I'm an Aspie and I served for two years as a volunteer firefighter. I once lived in a small rural town in Pennsylvania. Unlike metropolitan areas which employed professional firefighters, folks who lived in rural communities had to rely on local volunteers. I recall a warm day in July when within a 24 hour period, our volunteers were called out SEVEN TIMES. I knew this because every time there was a fire call, the civil defense siren just one block from my home would begin to wail. I remember those guys driving past in their red firetruck with flashing lights and knew that some of them had to be past the ragged edge of exhaustion ... so I spoke with a friend who was already a volunteer and joined up three days later.
It was admittedly a hoot being a volunteer. All volunteers were issued a pager so as the borough's siren was going off, the tones on the pager would drop and I'd be out the door, running for my car. The station was just down the street and locals would be pulling in, jumping out of their vehicles, and running for their lockers.
Our bunker gear was always ready with the trousers down around the boots. I'd kick off my shoes, shove my feet into the boots, and pull the trousers up by the suspenders that went over my shoulders. After grabbing my bunker coat and helmet, I'd board the fire engine ... and with a minimum crew of 3 (driver/engineer and two firefighters), we'd pull out of the station. Other volunteers would follow in the rescue truck.
As we raced down Main Street, with blaring sirens and flashing lights, most people would pull off to the side of the road and stop - though the driver had to be careful because some idiots would literally brake to a stop in the middle of the road, forcing the engine to swerve around them.
The first time I ever responded to a major call, our chief turned around in the front passenger seat and told me that he had three simple rules that he expected me to follow. "Everyone comes home. Everyone comes home. Everyone comes home."
I knew from my training what he meant. We were a team and if we went into a burning building with 4 members, we came out with 4 members. The chief also reminded me that if I ever heard the air horn blowing from our engine, that was an emergency signal for us to immediately evacuate ... usually because flash over was about to occur ... a circumstance in which the interior of a given room or building was so hot that everything spontaneously burst into flames.
It was an interesting and memorable experience being a volunteer firefighter. There's something very odd and slightly disturbing about the mentality of people who rush into a burning building whilst others are running out.
I do not socialize very well but it felt good to be part of a team ... part of an extended family. On nights when we weren't training, we sometimes sat around the station house drinking sodas and eating pizza. On New Year's Day, we always met at the chief's house where his wife would serve up a traditional German meal of roasted pork with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. The community also chipped in and once a year we were treated to grilled steaks.
On some fire calls we'd be in support or would be supported by members of other volunteer fire stations. Our nearest neighbor was Gratz and most of the firefighters in Gratz were Amish ... so their response time was really slow because they had to go to their station using horse drawn buggies. They also had to wait for an "Englishman" (non-Amish) to drive the engine.
We hated working with the Amish because those guys had no fear ... and having some degree of fear is necessary if you want to stay alive.
I remember fighting a row fire in Millersburg. The fire had gotten up into the attic and was leaping across the firewalls to the entire building. The chief had sounded the air horn and my team was pulling out while those nuts from Gratz were rushing in.
The Amish eventually came out with smoking bunker gear. One guy had a partially melted helmet. They thought they were brave. We thought they were foolish.
The worst call I ever went on was a vehicular collision that involved four teenagers from our local high school. The car had been turning onto a rural road when it collided with a school bus that had been coming over a hill. The car had rolled into a ditch and some of the occupants hadn't been wearing their seat belts.
As we rolled towards the accident we heard that the original request for two medical evacuation helicopters had been cancelled. The firefighters who were already on the scene cancelled one flight and when we heard this our hearts dropped because we knew there were fatalities.
When we were on location, I saw one teenager lying in a field. He was on his back with his arms spread out beside him. I didn't see any injuries. He looked as though he was asleep but an EMT reported that he was dead.
The chief detailed two of us to set up a helicopter landing site ... so we grabbed four orange cones and set them up in a vacant field. We then assisted in a search and rescue. One kid was dead. The driver had escaped with just minor bruising. One teen had already been found and taken to an ambulance ... but where was the 4th kid?
We eventually found her in a creek bed where she had been thrown when the vehicle rolled. Some saplings had broken her fall by bending under her weight. She had miraculously landed in some damp soil and had narrowly avoided smashing her head against a pile of boulders. The saplings had popped back up and if she hadn't called to us, I don't know if we would have found her.
The EMT's loaded her onto a gurney and I was one of four volunteers who carried her to the rescue helicopter. As we hurried towards the improvised landing field, the girl grabbed my arm. "Please don't let me die! I'm pregnant!"
I didn't know what to say. Another firefighter soothed her with a generic reassurance. "You're going to be fine. We're almost there. Hang on."
The girl was loaded into the helicopter and as the aircraft lifted away, turning in the direction of Harrisburg, we learned that the other girl who had been loaded into the ambulance had just died.
It was a somber crew who returned to the station house. The chief told us that we had access to counseling if we needed it. None of us admitted to having any need. After I got home I sought out my pastor to tell her about my experience and I suddenly burst into tears. I didn't know the two kids who had died ... but the thought that these kids had died on a lonely field just one week before graduation was a terrible thought.
I once responded to a call in which a senior citizen had slipped and fallen in his home. A week had passed before anyone realized that he was missing and we found him dead, lying in his own filth. I can't imagine what a miserable way this was to die being alone and in pain ... but at least he had had the opportunity to lead a full life. The kids who died in the field were high school students who had had their whole lives ahead of them. They would never be married. They would never raise families. They would never go to college or have the opportunity to pursue a career.
It was sad and the memory of this event was just recalled to mind not by the OP but because yesterday 1st responders in my area staged an accident as part of a "Every 15 Minutes" program that was shared with our high school students. Below is a picture that I took from the staged accident. As you can see, this simulation involved a two car collision. The kids got to hear a dispatcher's instructions to 1st responders. They saw the police arrive followed by an ambulance and a fire truck. A helicopter later arrived along with a coroner and a hearse.
In this simulation, the firefighters used hydraulic tools to cut open the roof of the white compact. The teen was placed on a gurney what was then loaded into a helicopter. The helicopter took him to the emergency room of a hospital and filmmakers recorded his arrival and showed the aftermath in an operating room where doctors could not revive him. A film that we just watched today showed the parents arriving at the hospital and even thought this was a simulation, the scene was so real and the emotions were so vivid that they both burst into tears when they saw their kid lying "dead" in the operating room.
It was a powerful experience and the lesson we wanted the kids to learn was very simple. Don't drink and drive ... and BUCKLE UP!
Every 15 minutes in the United States someone dies in a collision. First responders REFUSE to call these collisions accidents because nearly all collisions are preventable ... but people do stupid things. They drink and drive. They text. They eat in the car and get distracted when they spill a drink ... and a lot of them don't wear seatbelts.
During my 2 years as a volunteer, I can't even begin to tell you how many calls I responded to because of vehicular accidents. I've seen people thrown through windshields. I've seen a trail of brain matter and blood running 50 feet down the asphalt from someone who was thrown from a car. I once saw a man who had been impaled by a tree branch when his ATV rolled and he was thrown off a ridge and down a hill. The branch WENT THROUGH HIS HELMET and we had to use a chainsaw to cut the branch loose.
I once held a woman in my arms as she cried because she had been slung sideways in a collision. She was hanging partway out of the passenger side of a car. Her vehicle had been t-boned at an intersection and she was pinned in place by the driver's body and the crumbled wreckage.
I held this woman in my arms and she told me about her family while volunteers worked to cut her loose.
She died in my arms.
She was talking one moment about her youngest daughter and her voice cut off in mid sentence. One moment she was alive and the next moment she wasn't .... and there was absolutely nothing I could do. Since she was dead, we suspended our rescue operations because the state troopers now had to document a vehicular death ... two deaths really because the driver had also died. They took pictures and videos of everything and we were there for 2-3 hours waiting for them to finish so we could cut the two bodies free for the waiting coroner.
It was a terrible experience that I hope none of you will ever have to go through.
The driver of the other vehicle walked away with nothing but a few bruises. He was arrested for DUI and is now serving a life sentence for manslaughter since his stupidity caused him to kill two people. I mean honestly ... what the heck is SO HARD to understand? Don't drink and drive! We hear this all the time on TV and yet people still do it! Why are some people so frigging stupid? I wouldn't mind so much if these idiots killed themselves off and preserved the gene pool by not passing on their stupidity to other generations ... but when they take a life, there's a ripple effect that affects families and entire communities for years to come. I hope that jerk rots in state prison. I feel no compassion for him at all. None. He had FOUR prior DUIs and was clearly too stupid to learn from his mistakes. He took two lives and destroyed a family. The surviving members of this family will move on but their lives will never be the same because there will always be two vacant places at the table. When this moron finally dies, I hope he burns in Hell.
Sadly, volunteer firefighters have no health coverage and I was finally injured during a call. On one particular day, only 3 of us showed up ... the bare minimum for a response. We rolled in response to a carbon monoxide alert that had sounded in someone's home in the basement next to the furnace. After arriving, the engineer stayed with the vehicle while the rest of us pulled on air masks and oxygen tanks. We entered the house and started down the basement stairs ... and in the darkness I stepped on a pile of magazines that the homeowner had left stacked along one side of the stairway. I began to fall and as I fell I had a split second to make a decision. I could fall on my teammate or throw myself at an angle against the wall. I threw myself against the wall and twisted my knee. I finished the call and went home but in the morning, I found that I couldn't bend my left leg. It was months before I recovered and I still have problems bending that leg.
