GQ. Let me think about this before responding.

By body, let me assume that you mean that I am absolutely certain that my loved one is dead. Say their head is missing, or some such grisly detail. Then no, I would not want another person to risk their lives to retreive a lifeless body. If aI agreed to them going in and they too died, I would feel a double loss, as their blood would at least partly be on my hands.

Now I can’t imagine a situation where there is a house on fire and I know my wife or one of my children or grandchildren are in there but brain dead. But if such a situation ever happened, again, I wouldn’t want them to risk their lives to save a now essentially dead body. I think I would look on it as providence pulling the plug, and not me.

@Nimis no one could know for sure that your loved one was actually dead or just incapacitated by the smoke/heat of the fire. I have and would again risk my life to help someone that couldn’t help themselves.

I don’t regret going after any of them, I just wish I could have saved them all.

No, if I was sure they were dead, I would not want them to risk their own life. And I also know that I could not ask someone to risk their life to save a loved one’s, if they felt they could not rescue them without serious injury to themselves.

On the other hand, am an committed suicide in our area last month by wading into 6— 8 feet of water while the fire department watched from shore. They weren’t allowed to make water rescues. That was pretty messed up.

My wife wishes to be cremated and have her ashes spread at random, so it seems a bit odd to insist that a firefighter go in to retrieve her body if she can no longer feel pain or be revived. Since it is hard to be certain, however, I’ll let the professionals decide what the best course of action is.

No. If my loved one is definitely dead, I would never want someone to risk their life to go back for the body. It would be heart wrenching for me to not be able to be next to my loved one again, one last time, even if they were just there in body. But, to risk another life, if something bad happened I would never be able to sleep again.

No, I wouldn’t want someone risking their life just to retrieve my body or the body of a loved one. Why tempt the possibility of someone else losing their life?

If I were absolutely sure (say the fire happened at the funeral home where my loved one was already awaiting burial), then definitely not. Anything less than certain, I’d leave it up to the would-be heroes to decide.

Dead is dead. Living is living.

Just official notification and/or any collection of corpse/identifying docs that is possible after the battle or emergency has ended and it is safe to do so.

No. But any firefighter would disagree for there is no way to rule a death from personal conviction alone, it’s the reason they put themselves in danger daily. They know the risk. All emergency members put their lives at risk daily.
And you telling them is not good enough they need to clear the situation themselves properly. So wouldn’t matter what we say in that situation.

Yes because I’ll do the same for others.
[ and I do not expect them to do it because I do the same .. it’s just I believe in helping others ]

And I’d want my friends to be saved by organ donors and such .

No, I would not want someone to risk their life. That would just be awful.

No. I’ve never understood those who want to see their loved one, or needed to know the body was in its grave. The person is gone. They are dead. There is no point in having two deaths.

Of course I would want what remains were salvagable after the fact without anyone getting hurt. It means closure to see your loved one’s dead body. As morbid or selfish or whatever it seems, under most circumstances; yes, I’d want the body retrieved. Trust me. In the heat of moment, when there is a fire, a car crash, a submerged vehicle, a person in a coma; most people will hold out hope against hope for a miracle that there loved one is going to live. It is very hard to let go. I would never submit to death without a fight. Sorry. I just wouldn’t. Been there. Done that.

Christ no. If I totally knew they were dead, I wouldn’t send my worst enemy out to salvage a dang carcass in some raging fire.

I’d have to be sure though, and even if I was, I suppose hysterics would blind my judgment. But no, as speaking from the now.