I live next to Baltimore and somewhat frequently you hear about a body fished out of the Inner Harbor. Just like in The Wire. Though I’m sure every city on a body of water experiences the same thing.
[deleted]
The cruel Thames: the job of pulling bodies from a dark, dangerous river
41–46 of 46 posts
Re: The cruel Thames: the job of pulling bodies from a dark, dangerous river
#42The river police and the transport police have a pretty traumatic job in London. But the RNLI, also mentioned in the article, is the maritime search and rescue service for the UK. It’s completely funded by charitable donations and most of the crew are unpaid volunteers; anyone can volunteer. Edit, submitted before finished: At many other towns and cities around the UK which don’t have specialist police units like thi…
RNLI standards for crewing and training are very high, and their equipment is top-notch. They have years'-long waiting lists for applicants. (That's at least true in the regions in the South with which I'm familiar. Not sure about elsewhere in the country.) They're an incredible organization that I think should receive more attention than they do.
Source: sailed a bit along the Solent, and got to know some RNLI crew and hopefuls. Have been aboard RNLI rescue craft, and was fortunate enough to ride along on a demonstration runs.
Re: The cruel Thames: the job of pulling bodies from a dark, dangerous river
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regarding drinking from streams, back in the mid-90’s I did a camping/hiking excursion with Outward Bound in the Appalachians of North Carolina. We sourced all our drinking water from streams, using concentrated iodine to make the water drinkable (I think we had to wait 30 mins for it to take effect). There was one part of the journey where we ran out of water and couldn’t drink from a nearby small river because it w…
My comment of course was primarily about the swimming part (you involuntarily swallow some water). Youtube is full of methods for making water safe on hiking trips / camping etc. Boiling can also be a honking great idea of course.
Boiling helps with bacteria, but not with toxic chemicals from factories. You need to capture evaporated water (or steam from boiling the water).
Re: The cruel Thames: the job of pulling bodies from a dark, dangerous river
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a resident of the U.S. I always wonder once the headlines of the latest mass shooting appear if such events would be less frequent if they were never reported in the news. By definition that's something that would be impossible to know.
Several sites withhold the shooters name, because often times a quest for notoriety is a goal for them. Denying this potentially removes some incentive.
The reverse is also true - since by revealing the name, all the friends and family members will feel pressure from their communities.
Plenty of people would consider the impact on friends and family before such an act.
Re: The cruel Thames: the job of pulling bodies from a dark, dangerous river
#45The river police and the transport police have a pretty traumatic job in London. But the RNLI, also mentioned in the article, is the maritime search and rescue service for the UK. It’s completely funded by charitable donations and most of the crew are unpaid volunteers; anyone can volunteer. Edit, submitted before finished: At many other towns and cities around the UK which don’t have specialist police units like thi…
> the RNLI, also mentioned in the article, is the maritime search and rescue service for the UK HM Coastguard.
Yes technically true. HMCG are recognised in international law as responsible for maritime search and rescue operations in UK territorial waters. Practically speaking in most cases if you have a problem in UK (and Irish) waters the RNLI is probably going to search for and rescue you, if it’s really bad you’ll get a helicopter dispatched as well from Bristow helicopters who are subcontracted to HMCG but I think there’s only about 6 choppers covering the whole of the UK.
Re: The cruel Thames: the job of pulling bodies from a dark, dangerous river
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Several sites withhold the shooters name, because often times a quest for notoriety is a goal for them. Denying this potentially removes some incentive.
The reverse is also true - since by revealing the name, all the friends and family members will feel pressure from their communities. Plenty of people would consider the impact on friends and family before such an act.
While true I would hope that as a society we've moved past punishing people for the crimes of their family members.