Observations from one of the nuts!
Get off work....... Check
Get ready for vacation...... Check
Go back to work for a fire... Check.
Wait a minute that wasn't in the plan.
The life of a firefighter can be tenuous at times, always entertaining, but tenuous. For example the picture above was from a fire that came in at two AM. The crews - myself included were looking forward to a long winters nap...... No such luck! Fortunately everyone got out safe and no firefighters were injured. Last week we had another fire. I had just pulled into my driveway when the alarm came across the radio... Battalion 71, engine 71, tower 74, engine 72, medic ambulance 72, engine 73, respond to the report of a structure fire at .......... I sat in my car and waited to see if it would be a working fire. Many times the fire doesn't turn out to be much and chief officers such as myself don't need to go. In fact most of the fire guys would rather we stay away. As Battalion 71 arrived he said the words I was waiting for.....make working fire notifications. With those words my evening plans changed. Oh crap, I've got to pack for vacation. My wife and I were heading to San Diego for a long awaited break early the next morning. Oh well packing will have to wait. I put the car in reverse and headed back to the city. By the time I got there they had the fire pretty much contained. My job is to deal with the media, start the investigation, and see if the family has any needs such as housing and help in contacting the insurance. Everyone had gotten out of this one too. With the exception of three cats. The owners were very interested in finding them. Our chief is a big man he can be intimidating, but he is always..... Well usually..... Well sometimes accommodating. You see the customer may not always be right, but with out fail the customer is always the customer. So here is our chief. In his white shirt, and blue uniform pants crawling on the floor looking for three cats well call them Fluffy, Mittens and....Spawn of satan. The cats were hiding and were frightened by all of the noise and banging that firefighters do, not to mention the fire and smoke. Their world had been tuned upside down. Now back to the boss. There he was all six feet four inches. Crawling on his hands and knees looking under beds, couches and in small crawl spaces, all the while hoping he really would not find one of the trio of felines. Fortunately for him he didn't. But when he stood up he was covered with cat fur smelled of a liter box and had a wet spot on his knee. My boss can put together a string of expletives better than any man I know. This was no exception. There he was in all his glory, covered with cat hair, letting out a unique sentence structure that only he could craft, one that would make a sailor wince and the mother of the family standing right behind him. It seemed to be ok though. Maybe she had a son in the navy, heck maybe she had been in the navy! At any rate no harm no foul. It was about ten o'clock that evening when I finally left for home. The fire was out, the media had been given the information they wanted, the family was taken care of for the night until the insurance company could get there the next morning. I was tired but I felt like I was able to help someone that was going through a rough spot... At least I hope I had. Now time to pack and get some shut eye. Hopefully nothing more would happen at work before my 7:00 am flight.
Firefighters.....yes even fire chiefs find themselves in inconvenient, precarious and sometimes smelly situations. We often speak, thinking its just the crews around us, and on the rare occasion, if you hang around long enough. You might hear an expletive or two. Please try to remember we are people too. Just wanting to do our best. Whether its trying to get a bunch of ducklings out of a storm drain, stopping a hazardous material leak, or working at a feverish pace to find a missing child in a fire. It is an honor to do so.
By the way....... Vacation was great!
I'll give you an example. Last night fire crews responded to a report of a drowning at one of the pools in our city. The report said that ane eleven year old had been pulled from the pool and family and bystanders were working to revive the child. Our crews quickly started working to help this young one. The equipment showed that the child was in what we call v-fib. Which simply means that heart is not doing much more than quivering, not delivering blood flow. It is the same sign we see when a person has had a heart attack and CPR is being performed. I must say our paramedics are great! They are well trained and well seasoned. They defibrillated the child and were able to get a decent rhythm. The child was still not breathing. They quickly transported the child by one of our city ambulances, providing breaths for the child. When our crews left the hospital. The young one was breathing and crying. These are excellent signs. But the outcome is still unknown. Near drowning can have many after effects. This entire event went from a family enjoying an evening by the pool, to a life changing event in less than four minutes.
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