I've had a few ethical dilemmas when I was working in heavy industry (back in the days when Australia actually had heavy industry).
One time was when I was working as a contractor at BHP in the coke ovens, it was one of the most toxic volatile environments I've ever experienced.
We had to have a supervisor with a CO monitor with us at all times and if the monitor hit 50ppm from memory (this was nearly 30 years so I could be off with that figure) the directive was to stop whatever you are doing and GTFO as quick as possible.
So we were working away and the monitor hit about 110 ppm, so we all made a bee line for the nearest exit & I turned back to see my workmate laying unconscious on the floor where the gas was.
I knew it would cost me my job but I just couldn't walk away and let him die, so I went back, picked him up and carried him out. Then I pumped a few breaths into him to get him breathing again.
Within ten minutes I was dragged into the office for an official reprimand and kicked off the site. The company copped a massive fine and made a loss on the job we were doing. So I was basically a dead man walking with that company from that point on.
As far as dilemmas go that's the worst one I've had in terms of the consequences but in another respect it wasn't a dilemma at all. Knowing the consequences I'd do it again in a heart beat.
Reprimanded for saving a life, what is wrong with this world?
Steam roller inspectors is the term I believe Larry Hannigan would use.
The parable of the Steam Roller
I did have a long reply to this, but managed to thrash my bandwith through over enthusiasm and HD photos in my posts. Will post my a decent response later today.
That's cool @samueldouglas
I just wanted to point out that people in non-professional fields are faced with ethical dilemmas too. More mundane dilemmas are often overlooked in discussions like this and the discussion is normally confined to professional ethics.
I hope I didn't lower the key of the discussion too much. I'll go back to my box now :)
No problem - I use the term 'professional' very loosely. And there's nothing mundane about making a snap decision to save someone's life.