By Mike Risk
What do you want to be when you grow up?
As kids, we were all asked this question either by a distant relative filling the awkward silence at a family gathering or a parent’s nosy friend. Nowadays, it might be your mom’s neighbor or that same distant relative, usually at a funeral, asking: why did you become a firefighter?
The typical answer: To help people. With a decade on the job, this was always my answer. It’s not a bad answer, but perhaps it’s a bit lazy.
The tones go off for any type of emergency, or even what people perceive to be an emergency. These incidents range from working fires to cats stuck in trees, lift assists, falls, heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, ducks trapped in a drain…everything.
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As soon as someone calls 911, we receive the call. Whatever it may be, it is very important to them. (As “Fit to Fight Fire” says, people call us on their worst day, and always expect our best.) No matter the call, or what we may be thinking about en route, these people called us for a reason. These are complete strangers who call us to their house, restaurant, or car. In my fire department, we run two firefighters out of each station. They open their doors for us, give us their garage codes, or tell us the hiding spots of spare keys to get into their home. When we arrive, they welcome us into their home and direct us to where we are needed. Some of these people may keep doors and rooms shut from other family members, but firefighters get free range. Often it’s just a bedroom, bathroom, or living room, but sometimes we get access to a room that nobody else knows about except the homeowner. Now we enter that home and found a patient or something that needs our attention. We may see parts of people that their spouses haven’t even seen. This speaks to a level of intimacy not frequently afforded to many others. Once we are on scene, we begin the process of helping the person in need; regardless of the type of call, you are helping that person.
Consider the lift assist for the married couple of 50 years who are both unable to walk without a walker. As you help their partner off the floor, they are effusive in their thanks that you came for them. They’re offering you baked goods as you walk out the door.
Consider the little girl whose cat is stuck in a car motor. After 30 minutes of rolling on the cement and sticking your hands in the engine compartment (all while saying, “Here, Fluffy”) you finally hand her the feline. She tackles you with a bear hug, and the neighbors get a kick out of seeing two grown men retrieve Fluffy from the car.
Consider the mom and two kids in the totaled minivan you rescued. By the grace of God, they are unharmed. The mom is still shaking. While she thanks you, the kids are wiping tears from their eyes, but they brighten up when they see your fire helmet and the flashing lights from the fire trucks and police cars.
Consider the family after a house fire that devastated their home and lives forever. Perhaps they thank you as you walk out with a family photo that was barely salvageable. Despite your sore, tired body under that wet, heavy, smoke-smelling gear, the smile on their faces warms your heart.
Consider the widowed wife who thanks you for working CPR and trying to resuscitate her husband for an hour. She is emotionally devasted as her kids come to be with her, but they thank you as you cover him with a sheet so they can say their final goodbyes.
Consider the domestic incident where one parent is badly beaten and another is going to jail. You ask the couple’s only child his name. He smiles and tells you, and you and a deputy show him the police car and your fire apparatus. As you leave the scene, he is smiling and waving his little hand with a plastic fire helmet on his head.
In all those instances, you are helping people. I had started writing this thinking I would come up with a better answer—that helping people is a lazy answer. As I wrote out all these things, it strikes me that, no, that is indeed why I do this job—to help people.
No matter the horrible things you see and have to deal with, that little smile or thank you makes it all worth it. When people ask why you are a firefighter, they immediately think of all the bad things you will see. But they do not understand the happiness you can bring to a person in each and every call.
So, I ask again: Why I do this Job? Once again I’ll say this time with a big grin on my face: because I want to help people and I like to help people.
Gratitude—and the Lack Thereof
The fact is, above I only highlighted the calls where people are appreciative of what we do. While most people are so truly thankful and grateful for our service, we do have those rare occasions when people don’t like us or are unhappy with the results when we show up.
Every firefighter knows this one. The 3 a.m. call for a person who has been sick for two weeks. You go there and the family is frustrated—not with you, but with why their family member has been sick for two weeks. They are up at 3 a.m. just like you (most people are not very happy being awake at 3 a.m.). You get the patient off to the hospital, come back to the station, and lie in bed, wide awake.
Then there’s the call where you think you and the crew do everything right, but the outcome is negative. The family is screaming, “What did you do?” or, “you made it worse.”
Or perhaps you’ve endured that call where the family is fighting you verbally—not physically, but sometimes it is close. Then you have to call the police department to the scene. When you leave, the family thinks you are bad guys.
Or else there’s that call for an accident with no injuries, just a car or in the roadway. You pull the engine up and block one lane out of five, and get out and clean up car parts. While cleaning up car parts and hoping not to get hit, people are giving you dirty looks as you block what they think is their only way home. As people stare or yell out the window, you just clean and block traffic until the tow truck gets there. Once the car is gone, you leave and the highway is open, and everyone is happy. As you drive back you can still feel the other drivers’ eyes glaring at you.
Most of our calls have a positive outcome, but we can’t neglect some of the more difficult aspects of the job. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows. We have negative calls and bad days, but often calls and days end with a smile.
It’s More Than the Calls
Why would you want to be a firefighter? Let’s take a look inside the station. Firefighting is much more than just the calls we go on. It’s certainly true that we are here to serve the public. While the calls are what everyone expects and knows, there are many things behind the scenes: the leadership or management, and in some cases the lack thereof. There are also the truck checks, the cleaning duties, the details, and the multiple trainings. I love all these things, but as with the calls outline above, not everything ends happily.
There may be those days you’re stuck with a salty partner with a lousy attitude. You many come in all happy and smiling and see that partner with a dark cloud above their head. No matter what happens during the day, to them it’s the worst day ever.
Then there are those days you do a truck check and pull the truck out to check the pump. The truck backs into a brand-new bay door, on a station not even a month old. (Do not laugh; this happened.)
Or perhaps you are 23.5 hours into your shift and you realize the radio you had all day has fallen off the rig and been run over and hopelessly mangled.
Consider the days you do not get to sit down because you are so busy, and, when you finally sit down, another tone goes off.
Maybe you come in from a four-day all refreshed, but you have to clean and do all the chores because the last shift ran all day and night. You have to get fuel, clean the bathrooms, mop the floors, and wash the truck. Yet we do this because we take pride in our work and our brothers and sisters would do the same for us.
An Obligation to Train
Sometimes, we may be at training evolutions where we want to give up because we are tired and sore. You have so much to do at the station, and training the same thing for the third time this month is sometimes frustrating. In your head, you may think you have the skills nailed down, and you’re still looking at five reports that are due. Everything may seem dumb, but the truth is otherwise—that constant training is about helping people.
In my career, I have been blessed to go to many training drills. I have been to trainings all across my state as well as out of state, and have attended the National Fire Academy in Maryland. I was also in Flames class and completed Class 27 (I’m number 279). This is a very intense 48-hour class, where you might get six hours of sleep in two days. Even when you are gone from your family or missing events and friends back home, remember that you are doing these things to help people. When you are climbing through a four-story hose maze after 47 hours of training, every inch of your body hurts. You finally open the door and see the light, and come out to a whole group of firefighters applauding you for completing an Intense program. You sit there with the 10 other firefighters who passed. You smile and say this is for them. Then on the long drive home you realize all the blood, sweat, and tears were worth it to help people.
Yes, even on these days, we are still here to help people. Everything we do goes into the calls and is seen in the public eye. But that washing the truck and cleaning the station is at the end of the day adds up to helping people. When people come to the station, the clean station shows them the pride we have. The clean, shiny, red truck going on calls shows them pride. That reflects your commitment to helping people.
It’s About Education
There are ups and downs in any job. With being a firefighter, you get to educate children and people on fire safety. Fire departments do quite a few community events to educate the public: truck tours, open houses, and public education at the elementary schools in your township.
For us, Tons of Trucks is where firefighters bring the ladder truck out with a bunch of other trucks (tractors, semis, bulldozers) to a school parking lot for kids to see. We spray the hose as kids line up for what seems like miles to spray the hose. Sure, your knees and back are hurting as sweat pours of your head. With all the pictures being taken by mothers and fathers of you and their children spraying the hose, you feel like a movie star. Yet this event helps to show kids and people that the truck is not scary and we are them to help.
Many departments do an open house in October every year, since October is Fire Prevention Month. An example is vehicle extraction, where firefighters demonstrate how to remove people from a mangled car. You might also smoke out the training tower and demonstrate how to do a search and rescue. There may be a hose-spraying station, where kids are allowed to spray the fire hose at a house model with flames in the windows. All the vehicles are out there for the public to see. Many departments offer food, as well. These kinds of events show the people what we do and open them up to our second home, the station.
Lastly, departments do fire safety education for elementary schools. We go to local schools and teach about what to do if there is a fire in your home. Also, we put on our gear to teach the kids not to fear us when we are searching for them in a house. These can represent some of the best parts of the job–seeing the kids light up with joy and value every word you say.
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It’s often said that this is the greatest job in the world, even after the good, bad, and ugly. The question remains: Why do you do this job?
To help people, of course, but face it, that’s what we do. We owe it to our citizens to remember that, regardless of the type of emergency, the people calling 911 are asking for our help, and we came and gave them our very best. To keep it simple, we helped them.
Mike RIsk is an EMT/firefighter for Macomb Township (MI) Fire Department and is a part of the county hazmat team.
