firefighter in trouble 4 giving woman his breathing mask, he also gave her $500 of his overtime pay

[Spitfire of ATJ]

19. Correct: Procedure states he should have kept his breather on and gotten her out of there

Because if he blacked out he would have been useless and both could have died.

This is why parents are told to put on their own mask before doing their kids in an airline emergency.

When boating. It's not uncommon when someone falls overboard for someone else to dive in to save them and then both end up drowning. Procedure says a rescuer is supposed to operate from a position of safety. In the case of someone overboard you toss a life preserver on a rope and pull them in. You don't dive in yourself and expose yourself to the same same threatening environment.

HOWEVER.

Since he had just travelled the route into the room where he found her it could very well be that he knew of a quick exit. What's to be determined is if it was THAT quick she could have survived a few seconds more of exposure so a compassion call to relieve immediate suffering needs to be factored in. He needs to convince them that his judgement was sound in determining that he could traverse the hazard without risk to himself. That's really tough to do because the degree of the hazard of the environment in question no longer exists and is generally assumed to be 100% toxic in these hearings.

A fire investigator will make a determination on that.

Sad that heroes aren't supposed to risk life and limb especially when being a hero is your daily job but there it is.