Soldier's Drowning.
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I think SAF and Mindef should really really really look into this and review the safety measures taken for these kind of exercises, and ensure that everyone follows them.
exercises must be realistic yes i agrees, but at the same time, most importantly, safe.
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Medical Center not notified of training, that's the biggest no-no.
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The guy who was supposed to inform the medical center didn't do so. His excuse was that (I quote from Straits Times) 'it had slipped his mind to do so'.Originally posted by LazerLordz:Medical Center not notified of training, that's the biggest no-no.
What kind of excuse is that? If anything, it's an admission on his part that he didn't carry out his duty. For this type of training, the TSR is very clear: have a medic on cover, and inform the nearest medical center.
Another thing: was there a medic on cover? I know that one of the instructors was trained as a medic, but there still must be one fully-equipped medic not directly involved in the training who's covering safety. -
And the strangest thing is that, even without such training going on, shouldn't CNB Medical Center always have a duty MO?Originally posted by fudgester:The guy who was supposed to inform the medical center didn't do so. His excuse was that (I quote from Straits Times) 'it had slipped his mind to do so'.
What kind of excuse is that? If anything, it's an admission on his part that he didn't carry out his duty. For this type of training, the TSR is very clear: have a medic on cover, and inform the nearest medical center.
Another thing: was there a medic on cover? I know that one of the instructors was trained as a medic, but there still must be one fully-equipped medic not directly involved in the training who's covering safety.
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Hmm... now you've brought up something intriguing. If memory serves, CNB Medical Center is supposed to be a 24 Hr medical center, meaning that there should always be at least one MO around. Something is not right here.....Originally posted by LazerLordz:And the strangest thing is that, even without such training going on, shouldn't CNB Medical Center always have a duty MO?
I do hope that there will be an investigation into why there wasn't a duty MO, for I sense a really big screw-up here.
Still, this in no way excuses the failure of the said instructor to inform the medical center. MO or no MO, it was his job to inform the medical center, and he didn't. -
The article you posted states that it was faulty.Originally posted by dragg:but why was his life vest not even activated? -
Originally posted by fudgester:
There is a shortage of MOs since they started the selective disruption scheme. I remember there were times when the single duty MO was activated to cover an exercise or called up for meeting with HQMC...If the medical centre was not informed beforehand, the duty MO would have no excuse not to attend some silly briefing or other at HQMC or CCO. He could not get a replacement either unless he has a good reason for doing so.
[b]
Hmm... now you've brought up something intriguing. If memory serves, CNB Medical Center is supposed to be a 24 Hr medical center, meaning that there should always be at least one MO around. Something is not right here.....
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Granted, whatever the case, a Base level Medical Center has no excuse to have no Duty MO.Is there any guideline as to whether the Senior Medic can stand-in?
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Until the BOI is complete, what we have is speculation and loose facts.
What we do know so far:
1. He was assigned 10kg of rubbish...
2. There were 4 trainers on watch
3. No one informed the Medical Center of the exercise
4. There was no medic on standby
5. Apparently, there was no buddy system in the training, else the buddy would have alerted the instructors earlier
6. The lifewest he wore was not working.
Whatever the outcome, bet your a s s es that the 4 instructors are in deep s h i t.
Classic SAF. -
I very much doubt so.Originally posted by LazerLordz:Granted, whatever the case, a Base level Medical Center has no excuse to have no Duty MO.Is there any guideline as to whether the Senior Medic can stand-in?
A Senior Medic is by definition a high-level paramedic, not a doctor. They are skilled to do a lot of things, but ultimately, a doctor is needed to do some of the more difficult resuscitative procedures, like treating a case of tension pneumothorax via an intrusive procedure (medics will know what I'm talking about).
The Senior Medic can do nothing more than provide more advanced stop-gap treatment than the regular medic. He can try to give the more advanced resuscitative treatment, but at the risk of being charged if there are any screw-ups. -
recklessness and negligence claims yet another young life. *shakes head*Originally posted by BillyBong:Until the BOI is complete, what we have is speculation and loose facts.
What we do know so far:
1. He was assigned 10kg of rubbish...
2. There were 4 trainers on watch
3. No one informed the Medical Center of the exercise
4. There was no medic on standby
5. Apparently, there was no buddy system in the training, else the buddy would have alerted the instructors earlier
6. The lifewest he wore was not working.
Whatever the outcome, bet your a s s es that the 4 instructors are in deep s h i t.
Classic SAF. -
What can senior medic do?Originally posted by LazerLordz:Granted, whatever the case, a Base level Medical Center has no excuse to have no Duty MO.Is there any guideline as to whether the Senior Medic can stand-in?
Usually the other nearest medical centre will cover if MO called away but we dun know what happened in this case.
Actually I don't think the MO can do much in this case. They didn't even know he drowned. Three minutes without oxygen...no point calling the MO, only God can save him.. -
Hmm.One of the instructors was medic-rated.But such an exercise warrants a medic who can supervise and observe without being weighed down by training the guys.Originally posted by oxford mushroom:What can senior medic do?
Usually the other nearest medical centre will cover if MO called away but we dun know what happened in this case.
Actually I don't think the MO can do much in this case. They didn't even know he drowned. Three minutes without oxygen...no point calling the MO, only God can save him.. -
Every sad...how many men do we have left? Died during training...how many men do we have left to make it to the real battle?
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Send Mervyn Tan lor. Maybe when he starts playing his piano the enemies will all run awayOriginally posted by Troy437:Every sad...how many men do we have left? Died during training...how many men do we have left to make it to the real battle?
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minus the rich and powerful, not many.Originally posted by Troy437:Every sad...how many men do we have left? Died during training...how many men do we have left to make it to the real battle? -
Mervyn Tan is another totally unrelated issue. Let's keep it out of this discussion, yah?Originally posted by oxford mushroom:Send Mervyn Tan lor. Maybe when he starts playing his piano the enemies will all run away -
The instructors should be severely punished!Originally posted by dragg:2nd Sg Ong Jia Hui - a trained lifeguard and strong swimmer - died on june 15.
the 4 SAF instructors - 5m to 10m away - did not see him slip beneath the waves.
the soldier's recently serviced life vest was damaged. the coroner said the leaky vest had not been activated and "did not contribute to his drowning"
there was no medical officer on standby at changi naval base.
all 4 face the possibility of criminal charges.
for details see H3, STimes.
How can liddat one?
I read the newspapers before, and it says that his family condition is not that good. Now the 4 instructors caused his death. Imagine how painful his parents will be!
I hereby show my condolences to his family. -
What we do know so far:
Just watched the Channel U news.
1. He was assigned 10kg of rubbish...
2. There were 4 trainers on watch
3. No one informed the Medical Center of the exercise
4. There was no medic on standby
5. Apparently, there was no buddy system in the training, else the buddy would have alerted the instructors earlier
6. The lifewest he wore was not working.
The minister say everything is alright, and according to safety regulations. WTF!
How can everything be according to system safety where you have a lifevest where its NOT working, and NO MO on duty!
What nonsense is he talking about? how can the investigation come out say nothing wrong has happened? -
Agreed.Don't understand the need to re-hash something unrelated.Originally posted by fudgester:Mervyn Tan is another totally unrelated issue. Let's keep it out of this discussion, yah?
To put some balance back here, yes he was SOF.But being in SOF does not mean that you have to suffer incompetency or carelessness by your instructors.Training load is realistic, and I must say that it's not the training that killed him, its the lack of care and proper supervision that led to this tragedy.
Men of the Special Forces sign up knowing the risks.Let's respect him and his choice, and not insult the training that they undergo.What happened here is the fault of human error and that's where the focus should be.I am unhappy with the Straits Times for focusing on the combat load and the lifeguard issue.This is no ordinary training, and instead of ripping the training program, perhaps they should focus their attention on the administrative cock-ups e.g
1.not informing Changi Medical Center
2.no allowance for a medic who's not involved in the training
and so on, if more could be added. -
must be real sad for the family.
a new year but the son is gone. -
slipped his mind?
hah. well I'll have u know about this real incident i heard about. where a safety rover which was supposed to be present was not, and a heat casualty had to be evacuated to the med center on a goods trolley.
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Ok, that's really bad....Originally posted by HENG@:slipped his mind?
hah. well I'll have u know about this real incident i heard about. where a safety rover which was supposed to be present was not, and a heat casualty had to be evacuated to the med center on a goods trolley.
Anyway, the guy who was supposed to inform the medical center but didn't has pretty much made an admission of guilt when he said that it 'slipped his mind' to do so. He doesn't have anything which may help him cover his a**. Regardless of whether or not the medical center was supposed to have a duty MO around, he had still failed to carry out his duty.
This is a c*ck-up of the highest degree. No medic covering safety, faulty equipment, medical center not informed... It totally defeats the purpose of having a fully comprehensive TSR if it's not followed at all. By all means, we should give our soldiers tough training, but we shouldn't be killing them in the process. -
wanna hear about the time this happened in sembawang airbase, 1st med sq?
this guy had an eplitic fit while driving. luckily his foot slipped off the accel so the car was crawling along slowly. A CSM from the base happened to drive by n found the guy n brought him to the med center.
while they were resuscitating him, this old tree at the only road leading into the med center collapsed. so there was no way for the ambulance on duty at the med center to evac the casualty. and then, to top it all off, the falling tree hit someone, and he had to be resuscitated as well. They needed to make an emergency resuscitation table because med centers are only equiped with one as standard.
Guess what day that was? Its a friday. u can guess the date. -
precisely, its like a company has ISO certification, but having that does NOT mean the people inside the company follow them!
Same, like yah yah...as what the minister says, the system is ok, got TSR etc, but WTF is the use of them, if instructors/trainers dont enforce them.