Fire Department Tanker Backs into Civilian Pedestrian at Tennessee Working Fire

FirefighterCloseCalls.com
Reprinted with Permission

Tuesday, December 1, 2009 -- In what is clearly a CLOSE CALL, at the scene of fire companies operating on the scene of a working church fire. you will see a civilian ignoring the apparatus and the backup alarm (we need to expect that-they are not focused on us) and walking right into the path of a backing fire tanker-and the tanker striking him.

Fortunately, the outcome was positive as the civilian was uninjured-but the video is pretty dramatic and makes the point of us insuring we have safe passage, going forward-and when backing. This situation could have been horrific for the civilian, the department and the Firefighter driving the apparatus. We have several stories on www.FireFighterCloseCalls.com where the outcome was far worse for all affected.

A videographer was shooting video of a church fire in Unicoi County (TN) when the man was caught on camera walking around the scene where fire apparatus was trying to operate.

Luckily, the fire apparatus just moved him a few feet. He was escorted away from the busy scene by fire fighters.

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Location: Unicoi County, TN (Show Map)

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Comment by Benjamin on December 2, 2009 at 9:40am: Seeing something like this is very frustrating. It's lack of attention and sometimes stupidity on all sides when something like this happens, luckily it was an adult and was able to take the bump but there's no spotter but also, why do people feel the need to always get in the way on an active scene? That man obviously had no part being there.

Comment by Oldman on December 2, 2009 at 8:08am: Excellent example of why we should use backers/spotters. What would the outcome have been if that had been a child?