Girls lost in drain rescued due to Facebook status update

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When two girls, aged 10 and 12, were lost in a storm drain in South Australia last night, most people would have expected them to have called the emergency services immediately, seeing as they had their mobile phones with them. However, that was not the case with the two lost girls. Instead of ringing the emergency services, the two girls decided to make a Facebook status update stating that they were lost, which, luckily for them, caught the attention of one of their male friends who called for help.

The two girls were eventually rescued from the storm drain in Hackham, in the south of Adelaide, by the fire service, according to ABC news (via TechRadar). The firemen used a ladder to get the young urban explorers back to safety. Fireman Glenn Benham said "it is a worry for us because it causes a delay on us being able to rescue the girls."

"If they were able to access Facebook from their mobile phones, they could have called 000, so the point being they could have called us directly and we could have got there quicker than relying on someone being online and replying to them and eventually having to call us via 000 anyway."

While the girls were lucky that there was someone online at the time the girls made their Facebook status update, the South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service have expressed concern that the girls decided to update their Facebook page rather than calling 000, the number for the Australian emergency services. Also, some were concerned that the 10 and 12 year old girls were exploring the drains at all, given the risk of drowning in the event of flash floods.

Isn't this amazing? I honestly love Facebook compared to Myspace. Though what worrys me is why?... Why did those girls leave a fookbook status update instead of calling for help?

An interesting comment also caught my eye on Neowin.net

isn't Facebook's age policy restricted to 13+ years old? According to it's policy, Facebook staff is ought to delete these girls' accounts.

Report an Underage User | Facebook

Source

 

[AntiNaz]

Wow... stupid girls! Hahaha! Yeah, whats a 10 year old doing on Facebook =\ Administartors should delete those account PRONTO!

 

[KillerWhiteMan]

Good god Facebook is taking over the world. *Sigh*. The sad thing is that they were better off doing the Facebook update instead of calling emergency services. *Sigh again*.

 

[Rustwick]

The sad thing is that they were better off doing the Facebook update instead of calling emergency services.

How'd you figure that? Calling the emergency services is a lot quicker than changing your status on a webpage, waiting for someone to read it (which could take several hours), who will then call the emergency services anyway. It just delays them from being rescued.

It's still a bit worrying that someone would think "I'm in danger so I'll change my Facebook status instead of calling the emergency services".

 

[InsaneNutter]

Maybe they didn’t feel they were in any danger? you do see some people updating their status on Facebook every 10 mins...

"Thinking of going in to my garden"

"Going in to my garden"

"A cat did a poo in my garden"

"A bit lost in my garden, the grass is too long"

 

[KillerWhiteMan]

How'd you figure that? Calling the emergency services is a lot quicker than changing your status on a webpage, waiting for someone to read it (which could take several hours), who will then call the emergency services anyway. It just delays them from being rescued.

It's still a bit worrying that someone would think "I'm in danger so I'll change my Facebook status instead of calling the emergency services".

I figure they were better off doing a facebook update because it appears to be taking over the world. Nobody calls each other anymore, they just post on facebook.