Background: Decatur (Ala.) Fire Rescue (Facebook). Inset: Decatur Fire Rescue training video (WAFF/YouTube).
A firefighter training video with a simulated rescue reportedly featuring a man with a plunger protruding from his backside didn’t violate department protocols, an investigation has concluded.
On Sept. 27, Decatur Fire and Rescue in Alabama sent home its recruits after the state’s training organization, Alabama Fire College, told the fire chief that allegations of inappropriateness had been made about a video. According to The Birmingham News, the video showed trainees and supervisors playing various roles in an imagined rescue scenario involving a man lying facedown on a bathroom floor with his pants pulled down — and the handle of a plunger appearing to be coming out of his rear end.
The image evoked recollections of the brutal assault by New York police on an immigrant in the 1990s — although according to The Birmingham Times, the plunger was not actually lodged inside the man in the training video.
Trainees, however, seemed to think it was funny: according to the report, some of the people in the room struggled to suppress their laughter.
A man who appeared to be an instructor is seen on the video using his phone to record the recruits.
“Apparently he just really likes plungers,” a man apparently playing the role of bystander says to the recruits, according to the newspaper.
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The revelation sparked an investigation by Alabama Fire College, but as of Friday, the recruits were apparently back in training, as the investigation found no major violations in the video, local CBS affiliate WHNT reported.
Decatur Fire and Rescue chief Tracy Thornton said in a statement that the video was not part of the current class of recruits, but had occurred earlier in the year. He explained that the purpose of the “24-hour drill” was to teach recruits how to handle unusual and unexpected situations.
“Recruits were required to work a full 24-hour shift and respond to different calls just as they would do if they were working a regular shift at a station,” the chief’s statement said, according to Huntsville NBC affiliate WAFF. “They responded to fire, medical and rescue calls during this time. The video was taken during a drill that was intended to show recruits that they may have respond to very odd circumstances on emergency calls.”
Thornton said that while “the concept of preparing recruits for the unexpected is good in theory, the practical application was completely wrong.” He added that the video was “not appropriate” and “not how we train our recruits in Decatur.”
He insisted that the training scenario would “not be permitted to happen again.”
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