As with any dangerous public safety job, whether it is military or civilian, there are certain requirements that must be met in order to perform the job adequately. One of those requirements, for instance, is the ability to lift heavy objects if you are say, a weapons loader on airplanes. Another would be general fitness if your job is physically demanding. Another one would be that safety equipment fit properly.....well in DC, not so much. It seems that beards interfere with proper gas-mask operation as they do not seal to the face, but some fire-fighters think that exceptions should be made for religious beards.....Steven Chasin, a Jew, along with six Muslims and Nazarene Christians, filed suit, charging that they should be accommodated on grounds of religious freedom.
The fire department argues that a beard can interfere with certain gas and oxygen masks that need an airtight seal with one's face to work. The department doesn't want to have firefighters and emergency medical technicians sent into harm's way if there are concerns about the effectiveness of the seals.
When I was in the Air Force, we were not allowed to grow beards or any other type of facial hair that interfered with the proper fitting of gas masks. If these hirsuted guys want to practice their goofy religious habits, don't choose careers for which beards are inappropriate. You can't have them going into to rescue people from burning buildings when their gas-masks don't work properly. Then, they'll need rescuing too.
I wonder if the Jew and the Muslims agreed to call a truce to fight this ordinance. It must be a sign of the apocalypse when Jews and Muslims fight together for a stupid PC reason.
2 comments:
Steve is not a fire fighter .. he is a paramedic. He does not go into a burning building. What people do not know is that he passed MANY fit tests of that mask which is not the only one usable where a proper seal WAS gotten. He finally failed one by a very narrow margin after the test run was found off, a piece replaced on the mask though the test run was NOT done again. Safety issue? I think not.
anon, if there is even a remote chance that Steve might have to work in a less than optimum breathing environment, he should have to wear the standard issue mask that everybody else wears. You can't order different styles of equipment for every guy or gal who prefers to be different. Standardization of gear generally works best when people are doing similar or identical jobs.
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