Firefighters face enough crap on the job without getting drenched in raw sewage.
That's what happened to 29 firefighters in rural Australia after a water-bombing helicopter mistakenly sprayed partially-treated sewage onto them while they were battling a blaze near the city of Port Macquarie, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
The sewage was scooped up by a chopper from a treatment pool and when it emptied the excrement-soaked H2O on to the blaze, the poo goo also splashed the firemen and their equipment, according to Cam Baker, the Rural Fire Service regional fire controller.
"Following this, all 29 firefighters on the fire ground in the immediate vicinity and their equipment were withdrawn and we enacted a decontamination process," Inspector Baker told ABC.net.au.
But that isn't slamming the lid on the controversy, as the Australian Workers Union is demanding a full investigation into the incident.
AWU spokesman Mark Hughes said the fact that the chopper went to the sewage treatment plant in the first place stinks to high heaven.
"For some strange reason, around 7:30 in the morning during the water-bombing, a call was made from the RFS Commanders to use the sewage treatment plant rather than much more accessible water sources such as the Camden Haven River, Queens Lake or the Cowarra Dam," he told ABC.net.au. "There are primary and secondary treatment plants, so basically you've got one pond that's got raw sewage and one that's been treated. What they were dumping was the untreated sewage."
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