Tales From the Station

One thing firefighters find out right away is that they’re going to fall down a lot in their fire service career. When I first got in the fire department we were experiencing a spike in structure fires. A lot of fires were put out through the tried and true “Surround and Drown” technique since we don’t risk firefighters lives to put out garage or shed fires.

At one shed fire I arrived and it was in my Uncle’s neighborhood and people had lined the road to watch. I had put on my gear and was running over to the fire when I heard someone yell my name. I turned to wave and never saw the ditch I was approaching. With a thump I landed face first on the lawn and skidded to a stop. I got up, dusted myself off and continued on to the sound of laughter.

I had gone to another fire at an abandoned home and was sent with another firefighter around back. The only problem with going around back is the scene lights were obscured by the house and the smoke. It was pretty dark and weeds and brush made the going tough. We got the hose around the house and we advanced it towards the house.

I saw a clearing and headed towards it to get away from all the brush growing around the house. I got about five feet from the house when I lost my footing and charged down a basement entrance at full speed. The steel doors that normally would have stopped someone from falling in the basement were missing. The result was I had fallen face first into a dirt floor basement that had already accumulated water from all the hoses.

I climbed back out of the basement and could only see my partner’s teeth from the laughter. When I did get out to where there was some light I realized I was mud from head to toe and the guys hosed me off. To add to that, somewhere along the line I had collected a coating of bird dogs to complete the picture.

At a structure fire one winter I was told to pack up (firefighter jargon for putting on an air pack). I proceeded to put on an air pack and got ready to make an interior fire attack. That day was cold, though, and the minute I put my mask on it fogged right over. We work using the buddy system so no one goes in alone. My partner had took off towards the fire and I gave chase.

I didn’t see the large fire hose laying across my path and I tripped falling flat on my face. With a pack on that meant I was turned turtle and needed help to get up. A hand came out of nowhere and assisted me back to vertical and led me to the fire.

When I was out of air I came back to the fire truck to take a break. That’s when I asked how many firefighters saw me wipe out. Imagine my surprise when I found out no one noticed. At the exact same time I wiped out an assistant chief was talking on his radio and walking around the building. He didn’t notice the ditch bordering the property and took a header right into the snow.

As I heard it, radio and white helmet when flying as the assistant chief went tumbling. Everyone’s attention was on the assistant chief and not one person noticed the air pack wearing firefighter lying face down in the snow just twenty feet away.