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Oh, my: Were Tai Ho firefighters drunk, on coke?
By adamg on Wed, 10/03/2007 - 7:20pm
The Globe reports:
One of two Boston firefighters who died fighting a fire in a Chinese restaurant in August was legally intoxicated at the time, and the other had cocaine in his system, according to two officials who were briefed yesterday on the autopsy results.
Also see:
Why only Channel 7 didn't report on the Tai Ho autopsies.
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Comments
I'm all for transparency...
...but I wish this didn't leak out. I couldn't imagine being the child of one of these men and having this be Herald and talk radio fodder for god knows how long.
I can't say I condone this alleged activity, but it shows a raw humanity to people who are routinely labeled heroes.
I agree, I too wish it
I agree, I too wish it hadn't leaked out. sadly, the globe is now just as terrible with these sorts of stories as the herald (the globe did break it, after all -- the herald still doesn't have it up on its website). there is no decency left in the newspaper business...and just when those poor families thought the worst was over, it is going to start all over again. i can't imagine what they are going through.
Firemen are sort of "sacred
Firemen are sort of "sacred cows" and saying anything bad about them invites all kinds of responses, but publishing this information was the right thing to do. Much better than the past when information like this was suppressed out of "respect for the dead" and we'd never hear about it.
It now brings up many questions, such as their ability to do their jobs while under the influence, if their deaths were attributable to their impairment, and how widespread this is. What are the chances that firemen responding to my emergency will be impaired?
Can you have true disclosure
Can you have true disclosure and decency these days in a newspaper? I get my news from RSS feeds of NYT, WSJ, LATimes, BBC, CNN & leave the local 'flavor' to the Gobe / Herald these days.... And I probably read UH more than either of them.
We live in a nation where the most reliable TV journalist out there is Jon Stewart.
Right Bodies?
Oh yes, the ever professional medical examiner's office. Do we even know they were working with the right bodies? Gee, this one's the right color and age, but oops, not a guy ... um, where's the guy? Oh, just get on with it.
If this is what it is, then why couldn't the Globe wait until there was an offical inquiry? Why did it have to jump out with this since it violates just about every privacy protection I can think of. It should have been released ONLY if there was a public criminal investigation, grand jury, or other PUBLIC proceeding.
In this case, as with any
In this case, as with any accusations of a similar nature, you will find that the accusations will be the only thing likely to stick in the mind of the public. Even if they are later proven to be nothing more than rumors, the (posthumous) stain on their reputations is unlikely to go away anytime soon.
What is the Truth?
IF it is true that the 2 deceased firefighters were working under the influence, the public deserves to know. A public servant who does not have his wits about him is a danger to himself, his team, and the people (YOU). As for hurting the relatives of the accused, they already know what the truth is....hopefully, it is a good truth, and their men will be exonerated.
Another vote against releasing the results
Miss Von Schtoop:
How it all happened
Scott Allen Miller blames deviants for letting public-safety workers report to work drunk or high:
Payne allegations ludicrous, she says
Margalit knew Warren Payne, the firefighter who allegedly showed traces of cocaine in his blood. No way, she writes:
Death by Explosion
I seriously wonder, give the way in which at least one firefighter died (instant death by explosion), how any credence can be given to any physiological findings at all. It wasn't like their bodies were immediately removed, as the fire had to be brought under control.
Seriously, this should have been embargoed until somebody responsible could answer questions such as "if cocaine was hidden in the restaraunt, could it not have been blasted into what was left of the firefighter" or "could this be an artifact of physiological processes subsequent to being killed by intense heat and remaining in such an environment for up to an hour"? Quite frankly, it is totally plausible that their bodies could have dehydrated sufficiently within the time they were in the building that any thing they drank, ingested or was exploded onto them would become concentrated. What this "leak of sources" has resulted in is allegations of exceptional drug levels in the bodies which might be entirely bogus, and cannot be subjected to proper scientific scrutiny to validate them.
Lets just say that the problems with state medical labs have not even begun to be solved. This leak is either incompetence, revenge, or a misguided attempt to restore the reputation of/get more funding for some pretty damaged and dysfunctional institutions (crime lab and state medical examiner).
What?
"if cocaine was hidden in the restaraunt, could it not have been blasted into what was left of the firefighter"
You must be kidding.I'm sorry these guys died in such a terrible tragedy but that is not an excuse to be loaded at work.What if one of these guys was making important decisions on the scene of a fire or car accident that involved you? Do you want some drunk fireman driving the truck through your neighborhood? Do you want cocaine users going through your house while you stand on the street because of a kitchen fire? Would you let the cable guy in if you knew he used cocaine? I dont think so.Again, I am sorry for these mens deaths but being drunk or high on the job is unexcusable.
You misunderstood what SwirlyGrrl said
The issue she raised is whether, given the circumstances of the fire, the autopsy is at all accurate.
Rumor is not Evidence
What we have here is a "credible rumor", not a reality.
We don't know that either of them was loaded at work or at home from the shoddily provided rumors here.
An "unnamed source" tattled something juicy to the press. That ain't "proof" of anything.
There was no evidence that anybody was "loaded" on cocaine - only that the remains of ONE firefighter "tested positive". Dentists use cocaine as a local anesthetic and someone might "test positive" after that, but never be "loaded". Furthermore use is not intoxication is not abuse.
FURTHERMORE, there are VAST differences between postmortem blood tests run on people who are found dead in normal circumstances, and those done on people who have been subjected to extreme environments where chemical reactions are accelerated, dehydration takes place, etc. You cannot account or adjust for those conditions scientifically without knowing the conditions.
Rumor is not truth. Especially when there is nobody to answer for the supposed findings, how they were arrived at, sampling protocols, chains of custody, and all else. So much easier to just leak it to the press and run than demonstrate yet more incompetence coming from your institution.
She says: Step outside
BostonMaggie challenges anybody who says the two firefighters were not heroes:
Gonna have to go with Swirlygrrl on this one
Kidney infections, liver infections, and uncontrolled diabetes frequently cause false positives for cocaine. I'm not a chemist, so this is going to be a pedantic explanation, but the lab that we use at work has explained that cocaine is one of the drugs where the molecule is quickly busted up and binds with other molecules that are normally in your system. So the test can't test for the actual presence of "cocaine" in your system. Rather, it tests for biochemical conditions that you'd have if you'd used cocaine. Someone with the abovementioned conditions is also likely to test positive for cocaine. It seems to me that it would be extremely likely that someone who's dehydrated and has been breathing carbon monoxide (and whose kidneys and liver have been sitting there idle for hours) could easily have these conditions.
If you google articles about post-mortem toxicology tests, they're even less accurate than ones done with living people. Also, with a dead person, it's harder to do accurate tests to rule out false positives -- like how you'd order liver functioning and kidney functioning tests if someone tests positive for cocaine.
(Hmm, does this mean that if you have liver and kidney disease, you're free to do coke?)
A firefighter with health problems? How unusual!
Is it possible that long-term, repeated exposure to hazardous materials or products of combustion might lead to such physical problems as kidney and liver infections?
I mean, besides the cancer that is already pretty well recognized as an occupational illness for firefighters, along with heart disease and strokes.
I've known a few firefighters, and it seems that if you survive the job, it'll still kill you in the end.
Cocaine testing
Most cocaine testing is actually looking for the presence of benzoylecognine, which is a metabolite of cocaine. They are NOT testing for "biochemical conditions that you'd have if you'd used cocaine," whatever that means. Postmortem testing is probably done of the urine that can be extracted from the bladder or kidneys. The gold standard test is GC-MS (gas chromatography - mass spectrometry). The likelihood of a false-positive with GC-MS is vanishing small, even with a postmortem test. Other tests, such a quick-strip or dip-stick tests, can be subject to a higher rate of false-positives since they are not as accurate. The period of of time that cocaine can be detected is 24 hrs in blood, 2-4 days in urine, and 90 days in hair.
Does this assume that the
Does this assume that the sample is from somebody who is alive or dead? Dead how long? What assumptions are made about the condition of body and conditions of storage/environment and for how long?
Environmental contamination of the samples - either from the place of death or from crappy lab technique?
Nobody has to answer these questions when these allegations are leaked as a rumor for reasons other than fact-finding!
I still think the coroner has to answer for this in any assessment of whether and how much drugs were involved. So much easier to drop sensation bombs and run.
Oh yes, I'd be interested in full disclosure of any stake in drug testing labs that would get work should the number of tests on firefighters be raised. I somehow suspect a non-zero correlation between the leaky employees and potential benefits of their non-peer reviewed sensation.
Although it seems most of us
Although it seems most of us are on the same page here and agree that the media is perhaps jumping the gun a bit. I think what needs to be realized by other is that these guys were gonna die anyway, the ceiling collapsed and the place flashed on them.
Drunk or not if you are caught in a flashover you have just about enough time to take two giant steps out the door, and if you arent near one, than game over.
Report: "Hundreds" of firefighters treated for substance abuse
Channel 4: WBZ's I-team has discovered that hundreds of the 1,400 firefighters in Boston have been treated for substance abuse.
All about Individual Morals
Of course the focus is on those bad firefighters, not the difficulties of their jobs and how the most effective anti-drug campaigns are those which strive for a better supported, safer, and more sane work environment.
Can't have that now, can we?
Eh...
That's about the rate you're going to find in any population. If they've been treated, there's a decent chance they at least are making some effort to curtail it while working. I worry more about the folks who haven't realized they need any treatment.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
Really?
If there are 1400 firefighters, and "hundreds" means at least 200, then you're talking about 1/7 of "any population" being substance abusers. That sounds way high to me.
Not for high stress jobs
While firefighters have some job decision latitude, they are extremely "high demand" - remember, waking somebody repeatedly during the night and throwing them into a rushed, stressed situation is used to torture people (when it is a forced situation).
Firefighters have low life expectancies as a result - under 60 years!!! This is because of the toxics, CO, particulates, etc. linked to cardiovascular damage and lung cancer are paired with the extreme stress curve. In high stress jobs, drug abuse is frequently an adaptive mechanism which, believe it or not, can actually enhance job performance - nicotine is a classic example of a drug that makes it easier to work effectively in certain situations.
The real criminal activity the night they died
Miss Von Schtoop writes:
Also: Channel 7 sucks.