Would you/have you let someone else take the blame for something you did despite terrible consequences for them?

[HarrySnotter]

I had a conversation yesterday with a colleague which is playing on my mind.

She tells me that she made an almighty cock up in a job many years ago that she let someone else take the blame for. The person was fired. Colleague thinks it was 'just one of those things' as it's 'dog eat dog in this world'.

I'm now viewing this person in a completely different way now, I've always considered her to be pretty straight up and would certainly have said I trusted her (up til now anyway). I can't imagine ever doing that someone - they were actually fired. What about their family? Their bills etc?

Surely this is not something that most people would do?

I would distance yourself as much as you can from this colleague and be vigilant about ensuring any work you do together is accurate and can’t be challenged.

She’s done the dirty on someone once. She doesn’t show remorse, so who knows whether she will do similar in the future.

No. I couldn't do that to an innocent person.
I've cocked up and kept quiet about it (a misunderstanding while I was new and untrained led to me giving something away for free which should have been charged for. I didn't realise until many months later and by then the item had been written off so I kept my mouth shut and learned a lesson about asking when unsure) but if anyone had been accused of making my mistake I would have spoken up for sure.