Video of Hong Kong LODDs. Not something you’d likely see here.
There is a video from TV coverage in Hong Kong that I imagine would likely make many of our readers irate. It is not something that we would run at the TV station I work for or on our web site. In fact, unless there were some very unusual circumstances, I doubt that few local stations in the US would run it.
I bring it up because it involves an interesting discussion that we have had before about camera access and freedom of the press. Rather than embed the video, I will provide a link for those who are interested in seeing it.
Before you decide whether you want to take a look, let me describe it. It is coverage of the high rise fire that killed four people, including two firefighters Sunday morning (Click here for FireGeezer’s coverage of the blaze).
On the video, besides seeing firefighters using various aerial devices to make numerous rescues, you see EMS doing CPR on the firefighters. Not from a distance, but up close and very personal. In fact, you will see a large group of photographers who are standing over a dead firefighter, running alongside the stretcher as he is raced toward an ambulance. Another shot has a photographer looking straight down on a dead firefighter on the ground with CPR being performed. It appears to be taken from some raised area like a low balcony or the roof of a live truck.
As many of you know, I don’t believe in censorship. If its in a public place, where the public is allowed to see it, you should be allowed to take pictures. I have to say though, that I have never seen anything quite like what is on this video.
I can imagine the photographers I know shooting the scene from a respectful distance. If it moves, we generally shoot it and then figure it all out later. As for airing it, it would be extremely unlikely, whether it is a firefighter or civilian.
When I first started in TV we would show CPR being performed, particularly if the person survived. The standards are such today, that you rarely see that video. There are times we show fire and EMS people obviously doing CPR, but in a way that you can’t see the patient (kind of like the shot in the Hong Kong video where there are so many photographers around the stretcher you can’t see the victim).
An interesting side note to all of this. We are coming up on the 20th anniversary of a fire in DC at 409 Missouri Avenue, NW. We have great video of firefighters saving three children and an adult, all in cardiac or respiratory arrest. All four were revived. One child later died. I am trying to work up a story looking back at that fire. Because of the standards that have changed, I am not sure what my bosses are going to allow me to show of the dramatic video from 1988.
Back to Hong Kong. I still think you really can’t censor this. It goes against what our country is about to let the government decide what is proper for the public to see. There are also aren’t any laws that will necessarily legislate good taste and sense.
I do think you can find legal ways to keep photographers from standing over top rescuers doing CPR as if they were angling for a shot of Britney Spears. If I saw any of my colleagues doing that, I imagine I would be pretty outraged.
Now, with all of the warning and the caveats, if you are really interested in seeing this video, here is the link. Please don’t shoot the messenger, just let me know what you think in the comments section below.
