Social Media Posting

A polite request when posting or commenting on incidents that emergency services are dealing with on social media or public platforms.

Emergency services are experiencing increasing difficulty with members of public rushing to scenes or incidents to take photographs, videos and drone footage to post on social media for likes, comments or judgements, sometimes even before help has arrived in any form.  If you are taking pictures before actually helping anyone, please ask yourself if this is the morally correct thing to do.  We fully understand that people want to know what is happening, especially when there is difficulty with travel and road closures, but please ask yourself ‘how much do I need to know, what is the urgency of me knowing this information, and who is reading my comments or judgements?’

We work with our media department to get the relevant and correct information out to the public as soon as we can, but our priority is to safely get to scenes with other emergency services, and deal with the immediate events, some of which can be challenging and extremely difficult for everyone.

Sometimes, as a result of what we are dealing with, we have to deliver the worst possible news to loved ones, and this made much harder when the news of someones tragedy has already been shared or insinuated on social media posts.  Imagine reading something about a loved one on social media before you have been told by the correct and specially trained person?

We are usually blessed with fantastic people who pull together and help at scenes of accidents and tragedies with all aspects of what we are dealing with, and we are hugely grateful for this help and support - thank you.