Spend more cash on prevention (From Worcester News)

Spend more cash on prevention

8:00am Monday 6th July 2009 in

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SIR – It’s really tragic that a young man lost his life as a result of misfortune on the river Seven. There is no report of any life-belt being used.

However, your newspaper’s front page showed a picture of a number of people gathered on the river bank with a collection of rescue boats. These people were from several different emergency services. It doesn’t say how long it took to deploy the rescuers. They or their equipment all have to be paid for either by charity or by taxpayers.

Your newspaper has frequently carried reports about “mindless vandalism” on riverside equipment, including life-belts.

Wouldn’t it be better to spend more money on prevention and less on a collection of several agencies? Rescue and first-aid training could be made more widely available and perhaps more life-belts could be deployed so that people could be got out of the water quicker?

H G R Taggart,
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