A Scottish firefighter called out to help a disabled man was sacked after making ‘vile’ and ‘degrading’ comments about his weight.
Christopher Ketterer, 29, attended the unnamed man’s home with colleagues in February 2020, after the vulnerable individual had fallen onto his bathroom floor and could not get up.
However, an employment tribunal in Scotland heard the firefighters felt ‘frustrated’ by the incident – which they were sent to at 3am – because they didn’t consider it to be an emergency.
They were also told the crew had partly used the fire brigade’s flashing blue lights during their journey to the scene.
After finishing a 14-hour night shift at 9am, Mr Ketterer then went on to criticise the callout in a ‘shocking’ WhatsApp message to friends and colleagues.
The text, which was later shared to other firefighter groups and anonymously on Twitter, used ‘pejorative’ language and angry face emojis, the remote hearing was told.
Mr Ketterer had described the case as an ‘absolute disgrace’ and said the man’s bathroom smelled like “s***’.
The firefighter was sacked for gross misconduct over the remarks, ending his 11 years in the job.
He claimed the decision in June 2020 was an unfair dismissal, but lost the case after the tribunal concluded he had breached the values of the fire service.
Employment judge Brian Campbell said: ‘Mr Keith [of the Scottish Fire Service] gave clear evidence to the effect that it was Mr Ketterer’s conduct which caused him to make the decision to dismiss.
‘That evidence is accepted. The post, which Mr Ketterer to his credit never denied sending, largely speaks for itself in terms of its tone and language.
‘It was a wholly inappropriate way to refer to a vulnerable member of the public, which again to his credit he accepted in retrospect.’
In his disciplinary hearing, Mr Ketterer explained the WhatsApp message was sent out of frustration.
The tribunal was told: ‘[It called] to mind previous similar incidents including some with the same caller, or another where he had to wait four hours with a caller for an ambulance to arrive, or another where a colleague was assaulted.
‘[Mr Ketterer] said that the crew had behaved professionally towards the caller.’
The firefighter also mentioned the caller’s cousin, who provided them with a set of keys to enter the man’s property, referred to ‘getting the fire service out again’ in a ‘jocular way’ during the incident.
The hearing also heard the crew ‘believed it had not been a genuine emergency’ and the man was ‘known from having made similar calls in the past’.
‘Mr Ketterer perceived the demeanour of the caller and his cousin to indicate that they were trivialising the status of his role and recognising that they were wasting the firefighters’ time,’ they were told.
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