Brantley began scavenging what they could out of the residence and the process of tearing down what remains of the mobile home.

Davis said he smelled something coming from his bedroom and knew immediately what it was.

"I told my wife that must be Gizmo," he said.

Brantley investigated and found what remained of the dog under the bed. He said the fire hadn't reached the body and the dog probably died of smoke inhalation. Brantley said there was little left, but enough to readily identify the dog. He brought it out and buried it.

"I had to know what it was that they'd buried," Davis said of the firefighters. He said he excavated the shallow grave and found a stereo system speaker wrapped in a towel.

He said he thinks it's one of the two speakers he had mounted on a wall in his bedroom.

Neither he nor Brantley had any idea why a firefighter would bury a speaker instead of the dog.

"If they'd told me they didn't get him out, I would have done it," Davis said. "Instead, they just let him lay there all that time. This here just flat tore me up. That dog was me and my wife's young'un."

Brantley said they want more than an explanation.

"Someone should lose their job over something like this," he said. "The person that did this, that's not the type of guy you want to come to your house."

Bay County Fire Chief Mark Bowen said Friday he received a call about this Thursday and began looking into it. He said the fire at the Davis residence had a multi-district response, but he has established that there were nine people on the scene.

Bowen said the information he has gotten initially, and he has not talked to every person that was on scene, is that a firefighter found the remains of a very small dog and brought those remains out on a shovel. Other firefighters saw the remains being placed in a sheet, which were then buried.

"It's possible," Bowen said, chosing his words carefully, "that we didn't have all of the dog. Right now, I don't have anything to lend support to (the complaint)."

He said the main crew that worked the scene is on duty tonight and he will be able to question them at that time.

"It starts with informal questions to establish some facts," Bowen said. "There's a lot of issues out there that could have led to misunderstandings and we really need to get what happened established."

Bowen said he doesn't have a set time to complete the investigation because he will have to work around the firefighters' schedules in order to question them on duty.

"I think that whatever was done was done with the best intention, at least that's my hope," he said. "I can tell you I've never heard a complaint like that before. I understand the family has suffered a loss and none of us want to exacerbate that."

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Edited September 15, 2009 by Dustdevil

[aussiephil]

Lets see how intelligent they were.

Dog remains

Stereo speaker

Dog remains

Stereo speaker.

I can see a similarity, I mean god forbid we might actually help these people out. Another fine example of Fire incompetence.

[FireMedic65]

Poor dog.... that's just terrible for the animal and it's owner.

Those firefighters are morons

[aussiephil]

Those firefighters are morons

Only those ones?

[P_Instructor]

I bet if the dog was a Dalmation, it would have been given a burial with a Honor Guard!

[Richard B the EMT]

It just dawned on me:

They buried the stereo speaker instead of the dog?

Some stereo systems midrange speakers, going towards the bass side of the audio spectrum, are called "Woofers"!

If it had been canaries or other pet birds, they would have buried the "Tweeters"!

[aussiephil]

It just dawned on me:

They buried the stereo speaker instead of the dog?

Some stereo systems midrange speakers, going towards the bass side of the audio spectrum, are called "Woofers"!

If it had been canaries or other pet birds, they would have buried the "Tweeters"!

That is giving too much credit for intelligence & the ability to think to the hose monkeys,

[Dustdevil]

ROFL@Woofers!

[scott33]

ROFL@Woofers!

yeah, "Subbed-Woofer" would be a good tabloid headline for this