ANOTHER FRIEND DIED TODAY
EDITOR’S OPINION
Having friends and family in this business called fire is like playing roulette with serious injury and death notification.
My friend was an active man, a family man, a volunteer—a good man. No one else was at the fire station when an alarm announced fire in a downtown mercantile establishment. My friend leaped to the 20-ton fire truck and pulled it to the apron to await firefighters responding from home. “One, here’s two more, and another. Go.”
He didn’t have to go very far; town was only a short distance from the station—a left, a right, and straight to the fire.
Picking the best position possible, he rigged the cab, rechecked it, and opened the door. Turning to lOOk over his right shoulder at the fire building, he held fast to the door as he probed for the asphalt with one foot.
He understood the sudden pain in his chest—he’d had it before. That’s the last conscious act that my friend had on the fireground.
My friend died that day as his mind raced through his experienced size-up procedures. He spent many years in the community’s volunteer fire service. He held all ranks with dignity and honor. Now he was an “ex-chief,” back to the “back step.”
He was always looking for lessons for his “boys.” I’m sure he would want to share this one. What if the response were one more turn? What if it were a little farther into town, allowing the vehicle to pick up more speed? What of the welfare of those riding on that truck? He would have been the first to offer that critique.
And yet, what of my friend? What about the stressful situation of driving a fire truck to his own community’s downtown fire? Firefighter protection begins long before we get to the scene. There are too many firefighters that have experienced God-awful cardiovascular breakdowns. The lucky ones return to life’s mainstream. We owe it to them and to those who depend on them and love them to keep their membership in a beloved organization, but love them enough to keep them from a return to stress that may well have triggered the first warning.
Firefighter protection is not only turnouts and helmets. Remember my friend as you think about your friends and your department.
