Saturday, November 28, 2009

Helping those who don't want to be helped

Although firefighting is where the real excitement is, the majority of the calls we run are medical in nature. That's ok, though, I actually really enjoy medicals. I like the times when we're able to make a difference in a patient's life when things are going really badly. Helping someone out of a wrecked car, keeping an unstable patient alive until they get to the hospital, or even just providing a little comfort to someone who is dealing with a scary illness or injury; those things are all good experience and are their own reward.

Admittedly, there are many people you can't do much to help. Plenty of people are just not savable (already dead for too long, injury inconsistent with life, etc), and many others are not true emergencies and involve people who are just in a hard socio-economic group and the only way they know of to get medical help for any condition is to call 911.

But then there's a third class of medical call, one I had not experienced until just recently. You see, some people for one reason or another don't want your help at all and are angry at you for even being there. That's new to me.

The day of Thanksgiving, I ran a call to a middle-class neighborhood residence. It was dispatched as "Unconscious", and on the way we got enough information to know that this was a young guy who was visiting his parents for Thanksgiving, and who had gone into a really heavy state of sleep. So heavy that when he rolled off the bed and hit his head, he didn't even wake up. We were advised that he was taking Xanax, and one of the side-effects of Xanax is possible drowsiness, but this level of unresponsiveness was a little bit past "drowsy".

When we arrive, we walk into a bedroom and see...nothing.

"He's behind the bed!", the dad notes from the hallway.

We peak over the bed, and there he is, facedown and contorted up, wedged between the bed and the wall.

"Check his breathing, please" the Captain murmurs as he begins to open the med-bag.

Leaning close to the kid I can hear respiration and can feel it on my face. Smell it, too. Definitely breathing.

"He's breathing, but it's a little shallow, probably due to his position. Shall we move him?".

We each grab a body part and move him out into the center of the room. He moans and moves a bit as we move him, but goes flat out again as soon as we lay him down.

"Let's get him on some O's", I hear from over my shoulder.

I pull a non-rebreather out of the packaging and hook it up to the oxygen bottle that's already been primed for me, then apply it to the patient's face. He doesn't like that.

Sitting up groggily he yanks the mask off his face and asks what's going on.

"You were pretty unresponsive there, for a while", the captains says to him, checking his pupils (which are currently small pinpoints).

"I wass nnnapping" he slurs.

Now we have a paramedic from the ambulance in the room, already briefed by the parents, who asks what's been going on, pointing out that the heavy sleeping, The grogginess and slurred speech seem to indicated something is wrong.

"I'mmm sleeeepy" he manages to get out.

"Well, your behavior is not quite what we'd expect from someone who is just sleepy."

He REALLY doesn't like this

"Well! I didnn't knnnow...that..that...that therrre was a RIGHT wayyy to be SLLLEEPY!"

"Calm down, buddy..." the medic says

"NO! see, you'rrre starting to piss me off herrre! Herrre's what's going on...", his speech is improving a bit as his new found anger cuts through the haze, "...you all are in THIS house...telling ME how to be f***ing sleepy!....and I don't apppppreciate it....So all five of you motherf***ers can just take a flying f*** out the g**damn window....cause I swear if I find out where YOU live...."

by this point the medic's motioned everyone out of the room and were back out front, police on the way. Once someone starts to get potentially violent we are supposed to have law-enforcement on scene to handle that kind of stuff.

While we're talking out front, I'm still trying to figure this out. I mean, I don't even know this guy, so I shouldn't care, but the fact that he's so upset at us for coming in here to try and help him is bothering me a bit. It stings when you reach out with compassion and get met with anger.

As I though about it, I began to see why the guys who have been on the job for a long time seem more likely to be rather unconcerned regardless of the situation (almost to the point of being dispassionate). Apathy is hard to offend. If you don't care about someone that much, nothing short of a physical assault is really going to hurt you. But if you put yourself out there emotionally; if you try to feel some empathy for someone who's having a rough day and you do your best to have concern for them and help them, and they reject you, it feels like pretty much any other relationship where you get something nice pushed back in your face. Far safer to not care that much in the first place.

But is that unfairly punishing the patients who need empathy for the actions of those who are going to be a jerk about it? Certainly the number of people who call 911 who would benefit from some reassuring attention far outweigh those who are going to lash out at you. Should we dispense compassion based on nature of the call? Cardiac patients get sympathy, drug-addicts don't? That doesn't seem quite right either.

I guess I don't really have answers yet, just questions. Hopefully they'll come to me before the day arrives when I too start looking at patients with empty and uncaring eyes.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Bigger than you and me

I went to my third firefighter graduation at my department this week. This is the ceremony where the new recruit who have been training for the last 5 months are finally given their badges and released to start running calls. It's a big deal for those who are participating, because it's the realization of a goal that used to seem to far into the future, but what's less talked about at the time is what a big deal it is for the department.

My first graduation was as an outsider, when my brother was just joining up. I didn't know anybody there except him, and I didn't have any particular interest in firefighting at the time, but I remember being very moved by the ceremony. Afterwords my eyes were a little wet as I congratulated him and it was a silent drive back to college for me as I thought about what I'd seen.

My second was as a participant, a new firefighter excited to start doing stuff that mattered. After my brother pinned my badge on me, I could hardly wait to get out of the building and to start doing all those things I'd been training for all those months.
Now I've just been to my third, as a member of the department welcoming in the new blood. It's emotional, but in a different way: I'm proud to be part of such an organization, one that was important enough and meaningful enough to these outsiders that they decided to invest and sacrifice of themselves in order to be part of it as well.

And it will keep happening. Year after year, new men and women will take up the mantle as the most experienced ones start to step down. Logically it would seem that this adds up to a department that is of a constant status. Like a glass of water, some is poured out, some refilled, and you're always looking at basically the same thing. But this is inaccurate; any organization like this is actually cumulative. It's more like a river: individual drops of water travel through on a seemingly set course, but slowly the water as a whole continues to erode a new path for itself, shifting the banks and making it's way as a result of all the drops that has ever flowed through it.

The department will always have one chief, but it's current culture and structure is the result of layer upon layer of past leadership. We will always have new recruits, but our training and policies improve every year as a result of experiments on and suggestions from each group of orange-helmets that step up to do their part.

The continued existence and renewal of this entity, this fire district, is an ongoing validation of the fact that what we are doing here is worthwhile and necessary. The life of this department reaches far into the future, as long as there are people in this area to protect, and each firefighter through his participation gains for himself a piece of the immortality that such organizations by their nature preserve for their alumni.

It's bigger than you and me, and in a way this humbling realization makes you want to pay tribute to such a cause. But what to do? What do you give an entity with no emotion or consciousness? How do you show loyalty to an intangible abstraction? In my opinion, the only show of appreciation that has any lasting effect is the kind of participation that only makes us better.

Do nothing to detract from our reputation, but in all encounters give others reason to respect us. Teach the new generations of our ranks not just with the knowledge that you were taught, but also with the wisdom gained from your own mistakes, and let them start off knowing more than you did. Most importantly (for my department anyway), continue to provide a helping hand as long as there is even one person out there who needs it.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Pedagogy of the fire-ground

In a fire department, there are a lot of skills for new guys to learn. Fire suppression, apparatus operation, efficient communication, emergency medical care, vehicle extrication; the list goes on and on. One thing that I think should be placed higher on that list is pedagogy. If you're really great at vehicle extrication, you can make a difference when you're on the scene; if you're really great at TEACHING OTHER FIREFIGHTERS about vehicle extrication, then you make a difference every time one of the firefighters who learned something from you is cutting up a vehicle. The effects of a good teacher are like ripples that carry throughout a department as those who learn from the instructor teach others the way that they learned.

Let me give an example where we see three teaching styles on the same subject, and maybe it will be clear why this is such an important topic.

SCENE 1
Instructor: "don't forget this, it's important: when you are going to have the apparatus parked in one place for a while, engage the 'High Idle'".

Student: "Why is that? What does it do? Is it really important?"

Instructor: "What did I just say?"

Student: "When the apparatus is staying put for a while, engage the High Idle"

Instructor: "So what do you do when you're parking and you're going to leave the engine on?"

Student: "Engage the High Idle"

SCENE 2

Instructor: "don't forget this, it's important: when you are going to have the apparatus parked in one place for a while, engage the 'High Idle'".

Student: "Why is that? What does it do? Is it really important?"

Instructor: "That let's the engine generate more electricity so it's able to handle more things being on at once like warning equipment and panel lights, etc."

SCENE 3

Instructor: "don't forget this, it's important: when you are going to have the apparatus parked in one place for a while, engage the 'High Idle'".

Student: "Why is that? What does it do? Is it really important?"

Instructor: "well, what does your car do when it's idling?"

Student: "It's just running at a low speed"

Instructor: "And what does the term high-idle suggest?"

Student: "That it's running at a slightly higher than low speed?"

Instructor: "Good, that's right. Now, why would that be helpful?"

Student: "I don't know, I guess it's using more gas, that's actually BAD. Maybe it's maintenance related, do long periods of low idle damage the engine or something?"

Instructor: "Interesting thought, but no, you're thinking to specifically to the engine. What about all those blinking things on the apparatus?"

Student: "Warning lights?"

Instructor: "And what do they need in order to keep blinking?"

Student: "Electricity. I guess the high idle probably generates more electricity."

Instructor: "Right. All those lights take a toll on the battery, and if you leave it in low idle the load manager will eventually start switching lights off to conserve energy, which is a big deal if you're on a highway or something where you need all your warning equipment going."

Now let me give you a scenario: The student is now pumping the apparatus at a large vehicle fire, and the lights start to shut off one by one. High idle can't be engaged because it doesn't work when the apparatus is pumping. What will the student do about his quickly diminishing warning equipment? If he's been taught by the instructor in scene 1, probably nothing, as he won't even know there's a connection. This kind of teacher just bugs the hell out of me. Anytime someone answers a question with "Because I said so", they're doing the student a disservice. You can't think adaptively without having the necessary information to synthesize into a solution. If the student was taught by the instructor in scene 2, he'd probably suspect that he should be engaging high-idle, but he's been told he can't do that when pumping, so what should he do? After thinking about it, he'd probably have to resort to choosing which lights he needs least and manually shutting them down. He's been told what he needs to know, and he's doing the most he can with the information he has. But the student who learned from the instructor in scene 3 knows the mechanics of his truck. By having a long dialog on the subject, he's been forced to think it through and knows what the players in this equation are. He knows that the high-idle works by increasing the engine speed, thus generating more electricity. He also knows that pumping the apparatus involves using the engine to power the pump. Putting this information together, he'd probably figure out that all he has to do is gate down the water he's flowing out of the truck and throttle up the pump, causing the engine to work harder, and generating the extra electricity he needs.

Good firefighters aren't born, they're made. Let's recognize the great makers, and realize that within a department great teaching means better everything else.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Modern Emergency Medical Care

You know what I've found about being a firefighter? Fire's don't happen very often. Oh we get plenty of calls, but they're mostly made up of heart attacks, traumatic injuries, and breathing trouble.

That's why my department requires that every member obtain their EMT-B certification, and that's what I'm spending most of my time training for this fall.

At least, that's what I WILL be training for. A lot of the training we've been through so far in EMT class has centered more around just trying not to get sued. More than other jobs, being an emergency rescuer is fraught with opportunities for legal action against you. Driving an emergency vehical, you can easily get caught up in a car accident; there's a law suit for failure to use due regard. Caring for a patient may involve you having to make a split second decision that causes someone's condition to worsen; now there's some legal action regarding negligence. Maybe you drop a patient off at the hospital and the paperwork to transfer doesn't quite get completed properly. The ER's busy and the nurses don't check in on the patient for 15 minutes, by which time his situation has grown dire; now you're going to court for abandonment. I could give example after example, because I've heard hundreds of them; enough to scare me into almost not wanting to put myself in the position of having to care for someone because of the legal risk if something goes wrong.

What's different today about our society that means we sue at the drop of a hat? When did we become entitled to have nothing ever go wrong in our lives? After all, that's where this originates, right? Something bad has happened to me, I think someone else could have prevented it, so I'm going to sue for all kinds of damages because I shouldn't ever have to experience hardship or trouble in my life.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not speaking out against actual maliciousness or incompetence. If someone is driving 40 MPH over the speed limit to get to a call and strikes a pedestrian, that was negligent. If an ambulance worker shows up to a scene, decides he doesn't like the patient, and leaves him to die, that was abandonment. But the cautionary tales I've heard are nothing like that. They're all based around split-second decisions where a tough choice had to be made, and someone made it (right or wrong), and the end result was a lawsuit against the ambulance company, the fire department, and the responder personally.

It's a mess. Unfortunately, complaining about it on my blog won't change anything. I, along with every other emergency responder, have to continue in this field knowing that every action I take may have ramifications that could land me in court. We all have to function with a certain amount of cognitive dissonance in that we have two relationships with our patients; one as allies working for their well-being, and one as adversaries trying to cover our asses. I guess all I can say is "be careful out there".

Friday, August 14, 2009

Learning how to Learn

I am convinced that pride is the one thing that stands in the way of people achieving greatness.

Sounds silly doesn't it? After all, only those who are great would have reason to be proud, right?

Not exactly. Let me give you a few examples:

Recruit class, vehicle extrication practical; my crew is working with a Captain from the special operations division of the fire district. He sends me to retrieve a tool from the rescue squad on scene. When I return, he spends the next 5 minutes lecturing us on why we should be "moving with a purpose" at all times while staring directly into my eyes. The message was obvious; he felt like I wasn't moving quickly enough, and that it reflected some sort of attitude problem (like I didn't care about the tactic, or didn't have any respect for him or something like that). In truth, I didn't have an attitude problem just at the moment, but I didn't think I had been moving slowly the rest of my crew was witnessing him calling me out, so I was on the verge of developing one quickly.

My first vehicle fire, and it's in a different station's run box; I ride to the call with my younger brother (who's been doing this for a few years before me). The "fire" is really just a little smoke coming from the back axle of the vehicle. My brother tells me to go get the pressurized water can while he runs over to size it up. The engine from this station is different than the one at mine, and when I go to the compartment where it should be, I find that because of a different body design much of the equipment on this engine is stored in a different place. He yells over to ask what's taking so long, I tell him I don't know where the water can is, and as he rushes over and grabs it himself from another compartment he says in a frustrated voice "Exactly where it's SUPPOSED to be!". Words like "How the HELL am I supposed to know where anything is when the trucks are different!" fly through my head, but I stifle them.

Truck checks 2 weeks ago, at my home station; A week before the Sr. Firefighter at our station had admonished me for driving too slowly to a call a few miles down on the street that runs in front of our station. I stepped up my game and tried to put a little more speed on when driving to calls. Today the station captain is chastising me for driving too quickly and telling me to ease off on my adrenaline dump. In frustration, I want to say "Fine, that's the last time I drive, you can find someone else who's willing to freely spend their own time covering the station while the residents are out". I don't say it, of course.

A structure fire last week near my home; a good friend of mine who was my instructor in recruit class is first on the scene. It's a small fire, so it's quickly out. When I get inside, he tells me to go back out and get a scoop shovel from the engine to start carrying debris and ash out of the house. I set down the pike pole and radio I'm carrying and head outside to comply. On my way back in, I'm met at the garage door with a radio being thrust into my chest and a low growl saying "You need to hold onto your shit!". Having just had a fight with my wife over the phone not 30 minutes ago, my temper is already on edge, and I have to bite back the words I want to spit back in his face.

Each one of these scenarios has a common thread. I screwed up, and someone tried to correct me. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work. We all want to be good at what we do, and when someone points out our flaws, our pride is wounded. If you let it, that feeling of embarrassment and hurt can prevent you from becoming the capable, competent professional that we already want to think of ourselves as. It can, in fact, cause you to stubbornly continue doing things wrong just to prove to yourself that you weren't in the wrong to begin with. In every situation above, I wanted to lash out and tell them that I was doing fine and to lay off. The only problem is, I was wrong.

Everyone of the individuals above has been a firefighter for a long time, much longer than me. I probably wouldn't take advice from any of them when it comes to calculus, music, or software; but on the fireground, I'd pay attention to any one of them, even if it hurt my feelings just at the moment. Not moving quickly can mean someone dies before we can get them out; knowing where equipment is on different trucks is part of the job, and an important one; driving too fast can get you landed in court when you kill someone during an emergency response; and you need to keep your radio on you at all times because it's the only way the incident commander can get a-hold of you if there's an emergency. I know these things, but my actions indicated disregard for those truths, and my friends and brothers on the department were just trying to make me a better firefighter by pointing these things out. It's up to me to get past my desire to already be the best and take correction to heart.

Take pride in doing a job that helps people; but leave it at home while you're doing it.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Cross Country

I just got back from a 2-week vacation to California with my wife, where we visited some family. While out there, it was nice to relax after the long recruit class I finally completed last month, but I also wasn't completely away from the fire service. Every city has a fire station, and ever since I've become involved in the service I've tried to visit them wherever I travel. I try not to make a nuisance of myself, but if there are firefighters outside who don't seem busy, or if I can see them hanging out in a dayroom, I'll stop to introduce myself and ask about the station.

So while on vacation this time, I happened upon a small station in a residential area of San Mateo where the firefighters were outside washing a couple very-nice looking trucks. After stopping and talking to them a while, I found that this was a unique station in that both of the apparatus had a specialty, one being the US&R (Urban Search and Rescue) truck for the area, and the other being an engine specifically tasked with carrying all the specialty equipment needed for a RIC (rapid intervention crew). I took a video of them both with my iPhone and have posted it below if you're interested.

I guess the really cool thing is how being part of my local fire department makes me also part of a world-wide community. These guys didn't know me, didn't have any obligation towards me, but took time out of their shift to show me around their apparatus and answer all the questions that I naturally had for them as a member of a more rural department. One of them was even willing to give me one of his personal duty shirts from the department to contribute to my brother's collection. It's the sort of instant friendliness that can only come out of a knowledge of similar experiences, and it's one that I am truly glad to have become a recipient of.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Fire and Rain

It's been almost a week since my very first structure fire. I guess I've had a hard time sitting down to start writing about it. For days, I had been hoping for that first fire. Every time my pager went off, I was praying to hear some extra tightness in the dispatcher's voice as the words "structure fire" came over the radio. A week ago, it finally happened. But it wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

I was in bed, early in the morning, when the tones dropped. The first words to come over the radio were "commercial structure fire", and I was in my vehicle before they were even able to say anything else. My adrenaline and excitement were almost overwhelming. It was only just as I was reaching the highway that we got any further information from the dispatcher. Someone hadn't made it out yet. My excitement turned to dread, and although as personal vehicles we have no right to break traffic laws (preventing me from speeding), my fingers began to clutch the steering wheel even tighter than they had when I was merely suffering from adrenaline.

The first units on the scene gave a size up indicating that the house was already significantly involved in the fire. Still no sign of the man inside. All anyone knew was that he should be somewhere in the back right corner of the house. In the sky ahead of me, I could see the pillar of smoke rising up into the clouds. Although this was my first non-training fire, I knew enough to realize just how serious the fire must be given that huge visual indicator.

By the time I arrived, the whole of the House was mostly a wall of flames. I knew roughly what the odds were of someone still being alive in a situation like that, but I didn't want to admit that to myself. The crew I was assigned to was given the task of going in the back door to find this man. Reading the faces of my crewmates, I knew that this was probably a body recovery operation and not a rescue, but I didn't want to admit that to myself either. The flames were too intense for us to make a good entry, though, and eventually the roof came in. At the same time another crew of firefighters was cutting a hole in the wall of the house where they expected the man to be. Given the condition of what was left of the building, I was now certain of the outcome. But it wasn't until the hole was open and I saw the body that any real emotion hit me.

One of the division chiefs (the one who ran my training class) was standing by asking us to use the hose line to protect the body from the still raging flames, hoping to prevent any further damage for the sake of the family. I tried to focus on directing my water streamed towards hotspots in the room, but my mind was elsewhere. why wasn't he able to get out? why did it take so long to report the fire? How much fear must he have gone through, waking up in a blaze like that? how long was he conscious enough to experience it? Could we have saved him if we had arrived five minutes earlier? Did he feel any pain?

The man's charred remains held no answers for me. The gear on my body and the hose line in my hand, weapons to combat an enemy who had already won. I remembered bitterly how I had wanted so badly to get to fight a fire. well, I guess I got exactly what I wanted. As silly as it was, I felt a deep guilt for ever wishing for such a disaster to come into somebody's life, as though I might have prevented this incident by not desiring it so badly.

For the next couple hours we doused the entire building in water and foam, all to prevent it from reigniting. During that time I tried my best to focus on the task at hand and not to glance over at that corner where I knew the corpse lay. I kept a mantra going in my head, steeling myself for the time that I knew would be ahead when we would have to move the body from the building.

Finally the moment came, and other firefighters moved vehicles and strung up tarps to prevent the bystanders from witnessing what was about to occur. Me, I wanted to put my hands on the victim. I wanted to be the one to shoulder the unpleasant task of extricating the body from the smoldering remains of the house. As some sort of a self imposed penance, I wanted to force myself to deal with the consequences of the fire that I had been hoping for. And I did. The man, and a dog that had been trapped in the room with him, were both moved with as much dignity as possible into the vehicle that would carry them away.

I will be happy if I never have to do that again.

But with the pain and frustration and guilt came another emotion: relief. Ever since I started training to become a firefighter, my biggest worry had been that when I finally came face to face with gruesome and unjust death I would be unable to cope and unfit to perform my duties. I can think of very few scenarios that are worse in my mind than a fatality resulting from being trapped in a fire. yet there I was, witnessing one of the worst (I hope) calls I have or will ever have to deal with, and I was okay. Not happy, not calm, certainly not dispassionate, but able to perform efficiently the tasks assigned to me. Although I do not believe any amount of experience will stop me from feeling some sympathy for victims and patients, I know now that I can handle it. In the midst of my surprise and sadness at the loss of somebody's father I am relieved just to know that I can do my job.

I think I've had enough excitement for this week.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Getting Real

I've had a lot of fun playing hero. The gear was cool, the calls were fun, but last night I got a perspective adjustment that hit me like a 2x4 between the eyes.

We had just gotten back from a gas odor call. Although the emergency itself was not of any particular interest, it was the first time I've actually gotten to ride to a call on the fire truck. Now THAT is a cool experience. Driving fast, sirens blaring, people making way for you on the road; not gonna lie, that's fun. So we made sure everything was safe while the utility company sent a truck out to fix the gas line, no big deal.

Just as we're getting back off the truck in the station, the tones go off again. Everybody smiles, excited that the night is turning out to be so lively. We all pile back into the engine as we listen for the dispatch.

"Engine 801, engine 1408, motorcycle accident..."

My smile drops. This could turn out to be a little more intense than I'd expected. My brother is driving the engine, and I can feel our speed increase a little as further information comes over the radio. It doesn't sound good. One motorcycle, ran into a guardrail, victim is not moving.

I start rehearsing in my head every thing that will need to happen once we arrived at the scene. We'll need the medical pack and the backboard for sure. I pull my latex gloves on in preparation, half anxious to help, half hoping someone else will take care of the victim so that I don't have to.

No time to think about it though. The engine stops and we all jump out, each grabbing the equipment we were assigned. I throw the backboard off the engine over my shoulder and immediately start striding towards the cluster of people I can see already pulling the victim back onto the roadway. Secretly I don't want to look; I've never seen any trauma before, and honestly, I'm scared of how I might react. Will I get sick? Will I just freeze? But this is what I signed up for, and I know it, so I try to stay focused on what I need to do instead of processing what I'm seeing.

I throw the backboard on the ground and start tearing off the straps. In theory, I know what is supposed to happen next; we will put this guy on a backboard and load him into the ambulance. This isn't the same as working with a dummy though; the weight of his limbs is eerily familiar. Exactly what my leg would feel like if I lifted it with my arm. Just by touch, I can tell this is a real human. And he is dying.

The injuries are extensive, and the odds don't look good, but we start CPR in a desperate attempt to save him. Now, I'm well trained in CPR; we went through all the mechanics and techniques during recruit class. But it's just not the same on a human. I don't think I ever realized just how fragile our bodies really are.

I can feel my companions working around me. Dressing wounds, clearing clothing, a well oiled machine working at a feverish pace. I don't want to think about it. I just keep my eyes on my hands, pumping his chest, trying to keep enough blood moving to save him. I know if I think too hard about what I'm looking at, it will be too much. I'll see the damage done to him and to think "what would that feel like?". But speculation is not a luxury I can afford at the moment.

The medics call for everybody to clear the body for a second so they can check his vitals. I sit back on my knees, hands in the air to show 'I'm clear'; and that's when the feeling really hits me. This guy is not going to make it. Eyes vacant, skin pale, he stares blankly at the sky. The medics glanced forlornly at the paper printing out of their machine. "One more round, and then we'll call it." Frustrated and a little shocked, I start compressing the chest again with renewed vigor, somehow convincing myself that if we were to just try hard enough we might make a difference.

Just believing something doesn't make it so.

"Thank you everyone", the medic says, "that was a really good attempt".

I feel sick.

As I walk back to the engine (slowly now, all urgency gone), I try to figure out how I feel about the whole situation. Somebody is dead, and in a very traumatic way. Do I feel bad about it? Yeah, I guess so. I'm a little stunned for sure, but somehow not "devastated" the way it seems like I should be. It's a strange bit of cognitive dissonance. It's almost like I WANT to feel bad, but I can't summon enough emotion and feel any amount of depression or loss. Just a vague sense of malaise and failed effort. What's wrong with me? This is somebody's son, someone's friend, who is never coming back. Why can't I feel for them the way I should?

And yet, I feel terrible. Terrible for not being able to make a difference. For not being able to save a life, and for not feeling bad enough about the loss of a fellow human being.

I don't know what to think. So I don't.

My brother pulls me aside later and asks how I'm doing. I answer him honestly, I'm doing better than I thought I would be, but somehow I'm unsatisfied. He had some advice I hope I can take heart: "This is not your fault. You didn't cause of the crash. You didn't cause his injuries. You came here to help, and you can't win them all. Be happy about the ones you CAN save, but don't get hung up on the ones you can't."

He's right. The amount of death and loss that firefighters encounter is staggering. Empathy for one's fellow man is an admirable and virtuous trait, but it comes at a cost. If your friend were to lose a parent, you could cope. You could bear a part of their pain and sadness. Maybe even the suffering of a few friends simultaneously. But if an emergency worker were to take on the guilt, pain, loss, and sorrow of every loss of life they witnessed, the burden would be too great for any one soul to bear.

So I just don't think about it. Well, that's a lie. I try not to think about it. The first fatality I ever witnessed will probably stick in my memory for the rest of my life. But no amount of sorrow or depression will save his life or heal any of the family members he left behind. I've done everything I can for him, God rest his soul, and now the only thing left to do is focus on those will need help in the future.

That's life.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

In the Field

It's been over a week since I graduated from recruit class. in that timeframe, I've run more calls than I expected to get my first month. So what has it taught me? A few things. For one, people really seem to like scheduling their emergencies for the middle of the night. that means I'm going to have to become accustomed to awaking around 2 AM, but that's actually okay for me because it means that there's less interference with my work or social life. A more important thing I've discovered, though, is that actual emergencies are nothing like recruit class. There are no coaches looking over my shoulder, making sure I don't screw up; the dummies we practiced on for medical care are now replaced with live human beings who are hurting and scared.

The rush of emotions that come with all these new experiences can be confusing in its variety. When driving to a call, I'm excited. It's all I can do to control my heart rate and the speed of my vehicle. When walking on to an emergency scene, I'm focused. What needs to be done? Who needs help? When actually performing my duties, I'm scared to hell. What if somebody realizes that I'm brand-new to this? What if a patient looks up at me and sees the uncertainty of someone who hasn't handled that many emergencies before? It can almost be overwhelming.

But I'm sure that will go away. Some day, maybe a year from now, I'll look back on these first calls as the building blocks of what will then be a confident and competent firefighter. For now, they are mostly notches in my belt; first-time experiences that will give me more knowledge and experience for next time.

In the last week, I've responded to emergencies of a surprising variety for such a short time span. The very first night I had my pager by my bed, a car went off a bridge in a rural area during early hours of the morning. The next night, a neighborhood women nearly gave birth in the middle of her driveway. A fall victim, a vehicle fire, respiratory distress, a flooded home, and most recently a head-on collision where one of the drivers needed to be extricated from her crumpled vehicle.

In a way it's exciting; I never know what's going to happen next or when it's going to happen. But the unpredictability can be intimidating. What if I'm the first one to show up at a major incident? Or any incident, really? Will I know what to do? Or will I freeze up?

I guess this post is kind of scattered, but that's how my mind is: half stoked, half freaked. Excited and frightened. That's the honest truth. But if anyone asks, just tell them I'm fine. Appearances are half the battle. And someday soon (I hope) my mind's state will match the confidence on my face when I go rushing in to help.

Monday, June 1, 2009

New Heat Exhaustion Article on Firelink

If you've read my blog before, you know I've had some trouble with heat exhaustion in the past. I've written an article that contains some tips, and it's been published on firelink. Check the link below:

http://www.firelink.com/benefits/articles/7433-can-you-take-the-heat

Friday, May 22, 2009

Tactical Evolution #4

Our final tactical scenario is here. After recovering from some mild heat exhaustion from our third scenario, I'm given the job of being the engineer for engine 1401 on this last structure fire. As I've mentioned before, I really enjoy pumping, so I'm looking forward to this.

Climbing into the cab, I glance around at the crew on board with me. 3 other recruits, all shoving their shoulders into the seat-mounted SCBA brackets, ready to pile out and fight fire as soon as the air brake deploys. I can't help pointing out here that I love this stuff.

The dispatch quickly comes out over the radio, and it's become very familiar by this point:

Radio: "Commercial Structure Fire, Big Bear Blvd. Engine 1401, Engine 701, Tanker 805, Tanker 905, Squad 104, Medic 111; Commercial Structure Fire, Big Bear Blvd. Engine 1401, Engine 701, Tanker 805, Tanker 905, Squad 104, Medic 111; Commercial Structure Fire, Big Bear Blvd, cross streets of Rangeline and Dead End. Timeout 18:33 KLK 578 KJY 848

Letting off the air brake with one hand, I use the other to press the talk button on my headset radio:

Engine 1401 Responding, Times 4


We're only a short way up the street, so it's only 60 seconds or so before we're parked in front of the building. The other recruits pile out as I transmit my size up back to "joint":

Columbia from engine 1401

1401, go ahead

Engine 1401 is on scene. 2-story commercial structure, light smoke showing, mark this Training Center command, all units check in on the white channel on arrival

receieved 1401, establishing Training Center Command, all units check in on white.

As I jump out of the cab, I come face to face with the other three recruits who rode in with me, all with airpacks on and ready to go. I quickly grab their accountability tags from their helmets:

"Alright, you guys will be Crew Schaefer. Take crosslay 1, enter side 1, do interior fire attack and primary search 1. "

"Crew Schaefer will enter side one for interior fire attack and primary search 1"

"Affirmative"

The lingo feels stilted, but it means we know what to say and what it means. The three of them run off around the other side of the truck while I throttle up the pump and wait for them to be ready for water. It doesn't take long before I see Jeff's hands in the air, so I pull the gate for their hose and watch my pressure gauges as the line charges with water. Just then, the fire chief taps me on the shoulder. Prepared for the transfer of command, I hand him the tags for each of my crewmates, and tell him what they're doing. He nods briefly, everything going according to plan, and radios into "joint communications" that he now has command of the incident. Knowing that more people will be coming in soon, I grab a tarp from the engine and lay it on the ground, then start throwing every air pack and tool I pull off the truck onto it. This way no-one will have to dig for anything, every item they need will be in that staging area. The radio in my hand crackles as the supply engine declares itself on-scene. I know they'll be grabbing the hydrant right now, so I start pulling off my supply line for them to hook up to. Estimating about a 200 foot distance, I pull the first 2 sections of hose of the back of the bed and break the connection, dragging the near end over to my pump and hooking it up to the inlet. 30 seconds later, I realize I've made a big mistake. The recruits from the supply engine are taking the other end of the hose to their truck, and it's definitely not going to be long enough. Dammit, should have waited.

oh well, they're trying to make the best of it, stretching that thing as far as it will go. I'm considering pulling down another section of hose, but there are 2 more crews around me asking for stuff, so i have no time to worry about it. One crew is taking the second crosslay in to go down the stairwell, so I charge their line, and gate down the first crosslay to equalize the pressure. At the same time, another crew wants to pull down the horseshoe load to take around the side of the building. I tell them to go ahead and pull the hose down, and I hustle around the far side of the truck and open an outlet for them to hook up to.

"Reddick, I've taken the cap off discharge 3!"

"Discharge 3, got it"

before long they're attached, and they want water too. Unfortunately, it's at that exact moment that the coach standing over my shoulder says "your tank is dry".

I look up at my tank gauge: 3/4 full. Confused, I turn to the coach and motion towards the gauge that indicates I am definitely NOT out of water, but he places his gloved hand over the indicator and insists again that the water is gone. Not wanting to argue, I pull the radio from my shoulder:

Command from engine 1401

1401, go ahead

1401 is apparently out of water


The chief is clearly unhappy

.....ok.....1401 out of water

The guys on the supply engine are still struggling to get the too short hose I pulled positioned so that they can get water to us, so until they figure it out, all the crews are effectively stuck outside the building, as you can't go in without a charged hoseline.


2 minutes go by. Three. Finally my inlet hose charges up, and I quickly tell command that we're flowing again. Without losing any time, all the staging crews charge inside and get back to work.

It's all over too soon, really. The recruits are back outside, all the dummies rescued, all the fire out. That was it, our very last piece of training. Supposedly, we're now ready to go out and do this for real. The chief calls us back around, and we talk about upcoming graduation and beyond. Are we really ready to do this?

Looking around, there's no way to give a good answer for that yet. Training is one thing, but under the real pressures of a real call, it could all fall apart. Only experience will tell. I'm truly excited to get out there and find out.

Tactical Evolution #3

It's time for our third of four tactical tests, and this time is going to be really cool. For the last two scenarios, I've been one of the grunts, a guy focused on just one part of the overall incident. Today I've been assigned the role of Incident Commander, which means that I'll be directing the whole evolution from the side line as the first "officer" on scene.

This information, which I only received a few minutes ago, is both exciting and intimidating. I like strategy over tactics, anytime; that's my kind of thought process. However, there's a lot of responsibility involved in the IC role, and your mistakes are very glaring and evident.

But I'm never one to back down from an interesting challenge, so when it's announced I'm secretly quite thrilled to be in that role.

Because we've done so much at our burn building already, the chief tells everyone to get to their assigned apparatus and to start driving in convoy. We don't know where we're going, but we know that our next "commercial structure fire" isn't going to be in the same "commercial structure" that we've been practicing in for the last 5 months.

It should be noted that according to the NFPA standards, you aren't allowed to have a training fire in a building where you haven't given the trainees a full walkthrough. However, in a real incident there probably won't be a walkthrough time available before the fire breaks out, so the instructors got over this problem by using theater smoke and flares to simulate a live fire, choosing to give us some experience with the unknown layout problem, since we already have plenty of practice just shooting water at real fires.

So it's with excitement that we arrive at the training academy for our mutual aid department, the career department who works the metro area that our county surrounds. The instructors have us stop a ways back from the entrance while they all move in to the facility to get things prepared. While waiting, I lounge in the sun with my gear hanging open, not too concerned about heat or hydration as I won't be going into the structure myself. Every few minutes one of the other recruits in an apparatus or POV will motion me over to chat for a few minutes about the scenario that's about to start; you can tell we're still all as excited as we were for our first tactical evolution.

After maybe 15 minutes of waiting, the radio fires up as all the stations check off their preparedness:


"Dispatch, on blue?"

"..[crackle]..on blue."

"Interior Safety on blue?"

"On blue"

"Exterior Safety on blue?"

"Exterior is On blue"

"1401, on blue?"

"On blue"

"701 on blue?"

"701 is on blue"

"Dispatch, go ahead"


Time to get started:

Radio: "Commercial Structure Fire, Big Bear Blvd. Engine 1401, Engine 701, Tanker 805, Tanker 905, Squad 104, Medic 111; Commercial Structure Fire, Big Bear Blvd. Engine 1401, Engine 701, Tanker 805, Tanker 905, Squad 104, Medic 111; Commercial Structure Fire, Big Bear Blvd, cross streets of Rangeline and Dead End. Timeout 18:33 KLK 578 KJY 848

I wave as the recruits in Engine 1401 put themselves in as responding and drive up towards the building. After giving them a few minutes to get started, I start walking through the gates myself, and pull the radio on clipped to my chest close to my face:

"Columbia, this is car 1418"

"Car 1418, go ahead"

"Columbia, Car 1418 is on scene, assuming Training Center command"

Just as I'm arriving at the command post to assume my position, a new face appears next to me. It's the fire chief! The current top dog at our department is standing next to me, and he has on the same green vest and clipboard that I do, indicating Incident Command. He looks surprised as he sees my outfit, and comments quickly:

"Vizitei, are you initial command? Did you ride in on the engine?"

"No sir! I was assigned to play IC for the incident"

"Do you want to do that? Be in command, that is?"

Honestly, I do want to do it, but somehow when you're staring at somebody with that many bugles on his collar, it can be tough to articulate your exact intents and desires. My "Yes sir, it is my most compelling wish this evening to remain in command of this incident" somehow turns into "No sir, I have no preference, what do you need me to do?" by the time it reaches my mouth.

Damn. I'm probably going to be going inside now, aren't I?

Chief: "Alright, Vizitei, you'll be crew leader. Take Jones and Brandow, I want a primary search of the second story, left hand search"

Me: "Yes sir, Crew Vizitei will perform primary search 2, left hand search."

Chief: "Good, get to it".

Nothing for it now but to get to work. I quickly pull on my hood and gloves, and zip up my coat as I walk to the attack engine to pull on an airpack. As it drops onto my shoulders and I busy myself with the straps, I start thinking about the tactic ahead of us: moving hose up an interior stairwell just sucks. I remember that from the first night when the attic attack crew went up 2 stories just to be stuck in the stairwell because their hose was caught up. Now we're going to do the same thing, and hopefully come back down with a victim. However, that's the reality of this kind of work: it's tough.

I finish up my internal pep talk to myself just as I'm arriving at the door where my crew is waiting:

"Ok, guys, we're on primary search II. Brandow, take the nozzle, Jones, tools. Get on air now, let's go".

My crewmates snap their regulators onto their facepieces, and I hear their masks pressurize. They start moving up right next to the door as I call back to command to confirm orders:

"Command from Crew Vizitei"

"Crew Vizitei, this is command

"Crew Vizitei is entering side 1 for primary search II up the interior stairwell"

"Crew Vizitei, entering side 1, primary search II"

"Affirmative"

I wave to my crewmates to get inside as I hook up my mask to my airsupply and stand in the doorway. We're going to need a lot of hose to get up the stairs and around whatever rooms we find up there, so I start pulling hose into the first room, pushing about 50 feet into a coil along the ground by the door. As soon as that's in place, I follow the wall to my crew, who's already at the foot of the stairs. Already I'm breathing a bit too hard, so I concentrate on slowing it down as I help them pull the hoseline up step by step. About halfway up, we stop moving. No amount of pulling is getting us any farther, and we aren't even into our search zone yet. Signaling my 2 mates to stay where they are, I hustle back down the stairs and find that the first coupling on the line is caught around a corner. I dislodge it hurriedly, cursing the luck, and move back to the stairwell yelling "Keep Pulling!" up at the guys moving up the stairs. Just as I reach the top with them, the hose catches again. Under my breath I mutter a string of profanities while I key up my Radio:

"Command from Crew Vizitei"

"Crew Vizitei, this is command

"Crew Vizitei is unable to advance up the interior stairwell, hose is caught. We need assistance."

"Crew Vizitei, need assistance moving hose"

"Affirmative!"

30 seconds goes by, then 60. Unfortunately, any victims overcome on the second story just don't have that kind of time, so I get up and bolt down the stairs again, only to make it to the front door and see that the next attack crew has laid their line directly on top of ours, making the 2nd coupling catch solid against their line. I want to yell in frustration, but I know it won't accomplish anything, so I kick their line off a little bit, grab ours, and haul into the doorway. I can see that the line is pulling up the stairs a bit, so I know my crew is moving on, and they don't have a light since our flashlight is strapped around my shoulder. Frustrated and breathing heavily, I power up the stairs a third time, arriving beside them against the back wall in the first 2nd-floor room just as they're turning around to ask for direction. grabbing each others coat tails, we spread out on the floor to search, and no sooner have I moved away from the wall than my boots come into contact with our "victim" (a big red canvas dummy). The nozzle man needs to keep his head up for fire, so Jones and I each grab a shoulder and start dragging as I key up my radio again to let command know we're coming.

"Command from Crew Vizitei"

"Crew Vizitei, this is command

"Crew Vizitei has a victim found, 2nd story, Charlie quadrent. Making exit first floor 1, side 1"

"Crew Vizitei, victim found, exiting side one"

"Affirmative!"

My lungs are starting to burn. My head is acheing. Gotta keep going, though, nothing more useless than sitting back and resting in the middle of a fire. I try to set little goals in my head to keep focused. "Just a little farther to the corner, you can make it that far. Ok, now, it's only 10 feet or so back to the stairs, you'll make it". Just as we gratefully arrive at the top of the staircase, the dummy's legs get caught around the corner. I see the light on my Heads Up display blink yellow, meaning I'm down to half a tank of air.

"Grab his Legs, Jeremy!", I yell. Right now we're pushing and pulling on his trunk, and he ain't moving THAT way. Jones moves behind the victim as I get my arms under both shoulders and we start moving down the stairs one at a time. It's all I can do to stay focused, I feel like steam is forming inside my gear, pressure cooking my body. It's with great effort that we go through the pattern what seems like countless times: "one, two, three, pull!" down one step. "one, two, three, pull!" down another step. Reaching the bottom at last, I fall over backwards, tripping on a hoseline and coming to rest looking face up at a crew of 3 recruits waiting for their assignment at the front door:

"Help!" is all I can manage to yell at them as I point towards our victim at the foot of the stairs. Like the good guys they are, they don't waste a second charging in and helping haul that dummy to safety. I ask Jones to take over "CPR" while I call into command telling them that we're safe:

"Command from Crew Vizitei"

"Crew Vizitei, this is command

"Crew Vizitei has exited the structure side 1. We are par, plus one victim."

"Crew Vizitei, exited structure, par plus one"

"Affirmative"

I tear my gear off as quickly as I can manage, sighing gratefully as a cool breeze sucks some of the heat away from my body. We don't have time for a break, though.

"Crew Vizitei, rehab your air bottles and check back in with command"

Damn. I'm hurting. I don't WANT to check back in with command, I would be happy just to avoid puking. That's not the way it works, though. I repeat the order over the radio, and relay it to my crewmates, who both look amazingly un-exhausted. What's wrong with me? Why am I so tired?

I manage to drag all my stuff back to the rehab area, and I go to my knees to change out my air bottle. Somebody is trying to tell me something about my airpack, but I can hardly understand what she's saying. Why is she talking so loud? Oh well, I think, she has a lieutenant's helmet so I guess she can talk as loud as she wants. I mumble something that I hope sounds like "OK" as I swing my coat back on and throw my airpack onto my back. With my crew walking ahead of me, definitely somehow in better shape, we trudge back towards the command post.

My steps slow down, then stop. I don't feel so good. A wave of heat and nausea washes over me, and I go down to my knees for a second trying to rest enough to let it pass. It's not passing. One of my crewmates turns around and sees me. He's probably asking if I'm ok. Am I ok?

"I have to get out..." I mumble

I am definately not ok.

"I have to get out...."

I'm pushing ineffectively at my gear, trying to peel it off again. It feels like I'm drowning in heat, like I'm desperate to just have nothing against my skin. Three recruits rush over to help and my gear is soon off and I'm somehow sitting over on the grass with bottles of water surrounding me. Sombody is telling me to drink. Seems like good advice.

As a few bottles of water get pored over my head, and into my stomach, my lucidity returns. Realizing that I got overheated, I look down at the ground hoping no one else is noticing. It's a little embarrassing to be sprawled out and half collapsed while everyone else who just went through the same thing you did is standing around just fine. Glancing up, I realize that contrary to my hopes, EVERYONE is noticing, and I can now see my brother and the lead instructor for my crew sauntoring over to see what's up. One of my recruit buddies kneels next to me and asks if there's anything I need. Unhappy at the situation I'm in, I crack a wry joke:

"If you see my dignity laying over there on the asphalt somehwere I sure would appreciate it if you'd return it to me".

Now my brother is kneeling in front of me.

"You ok?"

"I've felt better."

"Did you make it out of the building first?"

"yeah"

"With the victim?"

"yeah"

"Good job. Guess you got too hot"

"yeah"

He smiles a bit, knowing that I'll be fine after a few minutes cooling down, and tells me to keep a cold water bottle against my groin to cool down quicker.

By the time I'm back on my feet, the tactic is over. I'm still a little shamed-faced over collapsing like that, but there's no point in dwelling on it. Pulling on my pants and helmet, I trudge over to help load the hose back on the truck. Evolution #3: partial success; I did find a few shreds of dignity discarded on the pavement after all.

Tactical Evolution #2

Radio: "Commercial Structure Fire, Roger I Wilson Memorial Drive. Engine 1301, Engine 701, Tanker 105, Tanker 505, Squad 104, Medic 231; Commercial Structure Fire, Roger I Wilson Memorial Drive. Engine 1301, Engine 701, Tanker 105, Tanker 505, Squad 104, Medic 231; Commercial Structure Fire, Roger I Wilson Memorial Drive, cross streets of East County Road and East Prathersville Road. Timeout 18:33 KLK 578 KJY 848

Sitting in the cab of Engine 1301, I listen to the dispatch go out over our local training center channel. Our second evolution is beginning. This time I've been assigned to the attack engine as the engineer, so instead of going inside the building with my fellow recruits, I'll be operating the pump from the engine. It also means that until the first "officer" shows up, I'll be in command of the incident.

I release the air brake with one hand while I pull the radio off the dash and up to my face:

"Columbia from Engine 1301"

"Engine 1301, go ahead"

"Engine 1301 is responding, times 2"

The guys in 701 (the supply engine for this incident) give a good-luck wave to me as I ease the engine in to gear and make the loop towards the burn building. I'm a little nervous, because I know that for the first 3 or 4 minutes, everybody who shows up will be asking me for everything. Beyond anything else, I don't want to look overwhelmed; quiet competence is my goal.

I have one other recruit riding with me, Anya, the only female in our class, and as we approach we quickly split up the work that needs to be done as soon as we reach the fire. Stopping at the spot where we know the supply engine will stationed, she jumps out of the cab to pull off a supply line and leave it for them. That way, as soon as 701 shows up, they can hook up to it and be feeding us more water quickly.

As if on cue, the radio crackles and our buddies in the supply engine come on the air:

"Columbia from Engine 701"

"Engine 701, go ahead"

"Engine 701 is responding, times 2"

It takes a little longer than I expected, so while I wait for her to get back into the cab, I go over my size up in my head, wanting to make sure that my radio traffic sounds professional when I actually perform it. Then Anya is back in the cab and we pull up to the building, the supply hose playing out behind us from the bed of the truck.

The building is tall and bland, made out of concrete and other fireproof materials, with metal window coverings all shut to give all the heat, smoke, and darkness of a real structure fire. I know the coaches are in there stoking up the flames right now, but from where I'm sitting there's no outward indicator of the inferno raging inside, so I pull up the radio again and go through what I'd been rehearsing in my head ever since I got my assignment to drive:

"Columbia from Engine 1301"

"Engine 1301, go ahead"

"Engine 1301 is on the scene. This is a 2 story commercial structure, nothing showing. Make this Training Center command, all units check in on the White channel on arrival."

"Receieved, Training Center command. All responding units check in on White on arrival."

I don't have time to be pleased with myself, this is the most critical time block for a real fire. 30 seconds is how long it takes for a fire to double in size, so we need to have a hose line in there as soon as physically possible. Anya is already throwing an airpack onto her back as I switch the fire engine from drive into pump mode. Realizing that it's going to take her a few seconds to get everything on and fastened, I grab the hoseline that she'll be using off the truck myself and run it up to the building, flaking out the kinks so it will be ready and waiting for her when she is ready to go inside. Just as I arrive back at the truck to start pulling tools off for her too, Carl (one of the other recruits) shows up at my side. For this scenario, he's playing the first lieutenant to show up at the scene, so I turn command over to him:

Carl: "What do we have?"

Me: "Nothing showing yet, Tveritinova and I are the only ones on scene. She'll be leading the first attack crew"

Carl: "Have you done a 360 yet?"

Me: "..No, I'm on it!"

Damn! Missed that one. Instead of pulling tools and hose for Anya, what I really should have been doing was walking around the building to see the fire signs from all angles and to see if there were any other hazards or exposures present. No time to dwell, though. As Carl sets up his command post, I take off around the building. All the window coverings are shut tight, so not much is visible, but as I pull around the last corner I can see light smoke pushing from an attic vent on the 4th side (the right side of the building).

Getting back to Carl, I notify him of the smoke, and he tasks the first attack crew with getting inside. I make it back to the pump panel, and this is when it gets crazy:

The first attack crew is at the door. They need water. I pull open the discharge valve for crosslay-1, and the hose they're holding fills quickly with pressurized water. They're off and into the building just as the next crew on scene grabs crosslay 2 and makes for the door. I'm setting them up with water too just as the supply engine calls up on the radio asking if they can send water yet. I tell them I don't have a supply line connected yet and to hold off for just a minute. Finishing flowing for the second crew, I make my way to the back of the truck, dodging incoming recruits who are pulling airpacks and tools out of all the compartments. I almost collide with another crew who's pulling off the large 2-and-a-half hose to pull around back and make entrance through the back of the building. They ask me to hook them up with water as soon as possible, so I grab their line instead of the supply line from 701 and dash back to the panel. I'm just finishing hooking them up to one of the exposed discharge outlets as another recruit taps me on the shoulder asking urgently for a thermal imaging camera. I try to help him find one, but it looks like the first attack crew took it with them, so I send him down to the supply engine to grab theirs while I run back to grab the supply line again and get it hooked up to my tank. Before I can pull the supply line around to the inlet on my panel, the crew going in the back door is calling for water over the radio, so I drop the line again and run back to the pump, charging their line as quickly as possible while trying to remind myself to open the water gate slowly to avoid damaging any of the internals. Once they're set, I go back and grab the supply line again, and finally get it dragged around and hooked up to my pump inlet. Breathing a little heavily, I radio the supply engine and ask them to charge the supply line, which quickly makes the hose at my feet leap to life as it pressurizes against the closed inlet on my pump.

Taking a breath, I step back and examine all the gauges on the panel. All the deployed hoselines are still reading the correct pressure, my tank's about 3/4 full, there's water recirculating to keep the pump cool, the pressure relief valve is set to keep pressure spikes from hitting the guys inside: everything looks as it should. Slowly, I open the inlet valve to allow water from the supply engine to start refilling my tank, while backing off on the throttle trying to keep the discharge pressure steady as the transition takes place. Then I wait.

That's the thing about being the engineer on the attack engine: it's nuts for about 3 minutes, and from then on as long as nothing goes wrong you are basically watching and waiting. You might make some minor adjustments to keep your tank full of water from the supply engine, but basically you sit and wait for some emergency to occur (hoseline breaking, pump malfunction, etc). Fortunately for me, the rest of the evolution went smoothly. The guys inside did great, and I was able to just hang tight until everyone got back out and needed the water shut down and drained.

Although I like to keep a humble attitude when people tell me I did a good job, in my mind I was grinning from ear to ear. I'd count this one a success.

Tactical Evolution #1

We're finally into our last few training sessions, and all real "training" is in the past. Now we're starting our first tactical evolution, a situation where the coaches setup a scenario as realistically as possible and have the recruits come in to deal with it as best they can.

Radio: "Commercial Structure Fire, Roger I Wilson Memorial Drive. Engine 1301, Engine 701, Tanker 105, Tanker 505, Squad 104, Medic 231; Commercial Structure Fire, Roger I Wilson Memorial Drive. Engine 1301, Engine 701, Tanker 105, Tanker 505, Squad 104, Medic 231; Commercial Structure Fire, Roger I Wilson Memorial Drive, cross streets of East County Road and East Prathersville Road. Timeout 18:33 KLK 578 KJY 848

Here we go. This is the very first time that we aren't involved in a closely supervised "tactic", the recruit class as a whole is just going to show up to this "incident" in waves and mitigate it as best we can.

"Columbia from Engine 1301"

"Engine 1301, go ahead"

"Engine 1301 is responding, times 2"

We're all parked on the far side of the training center, waiting for our chance to respond in, a coach at the front of the line doing traffic duty making sure we don't all show up at once.

For this scenario I'm a "POV", that is, I'm not coming on an apparatus from the station, I was just out around town when the call came in and I'm driving there in my car to help out. There's no real way to know what task you'll be taking care of until you show up.

The radio crackles again

"Columbia from Engine 701"

"Engine 701, go ahead"

"Engine 701 is responding, times 2"

I watch as the recruits in Engine 1301 pull around the last corner in their route and stop in front of the burn building, our commercial structure fire for the evening. I can hear the airbrake deploy as Jones (the recruit assigned as the operator) radios in his size up.

"Columbia, Engine 1301"

"Engine 1301, go ahead"

"Engine 1301 is on the scene. Got a....2 story....commercial structure...nothing showing. Make this Training Center command"

I'm too far away to see exactly what they're doing as they setup to go inside, but I've got too much to think about anyway. Being a POV is dangerous, for a host of reasons. The adrenaline can cause you to drive more erratically than you should, and personal vehicles don't draw attention the way fire trucks do, so accidents can happen easily if you are not serious about being careful. Then, once you've arrived, you're basically putting your gear on in a roadway, where it's too easy to get hit by passing traffic, distracted by the large incident ahead. Luckily in the safety of the training center that risk is mitigated, but you have to build habits the right way by always behaving as though you're in a real incident, on a real highway, with real danger.

Upon receiving the signal from our traffic coach, I drive off around the loop to report in to the fireground. As we were trained, I stop about 150' from the incident, put on my flashers, and throw my keys on the floorboard (so others can move it later if need be). Grabbing my gear bag out of the trunk, I toss it on the ground a little off the roadway and tear it open, keeping my head up watching for oncoming traffic. After 5 months of practice, the movements come naturally. Right boot, left boot, pants up, right suspender, left suspender...before I know it I have all my bunker gear on and I'm walking as fast as I can towards the command post.

My heart is already pounding, not from exertion but from excitement. Even though I know this isn't a real incident, there IS a real fire in there, and the adrenaline kicks in all the same.

Grabbing the tag off my helmet, I hand it to the incident commander (recruit Stephenson in this case), who tells me to go pack up and standby for assignment. Straining to show the watching officers some professionalism, I repeat my orders verbatim out loud, and make for the rear compartment of the attack engine where I can get myself an airpack.

This used to be a complicated process; no more. Although repetition isn't fun, it does it's job, and this is coming naturally. I yank the cord securing the pack in place, pull it off the rack, check to make sure it's full, open the bottle to pressurize the system (noting the correct sequence of sounds as the vibra-alert engages and the PASS system comes online), and throw the pack over my head and onto my shoulders. Walking back towards command, I pull all the straps tight against my body and check my face piece to make sure I'll have a good seal once I connect the airpack and start flowing oxygen.

Now the only question is what I'll be asked to do. On a large fire attack, there are many options. You need crews to search the building for victims, crews to attack the fire with hose lines, crews to wait by the doors to go in and help if something goes wrong.

The Incident commander grabs a group of 4 of us and pulls us towards him.

Stephenson (IC): "This will be Crew Vizitei, I need pitched roof ventilation, side 4"

Me: "Crew Vizitei will perform pitched roof ventilation, side 4"

Stephenson: "Affirmative!"

That's a tough tactic. Basically, he wants a hole cut in the roof, which is on a slant. It might seem like this is the "easy" work, since you aren't inside actually attacking the fire. All I can say is, you have to have attempted this to really appreciate how exhausting it can be. My job wasn't going to be bad - by designating us as "Crew Vizitei", he was indicating that I (Vizitei) would be the crew leader. My primary job would be to help the crew reach the roof, and stay in radio contact with command. It's the saw man who gets the tough job as he has to wield a chainsaw while standing precariously on a combination of ladders and axes, and then clear the hole he's made with a long and heavy pike pole. I know that whichever crewmember I assign that task is going to be beat afterward.

Tough, though, is what we signed up for. Handing out assignments to the other three crewmembers (one to wield the saw, one to support him on the roof with an axe, and one to hold the ladder), we go to work. It takes about 90 seconds to get the necessary equipment assembled at our climbing point, which is the easy part, and then the ladder is raised up against the roof and it's time to get started. My 2 roof crewmen are already climbing while I perform the necessary radio traffic to let the commander know we're starting:

"Command from Crew Vizitei"

"Crew Vizitei, this is Command

"Command, Crew Vizitei is beginning Pitched Roof Ventilation, Side 4"

"Crew Vizitei, beginning pitched roof ventilation, side 4"

"Affirmative!"

I snap my regluator into my facepiece, blinking as the first puff of air pressurizes the mask, grab an axe from the ground, and start my climb just as the 2nd of my crewmates disappears up over the lip of the roof.

Once at the top, I can see my guys are doing well so far. They've got the roof ladder secured over the peak of the roof, giving them a good place to stand, and the saw man already has his chainsaw in hand and running, just waiting for the tool man to give him a foot hold.

Handing the tool man the pick-headed axe, I remain on the ladder to watch, and to be available if something goes wrong. The tool man watches as the saw man sticks his foot out onto the roof showing where he wants to step. Then the saw man pulls his leg back to the ladder as the tool man swings high with the pick head of the axe, digging it deep into the roof to give the saw man a place to put his foot securely.

Then the cutting begins. I have nothing but sympathy for the guy doing that work, but he's doing great. After seven long cuts, a rectangle has been outlined in the roof, just waiting to be breached. The saw is handed back down to me on the ladder as the saw man picks up his pike pole and starts beating and tearing, opening the hole and digging down through the attic to breach the ceiling. Once it's good and open, we all make our way back down quickly and disconnect our face pieces to breathe fresh air again. Grabbing my radio clipped to my shoulder, I report back:

"Command from Crew Vizitei"

"Crew Vizitei, this is Command

"Command, Crew Vizitei has completed Pitched Roof Ventilation, Side 4. We are off the roof and PAR."

"Crew Vizitei, completed pitched roof ventilation, side 4, off the roof and PAR"

"Affirmative!"

"Rehab your bottles and check in with command"

"Received"

Guess that means we aren't getting a break. The four of us drop our tools in the staging area and make our way to the air truck where we exchange our depleted air tanks for full ones. Arriving back at the command post, they don't waste any time putting us back in the building.

Stephenson:"I need secondary searches on both floors. Split into two crews of two, Vizitei, you take Brandow and search the first floor. You other two, second story"

Me:"Crew Vizitei will enter structure side 1, and perform Secondary Search, first floor."

This is a bit of a break for us. Secondary search means that the primary team has already gone through looking for victims. We're going in to make sure they didn't miss anyone. Because the fire attack has already been through this section of the building, there is no longer any fire, and all the windows are open, so we have clear visibility and can walk around comfortably. It's just a matter of being thorough, making sure no one is trapped or hiding.

We're in and back out in about 5 minutes, just in time to hear the call for help come over the radio.

"Command, there IS fire extension in the attic. We cannot make attack! Hose is stuck in the stairwell, we need assistance."

The crew checking the attic has their hose caught up in 2 flights of stairs, which is a tough haul. Now they need to move farther in to stop the fire from coming back from the attic and undoing all our work, and they can't get in there to do it. The four of us closest to the door immediately are tasked with getting their hose up the stairs, and we charge in to help.

Hoses are extremely important to firefighting, as any observer could tell you. What most observers might not realize is just how heavy one of those hand-lines is. This is not a garden hose you're pulling. The hose is thick, and when full of water it's heavy and inflexible. It does indeed take all four of us spread out along the line to move that hose around the corners and up the stairs so that our buddies on the attack crew can get far enough into the attic to get their job done.

But they do it. All the victims are out and all the fire is extinguished, all that's left is chugging water and reloading all the equipment. Evolution #1 is a success. Time to reset everything and go again.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday

What do you do, as a firefighter, if you are injured, lost, stuck, or otherwise incapacitated while inside a burning building? The answer might be obvious to you from an objective perspective: you call for help! But it's not as easy as all that when you're on the fireground. There are, unfortunately, many reasons that firefighters don't call for help when they should. Some of it is machismo, because you don't want to be the guy who others had to come in and carry out. Some of it is unavoidable: if you're unconcious, you aren't going to be able to call for help. But a lot of the reluctance to call for assistance from other firefighters is just a misunderstanding of the situation that you're in. If a piece of roof falls on you trapping you underneath, you might believe that if you just wriggle the right way you'll be able to escape. So you struggle, and push, and strain trying to get yourself free. By the time you realize how truly stuck you are, you've exhausted all your energy and are probably running low on air. The team who comes in to try to save you may only have 5 minutes or less before your air runs out, and it's going to be hard to find you in that amount of time.

A big part of our training last saturday was to be made aware of those facts first and foremost. As soon as you get in trouble of any kind, as soon as the situation stops going the way you expected it to, you need to start calling for help immediately. That at least gives the firefighters who are coming to get you a bigger margin of time to get to you, and you can always send them back if you manage to escape by yourself.

Then we got to play in the maze.

In full bunker gear, with breathing tanks on, and blindfolded with a translucent film over our facepiece, we had to crawl through a maze that simulates many of the hazards found in a structure fire. You'd be crawling along, and a large piece of wood would fall on top of you (helped along by your sadistic coach). Now you're being crushed, and you just have to hope you've got enough wiggle room to get to your radio:

"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday"

Command: "All units hold for emergency traffic. Unit calling mayday, go ahead."

"Crew Vizitei is trapped on 1st floor, Charlie quadrant, near side 3 while performing Primary Search. Please dispatch RIT team."

Command: "RIT team is en route, Crew Vizitei, attempt self-rescue"

Now in general, this went pretty well. However, none of us were actually scared or worked up. We knew that even though we were pretty well trapped, it was just our coach who was holding the weight down on top of us or tangling us up in a cord or whatever, and that if we were to get in any serious distress he'd cut us loose. That meant that our radio traffic was pretty smooth and understandable. But it isn't like that in real life. We watched a video that day that would send chills down anybody's neck.

http://vodpod.com/watch/639646-houston-texas-firefighter-mayday

If you watch that all the way through, what you hear will scare the hell out of you. That firefighter captain went back in by himself to retrieve victims and became trapped on the 5th floor. When you hear him speak over the radio, you can tell he's under real duress, and that he isn't sure if he's coming out alive, and it makes it almost impossible to understand him. Can you tell what he's saying? Where he is? I can only imagine trying to control my voice to make sure others can understand me while my mind is gradually becoming more certain that I'm not going to make it.

So although we now know what to do, this is one of those skills we're learning that I hope I never have to use.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Cold Water Rescue

Training was not too tasking last night. Mostly what we're focusing on right now is knots and ropes. This should have worked out well for me as I'm an avid amateur rock climber, but it turns out that tying knots in fire gloves while under pressure is just a bit different from tying knots on a cool breezy day at the base of a rock face. I'll get there, though.

One of the more interesting things we got to play with was the cold water rescue suit. This is the piece of equipment that a firefighter dons when they need to go pull somebody up who has fallen through an iced over body of water. It's this big red piece of rubber that fits your body like a glove, stretching to fit all the way over your head, reminding me of a kid's onesie with a hood, entirely made out of 1-inch-thick-waterproof-thermal-insulating-material. Attached to the back is a large D-ring that a rescue rope is tied to so you are tethered to shore by your crewmates who are manning the rope, and in your pocket you carry an extension of that rope with a carabiner at the end to clip around your patient before pulling them out.

Once you're in, you have to start moving over the ice so that your weight is as spread out as possible, otherwise you'll just break through the ice in another spot, making it hard to get to the victim. In essence, they've found one of the better ways to do this is to lay flat on your side gripping your tether over your head and just to roll out to your victim like a bakers rolling pin. We practiced this in a grassy area, rolling out to rescue each other from the middle of a field, and it's a bizarre feeling. The suit holds air well, so as you roll from one side to the other, the pressure can change in the area around your head causing your ears to pop; your fingers don't move right because of the thickness of the material. I can only imagine how much tougher this would be on a cold day, moving over slippery ice, into a freezing hole in the center, all under the pressure of getting to a person who only will last mere minutes in that sort of environment.

Another interesting fact: we are taught a hand signal that means "I need help!". Sticking one arm straight up in the air means that you are in trouble and require assistance. My thought is, how is anybody going to help you? There's only one suit on the truck. You'd at least have to wait until the next due engine arrived for anyone else to get out there and lend a hand.

Firefighting is not always about fire, but it sure does seem to involve a lot of running straight into places most people should never go and doing things most people would be crazy to attempt.

What a cool job.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Water Supply for the layman

Without water, it's going to be pretty hard to knock down a fire; that's why you need so many more people to fight a fire than just the few people running into the building with hoses. Where does all that water come from?

Well, you might say, the fire engine of course! That's where the hoses are coming from, so that's where the water is. Great job, you'd make an excellent detective! But consider this: each one of our fire engines contains 750 gallons of water. That sounds like a lot, but it actually won't last as long as you thing. One regular hand line (a hose carried into a building) is usually configured to spray 125 gallons per minute. That's about 6 minutes of water for 1 hose; that's not that long, and it's not likely that you're fighting a large fire with just one hose. On anything larger than a regular room-and-contents fire, you're going to need a little more than that 750 gallons showing up in the first engine.

That's one of the reasons you send more than 1 fire engine to a fire: you need to be getting your water somewhere, and the engine pumping water into the house (the "attack" engine) doesn't have time to find out where the best place to get water is. So the next engine to show up (the "supply" engine) hooks up a large supply hose to the intake of the 1st engine and sends all the water in it's tank shooting into the tank of the attack engine. Alright, now you have about 1500 gallons of water, that's pretty good. Except you might have 3 hoses being used by this point, so you could possibly be using somewhere around 500 gallons a minute. In fact, some of the larger deck guns can shoot up to 1000 gallons per minute just by themselves. If you have a hydrant around, that's super, and in most metro areas you do. A good hydrant can flow over 1500 gallons every minute by itself, which is pretty good. However, not all hydrants have that level of pressure, and if you're in a more rural area you may not have a hydrant near enough to hook the supply engine into. Now what?

Here's where the well-oiled machine of teamwork comes into play, and it's a pretty impressive operation when it's running smoothly. Picture this:

The attack engine is pumping water onto the house as fast as it can. The supply engine is sending every drop it has available into the tank of the attack engine. By the supply engine are 2 large "fold-a-tanks", big steel frames with tarps inside of them that basically form a small pool that can hold over 2000 gallons of water. The supply engine has a suction hose dipped into the nearest tank and is sucking water in from it, but how is the water getting into the fold-a-tank?

From the tankers. Tankers are big firetrucks who's main job is to shuttle large amounts of water from one place to another. Each one (on our department) holds about 1500 gallons of water, and can dump it all into one of these tanks in about 30 seconds. So you get 2-3 of these tankers that are driving a circuit to the nearest hydrant or other water source: Fill up the truck, drive to the supply engine, dumpt the water, drive back to the water source. As long your water source doesn't go dry and your trucks don't break down, you can now put water on the fire all day if you need to. It's a marvel to watch when it goes right and this system is clicking like an oversized bucket brigade.

So you see, the heros running into the building are depending upon a large team on the outside to keep them in action. Pretty cool, huh?

Friday, April 24, 2009

New Article on Firelink

I have a new article that's been posted on firelink.com, this one regarding integrating into the crew as the new guy. Check it out at the following link:

The Brotherhood

Thursday, April 16, 2009

My kind of firefighting

This week is all about pumps. Maybe that doesn't sound that exciting to you, but for me this is a great week. You see, most of the necessary skills for firefighting have to do with physical ability. You need strength to move a victim, balance to climb and work from a ladder, endurance to spend time working in the heat of a fire environment without collapsing. I'm not BAD at that kind of thing; in fact, I'm in pretty good shape. But working the pump on a firetruck is mostly about simple math and abstract thought -- yes!

For those who are not part of the fire service, you should know that using the pump on a firetruck is more than just turning it on and letting the water flow. There are at least 8 points from where an engine can be discharging water, and each one of them has to have their pressure adjusted properly for the task at hand. Let me give you a simple example:

For a house fire, you might have 2 lines deployed off of the truck, both 1 3/4 inches in diameter. One might be 150 feet long because it's going in through the front door, the other might be 200 feet long because it's being taken in through the side of the house. Each one needs water pressure of 100 PSI (pounds per square inch) at the nozzle, and they each are running 125 gallons per minute of water through the hose. How much pressure does the pump need to be discharging at?

Well, when you push water through a 50ft stick of 1 3/4 inch hose at 125 GPM, it loses 12 PSI. So if you are pumping 112 PSI, by the time it reaches the end of that 50 foot length, it's down to 100. The longer of the 2 hoses deployed off the truck is 200 feet, which is 4 50 foot lengths, so the pump will have to be discharging 148 PSI to make sure that the longer hose has enough pressure. However, the shorter hose (the 150 foot one) only needs 136 PSI to have 100 PSI at the nozzle, so you would have the pump discharging at 148 PSI, and gate the shorter hose down to 136.

Now, there are many more complicated scenarios than that when you get into having multiple hoses of different sizes at different flow rates, and when you start incorporating things like standpipes to raise water up to a higher story in a building, and managing the intake into the truck at the same time from the water supply operations. This is the kind of material a geek can really get into.

Moral of the story: don't go thinking that firefighters are just brute muscle, they need some brains to get things done as well.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Monday, March 30, 2009

Drive Time

What's one of the most pure-fun parts of becoming a firefighter? Driving big trucks. Every little kid wants to do it, and it's for good reason: it feels really cool to be in control of something that big.

Yesterday I got to complete my first hour of drive time. In my department, before you can get your red helmet (you keep your orange recruit helmet until this point), you have to be checked off on every front-line apparatus at your station. This entails doing at least 10 hours of "drive time", which gets you familiar with your apparatus and with the area it responds to. My brother's station has an engine, a tanker, and a brush truck, so it could take a while for a new recruit to lose the "Probie" label, but my station just has 1 engine, so it should be a pretty quick process for me.

I met my station commander there in the afternoon, and while he was getting some paperwork printed off for to document the training, the senior Firefighter at the station pulled me aside for a second.

"Hey man, about your drive time...."

"Yeah?"

"It's like this: 1401 is the only truck we have, right? So, if you fuck up my truck, well; nothing personal, but I WILL have to fuck you up. Bad. Like, GI bleed, bad. And it's not cause I don't like you, it's just the way it is, right?"

"...right..."

Nothing like picking on the new guy. :)

So we started by the captain having me do a "360" before leaving. That's exactly what it sounds like: you just walk around the truck to make sure nothing is amiss before you start driving. All the compartments should be shut, nothing should be left sitting on the bumper, nobody should be taking a nap in front of the wheels, etc.

After that I jumped in and started her up, pulled outside, and got to talk over a real radio channel for the first time. This was something that was pretty cool to me. I've done plenty of radio traffic at the training center to other recruits and to instructors, but this was me actually talking to joint communications, so I felt my voice deepen a little as I addressed the city with the gravity I felt such a monumental piece of radio traffic deserved:

"Columbia from engine 1401"

Ok, maybe I deepened my voice a little to much. Oh well, can't worry about it now:

"1401 go ahead"

"engine 1401 is on the air"

"1401 on the air 14:43"

Woo-hoo! That was awesome!....Well, ok, now it doesn't seem so amazing after the fact, but at the time that was a serious rush for me.

We spent the next 1.5 hours driving around my station's runbox, the captain pointing out previous scenes where they had responded for interesting incidents. Vehicle extrications, fires, ice rescues, all kinds of exciting stuff. By the time we got back to the station I felt like we'd only been gone for 15 minutes, and I wasn't ready to get down off my power high just yet. Luckily, there's something fun I got to look forward to right at the end of the drive:

"Columbia from engine 1401"

"1401 go ahead"

"Engine 1401 is in quarters"

"1401 in quarters 16:24"

Yeah, that was fun.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Thanks to the Readers

These last couple of days have been amazing. Since my article went up on Firelink.com, I've gotten a huge influx of messages from firefighting veterans and recruits throughout the country. Some have sent stories of why they decided to become firefighters, others have just given me encouragement and advice for my training. I'm standing in awe at a community that is so quick to adopt and assist a newbie.

So this is my public thanks to all of the firefighters who contacted me either through comments or email, and to all those who were the inspiration for one of those individuals to join the fire service. I couldn't be more excited to be joining that family.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

New Opportunity

So, if you've enjoyed my writing so far on this blog, it's time to go take a look at my new platform as a featured writer on FireLink.com. I'll be doing a series for them on the recruit/probationary firefighter experience, and it should be interesting and fun reading. While you're there, if you want to support me, get an account with them (free) so you can rate my articles, comment on them, and connect with other members of the fire service community.

Here's the link:

http://www.firelink.com/benefits/articles/6802-firefighter-origins

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Primary Search

It's amazing what the human body can do when you push it hard enough.

Last night at fire training was the first time that I really felt just how physically tough this is going to be.

Chief:"Crew Vizitei, we've got a working fire! I want a primary search on floor 1, right hand search! Get going!"

Work on the fireground isn't the same as doing the same level of physical labor at the gym. You can't breathe freely, it's so hot under your gear, there's so much weight.

Me (into the radio):"Command, from Crew Vizitei! Smoke and flames showing on side 3! Crew Vizitei is making forcible entry on side 1, executing primary search 1, right hand search!"

You have to crawl everywhere, the heat would be too much to stand in, and you can't stand to get any hotter than you already are just from the exertion.

Me (to crewmate):"This door is hot! Get that nozzle ready, I'll open it on 3!...1!...2!...3!" (The door swings open, while my crewmate points the hose at the door just in case flames come shooting out)

It's dark. Too dark to see anything, even your crewmate crouched directly in front of you. You have to keep one hand on him all the time, or you won't know where you are anymore, or which way is out.

Crewmate:"I need more hose! I can't move forward!"

Me:"Hang on! Keep your head up, I'll pull in as much hose as I can!"

There's so much stuff to take with you. Flashlight, Thermal imager, axe, halligen, radio, not to mention the hose. Before you even pick up any of that stuff, you're already carrying 30 extra pounds on your back from the breathing tank on your back. And a hose that's pressurized with water doesn't move as easily as you might think.

Me (shouting at the top of my lungs):"Fire Department! Anybody in hear!?!"

You have to move fast, but you have to be thorough too. Kids like to hide under beds. People might be unconscious behind a piece of furniture. Shuffle, feel, shuffle, feel.

Me (into the radio):"Command, from Crew Vizitei! Victim Found! Making Exit side 1!"

Nothing is as hard to move as a limp body. Limbs can get caught around stuff, the body is heavy. You can't stand up because of the heat, you can't see where you're going, every time you pull with all your might, you only move about six inches. Your breathing gets fast, your body aches, you can't believe you have anything left in you to keep moving, but you're starting to run out of air and you can't stop because you have to get this victim out of the building. Your lungs burn, and your mind screams that you're at your limit, but you don't have a choice. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.

Me (to crewmate):"Stone!(pant, pant) I'm stuck! (pant) The victims arm...(pant)...is caught...(pant)...on the hose! (pant, pant)...Help!"

Stone:Ok, buddy! Push on 3!...1! 2! 3! PUSH!

Even once you're out of the doorway, you can't stop. You have to get away from the building. It's SO hot. You can't breathe. As you struggle to keep dragging, you work equally hard to tear your mask off as quickly as possible. Even with fresh air coming in, you can't shed heat fast enough. You can feel your clothes soaked and heavy from sweat underneath your fire gear.

Instructor:"Don't stop, we aren't done yet! What do you do now!?"

Me:"Radio...(pant)...command!"

Instructor:"Well, your radio fell out of your pocket inside, so you'd better go talk to them face to face"

Gotta get the gear off. It's so hot. Can't breathe. Keep walking. So Hot. Keep walking.

Me:"Command, this is crew Vizitei! (pant, pant)...lost our radio....(pant)...Crew vizitei is par....(pant)..plus one victim...(pant, pant)...primary search complete..."

Command:"Crew vizitei, par plus one victim, primary search complete"

Me:"...affirmative..."

Now you can fall over. Now you can tear all your gear off. Now you can get your pack off your back. Now you can poor a bottle of water over your head. But don't pass out. Don't throw up. Whatever you do, just stay calm.

It's amazing what the human body can do when you push it hard enough.