Why we are Fire Fighters

[cryotek]

Since there are so many threads hopefully mine will be read.

I have read that some they did the wrong thing and some said they did as per SOG. Some people have said in this forum people are getting too emotional. HELL YES!!!! Fire fighting is an emotional job. We get thrills out of other peoples pains. I love fighting fires and ruinning EMS calls. I LIKE HELPING PEOPLE!!! That's why I decided to join. A good questions to ask is how hard or how convincing was the OIC if he did ask to fight the fire??? Wait one minute. Some one from the Niles FD had to confirm no one was home. At the point they check to see if a person was home they legally should have continued to fight the fire. I'm sure a law suit will be filed and I hope the home owner wins. It will set a precidence. No one said they had to do an interior attack and put anyone at risk.

It's amazing how politics does more damage and costs more lives than the fires or the wars themselves.

Godbless.

[PFire23]

Originally posted by cryotek
We get thrills out of other peoples pains

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say that I get a thrill from someone else's pain. I know there is a name for that sort of thing, but I don't think it's called "firefighter".

[RspctFrmCalgary]

If you already know there are 4 or 5 threads on the same subject why on earth would you delibertately start another one? Some of those threads were replies posted as new threads by mistake, others were because the poster didn't check to see if the article had been posted yet.

Just my opinion.

I can't imagine ANY firefighter getting thrills from someone's pain. Kind of goes against the "need to help" that drives most firefighters.

[Cellblock776]

We get thrills out of other peoples pains.

Dude, that was ssooo not the thing to post in these forums. Even if you didn't mean it the way it reads, there's no way the haters will be able to let this go. Good Luck.

[38R1-theprobe]

He means that fires are the worst thing that can happen to a home owner and their family, but at the same time fighting a fire is one of the most thrilling things someone can do. What he said did sound awful but if you are going to have to do the job anyway you may as well enjoy what you are doing.

[explr985]

Originally posted by PFire23


I don't know that I'd go so far as to say that I get a thrill from someone else's pain. I know there is a name for that sort of thing, but I don't think it's called "firefighter".

Nope, its not firefighter, more like a NUT! If you like seeing people injured or in pain, you should have your head looked at.

[38R1-theprobe]

there is one in every dept though. The more messed up the call is the more they like it.

[Weruj1]

I dont know who the "haters" are but ya ...........that IS the wrong thing to say ........

[CALFFBOU]

Because chicks dig the turnouts and uniform...

[RspctFrmCalgary]

LMFAO BOU!

[Weruj1]

but they wear those silly little hats !!!!!!!!! LOL ........just crackin on ya bro .........go Phenix helmets !

[CALFFBOU]

This is why I am a Firefighter (Captain).
I get to wear my red Phenix helmet and
point to stuff. And talk to the chicks
on the sidewalk- "Yeah baby, its a tough
job, but how about your phone number?"

(Note the "BOU" on the back of the helmet)

[firenresq77]

Bou, the helmet looks like it needs a good "christening"!

[explr985]

Originally posted by firenresq77
Bou, the helmet looks like it needs a good "christening"!

Yea your lid is way, WAY too clean.

[LACAPT]

Cryotek, What are you and where did you evolve from? Seeing other peoples pain even with a good injection of Gallows humor does not give me a thrill.

[FlyingKiwi]

Once again I will post this. Written by a fellow Brother from the New Zealand Fire Service. Posted in the firm hope that people wake up to why we CONTINUE to do this job.

______________________________ __________

Several years ago I wrote this true account (at least, true as I saw it) of a motor vehicle accident ("MVA") on State Highway One just north of Plimmerton. It was published in the New Zealand Listener, and on the internet on several sites around the world. I have received a number of messages from people who felt positive about it, including a school in the United States who are using it in their anti-drink driving classes, and a paramedic whose wife said that it allowed her to understand his work for the first time.
If you have an educational use for "MVA, 1am", please feel free to use it.
Tony Sutorius


MVA, 1am

Frantic scurrying in the back of the truck, bunker coats, reflective jerkins, latex gloves under our leather ones. Suddenly there, all leaping into the black unknown through our different doors. Grabbed the High Pressure hose from its reel, undid its brake, dragged it like a mad bastard towards the knot of police and stopped drivers who were standing on the roadside, looking down into the deep ditch where the car was bound to be. Late model, white, balanced precariously about 45 degrees over on its side, straddling a narrower but even deeper ditch. The ringing cold air betrays the darkness - "Three trapped! Three trapped!".

A figure in street clothes runs, grabs Ian, demands a scoop stretcher. "We don't carry those, ambulance'll be here in a minute". "Jesus! Every decent fire engine's got them on! ****!" he accuses, plunges down the bank again onto the unstable car. The police seemed too preoccupied to care, so we leave him there, carry on. For now we won't dispute his ownership. I run back to 351, find the heavy rescue line. Returning with it nearly ran straight into by a guy with a skinhead, covered in blood. Two ambulance guys and a cop grab him, guide him away. "I need to go back down, I need to go back!" The driver? His eyes wide, really wide. Sirens approaching from all directions, helicopter or the thought of one in the distance.

I slide down the steep bank, but loose control, crash towards the bottom, skittle two firefighters - yelling, they think the car is falling on them. They forgive, I don't... Who the hell am I? ****ing ****! Who the hell am I?

My job to ensure the car doesn't tip over onto the rescuers working around the low side. Tie a heavy line to the central roof support, yelled for every free person on the scene to hang onto it. Someone hears, frantic action, tension in the air, tension on the line. Later its necessary to cut the roof off, the line being shifted to the back roof support. I call for the centrepunch to break through the rear quarterlight window, the only unsmashed window in the car. I realised then that there was another kid in the back seat, so I got a blanket to protect their face from the breaking glass.

For quite a few minutes we cover him, touch his shoulder, talk to him. I stare at a deep cut in his arm for several seconds before I slowly realise why its attracted my attention - its not bleeding. Should have realised this boy was dead, but no-one told us. Pull the blanket completely off and see the deep wound in his back where his spinal column had been. We cover him again, but a bloodied hand and one foot in its pristine Doc Martins boot are at such unnatural and strange angles the blanket is too small to cover them.

Three probationary firefighters, never seen anything like this before. We keep talking to them as we have time, trying to help them focus on what they’re doing... every few minutes I look again and find them staring at the body, or at something in the distance I can't see. Their lives will never be exactly the same - not worse really, just not ever the same. Something taken, something given. Perhaps they already knew.

Working with the heavy, awkward Jaws of Life... cutting the roof off... it's necessary to move one of the oxygen bottles... the only place it would be out of the way was the back seat.... an older fireman reaches over and places it in the arms of the dead boy.... "don't think he'll mind" he mutters to himself, smirking embarassedly when seeing I've heard him.... two half laughs.

Two most seriously trapped, both front passengers, the girl on the boy's knee. Now utterly wedged between the seat, the crushed wreckage of the dashboard, the wall of the ditch the car had come to rest in. A deathly embrace. A woman's whimpering and faint screams, continuously for the hour it takes to get her out. Its a good sign, she's got the energy to fight.

"Leave me alone! Leave ME! I'll get myself out! LEAVE ME!!!!".

A bloodied arm shoots from the wreckage, grasps a fireman by the collar, has to be prized off. We are hurting her so badly, so very very, very badly. We're her friends, her worst tormentors. Words of rationalisation in the air, thoughts in every head, rebellious notions in every guts.

Both with broken legs, severe internal damage, many less serious injuries. Chantelle, the woman, had bit her lower lip almost completely off. White teeth showing through fruit pulp flesh. Both covered in blood, some their own, some from their dead friend who must have been crammed up against them both immediately after the crash. A knot of ambulance officers crowded in amongst it all, their bright yellow jackets heavily stained with blood and other body fluids. The milky white roof lining lying on the grass, a very large, visceral stain in one corner, still liquid.

Finally we get the boy out too, carried his stretcher awkwardly up the steep bank to the waiting helicopter. Brown bottle glass crunches underfoot.

At least one dead, probably more by today. These six kids chose an unnewsworthy way to be irreparably damaged and to die. You probably won't hear any more about it. Maybe it'll get a paragraph in the Post tonight. Shame there wasn't a cute dog in there to rescue.

Crushed cars don't have simple angles.



Postscript:

As a carload of six drive north a man thrashes through a horrible dream... a young man is going to die, nothing can be done. Nothing can save him. He wakes suddenly, sweating. Ten minutes later he still lays there, wondering what it might mean. He’s seen a lot of real death that hasn’t affected him like this dream has. The familiar thin fire siren whine steals into the room. He pulls the blankets over his head like a child. "Aren’t you going?" asks his wife, rolling towards him. "I can’t!" he says, "He’s already dead - there’s nothing I can do. I can’t go to this one". Its 1am.

A probationary firefighter has just got home after his first real fatality. He moves awkwardly, afraid to touch anything with his hands that seem to him pulped now, fruit pulped like those lips. He’s afraid of leaving bloodstains where he touches. His fingers look normal, but he’s caught it somehow. Everything hurts.

[ff7134]

Thats a helmet....I thought that he had one too many and was wering a salad bowl on his head. Thats those Western Guys for you .

Just joking CAL!!!

As for why I'm a FF....because Why work 5 days a week as a cop when I can work 2 as a FF and make the same??? Because its a job that I love, why even ask?

[mohican]

Originally posted by cryotek
1. I have read that some they did the wrong thing and some said they did as per SOG....I love fighting fires and ruinning EMS calls. I LIKE HELPING PEOPLE!!!

--------------------------------------------------------------------
2. At the point they check to see if a person was home they legally should have continued to fight the fire.

1. Most EMS calls are already hectic, why try to ruin an ems call?
2. With out knowing Ohio law, and whatever contracts may or may not be between Niles and the other township, you can not tell us for sure whether the action was legal or not.

[CALFFBOU]

Originally posted by firenresq77
Bou, the helmet looks like it needs a good "christening"!

Yea your lid is way, WAY too clean.

Yeah...I like to keep my stuff clean. That helmet does
have some scraps and scuffs on it, but I clean off the
gunk. Like one smart poster said in here once-
"I let my skills talk for me, not my gear."

ANYWAYS- WHY BE A FIREFIGHTER? BESIDES BEING A
HOOKER, ONLY OTHER PROFESSION YOU GET PAID FOR
WHILE LAYING ON YOUR BACK.

[RspctFrmCalgary]

What about car mechanics?