0800 (08:00A) *Kind City Fire Department. It’s cloudy out and kind of muggy. I’m not much of an early bird so being somewhere by 0800 can be tough for me however I was really excited this time! I was going to meet a new crew of guys/women working for a fire department I’ve heard so many great things about. This is the fire department I had mentioned in a previous post that most of my EMT class mates worked/volunteered for.
I walk up to the big garage door and ring the little red button. This happy face greets me at the door and says “We were expecting you!” He leads me up the stairs to meet the other guys. I walk into a fair size kitchen with a large wood table in the center of the room. A few doors to the left lead to the rest rooms fully equipped with showers and down the hall are the fire fighters beds lined in rows like the dwarfs beds in Snow White.
Fire fighter *Dan Fuller takes me down to check out the rigs. He shows me where I will be sitting when we go out on a call, shows me where my reflective vest is in case we go out to car accident and pulls out the medical bag. We go back in the fire house and sit in the large conference room, they are getting ready for a phone conference with the Chief there in a few minutes.
“Good Morning, how is everyone doing today?” This voice says coming from the triangle speaker box in the middle of the table. “We’re great Chief, just ready for another day. We also have an EMT student with us today.” “Great! Well I wish everyone a pleasant day today and please stay safe.”
The conference call is over as soon as it began and it makes me happy seeing the Chief does a morning conference call to wish his men and women a safe day.
Fuller and I go through the medical bag. He pulls out this mess of bandages, 4x4’s, oxygen tubing, masks of all sizes, QuickClot Blood Clotter, which is used in military trauma kits and is used to do as the name states, clot blood and he shows me the rest of the contents in each pocket. I try hard to memorize exactly which pocket he pulled things out of so when we go on a call I can be on the ball and pull out exactly what we need.
Myself and the rest of the crew (4 fire fighters and 1 fire chief) sit around watching the news just waiting for our first call of the day….we wait and wait and wait….nothing.
We get in the fire truck and cruise over to their training site just a few blocks away from the fire house. Now it’s cold as a witch’s titty outside, thank goodness I brought my coat. We pull up to this three story metal plated building with black smoke residue along the edges of the metal covered windows. Inside is a burnt up couch, other furniture and a male dummy laying in a corner, he’s covered in what looks like 10 miles of bad road and is missing a leg…they call him Stupid. Well Stupid has had a rough time being rescued I see.
The guys set up a full obstacle course within the burn house and around the outside perimeter. The obstacle is for the next week’s agility test for new volunteers.
0300 (03:00P) We arrive back at the fire house. I go into the restroom and as soon as I take a seat on the thrown the tones sound. “Let’s GO!” I hear. “Crap! Wouldn’t you know we have no calls all day but as soon as I visit the potty room we get one!” We rush down stairs, climb in the truck, put on our head set, lights and sirens out we go. "
“Wow what do you guys do if you’re taking a shit? And the tones go off?’ I got a good laugh out of the guys.
We arrive at a local dollar store where some kid had pulled the fire alarm and now the store manager can’t turn off the alarm. I’m told to wait in the truck while the guys go in to make sure there’s no fire. They go in with full gear and O2 masks on. Total call time: about 20 minutes.
Next we head over to the city council center to attend an award presentation for the people of Kind City, including the fire fighters, some of which I was with that day received metals and awards for their heroism. We were a little late since we were on that call so once we walked in the room all eyes were on us. “We heard you were on a call, give them a hand ladies and gentlemen!” The announcer says in the mic. I knew they were clapping for the firefighters but it was kind of cool walking in as one of them for the day.
An 8 hour day without any legitimate calls, the false alarm was the only one. But I enjoyed getting to know the guys and I got a lot of homework done! I realized riding with the fire department, despite the fact I have no interest in being a fire fighter, was beneficial. I was able to see their side of emergency calls and how they work.
*Names have been changed.
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