Safety first policy ignored by 2 brave constables.

Two constables were honoured recently for their bravery. James Muir a dog handler was part of a team tracking 2 teenagers who had fled a farmhouse after a burglary with firearms and ammunition. The boys, only 14, and less likely to be as predictable as more seasoned offenders fired on police during a car pursuit and continued to threaten another officer with a rifle after their car stopped. That officer stopped in his tracks and the gun was turned on James Muir and the boy pulled the trigger but the chamber was empty. James Muir set his dog Neo on the offenders who were arrested. James Muir didn't want to speak about the ordeal yesterday at the awards but acting Commissioner Viv Rickard said Mr Muirs actions 'undoubtedly saved the life of a colleague and prevented potential harm to others.'

Nicolas Corley came across a vehicle crash-site near One Tree Hill Auckland. A car was ablaze, the cars passenger had alighted but the driver remained inside and Nicolas beckoned for him to get out before realising the man was unconscious. A ball of fire hit Nicolas Corley and he suffered burns to his face and arms but remained to his task reaching into the car and pulled the driver to safety with the help of the passenger. Of course most people know the danger of fire and how lifted to extreme that danger is when there are potential explosive fuels or gases involved. Whether Nicolas Corley thought of it at the time or not he was certainly aware that the car could have exploded again perhaps killing him or setting him on fire. After accepting his award Nicolas Corley was quoted as saying in respect of the incident and the driver 'But just his thank you was fine with me.'

How far we get away from the day to day dangers police take in their strides, let down by a few of their colleagues who hog the headlines for the wrong reasons. But there is more to this than these 2 men's bravery because their actions expose the fact that procedures and rules are not always the best solution. By the book James Muir was probably required to withdraw to safety from potentially more rounds being fired and killing him, but his natural instinct was to see the job completed and render the offender harmless and therefore the danger to himself and others. He certainly wasn't thinking of his own safety and nor was Nicolas Corey who might have had an ever higher appreciation of the danger to his life because he was already burnt in one explosion, but he went on when perhaps rules, commonsense, fear might have stopped him.

The police force is full of people like James Muir and Nicolas Corley, unselfish, unassuming types that can be relied on in any extreme. Yesterday they were honoured by their country and commended by acting Commissioner Rickard for acting in a way that many nzers think the police will act with bravery and scant regard for their personal safety. So I wonder how it is as a country that we applaud these men, as do their leaders, yet by all standards they broke the rules of safety first. These 2 would have gone into that Manurewa dairy and saved the owner lying wounded on the ground, and who was later to die for not having medical treatment soon enough while police did shut down and mapping of the store because they didn't know where the robbers were. A safety first situation that defies logic because robbers don't hang around after they've got the loot - they gone, more quickly if they've injured or shot somebody, and in this case the deceased man's tormented family told the police the robbers were gone but the police wouldn't enter or let anyone else enter.

Let's move to to 2010 and the Pike River disaster, a high ranking officer with no mining experience in charge probably by default. But we'll put James Muir and Nicolas Corley there with the old mining inspector George Bell in charge and appreciating from a lifetime of experience that the safest time to enter the mine was now (right after the explosion,) but a fair man he is, asking for volunteers - two of the first I venture would have been Muir and Corley and on the 6 o'clock news that night the families and the country wouldn't have heard a senior officer angrily declaring that nobody was going in to the mine because it wasn't safe, while word might have been out that Bell and a crew were gone in many many days before the next explosion would happen.