A couple of nights ago I had the privilege to listen to my old fire department responding to a large commercial fire. I was pretty far away from the response, so I was actually able to listen to the response via the internet (gotta love technology). I started listening well after the response started, in fact, by the time I started listening it was already into the 2nd alarm assignment and two walls of the structure had already collapsed. So while listening I was able to post some of the things I was listening (as to maintain integrity) and acted as a social media based PIO, and what came the next few minutes and the next 12 hours was kind of interesting. Here is some of what happened.
First, notifications were starting to be made relating to a fire that was extending from the original event to a nice restaurant (that my wife really loves...ok so do I) nearby. Now, this is not uncommon for large fires to pass on, but after I mentioned this a friend that saw my commentary from facebook spoke to friends of hers that live in an upper floor of this building (secondary building) to ensure everything was ok. Well in this notification process, she found out that the friends were actually in Argentina at the time and appreciated the heads-up. Luckily no damage to their building as the fire was extinguished quickly.
Now even though I have left the fire depatrment that this call was associated with, I still deal with them on a regular basis and I certainly don't wish anything negative on any of them so my primary interest was on their safety. Then of course the secondary interest was putting out the fire on the roof of the restaurant building so that restaurant wouldn't close...it really is a cool restaurant. Now, comes the questions I received for the next 12 hours, first starting with my mother. The any NO...while I do miss parts of the job, I am completely happy where I am, but it does bring up an interesting question. Leaving a field in which you have a calling for it tough...how many of you have had to do it? Better offer, promotion, injury; it really doesn't matter when you have a profession as great as Fire/EMS, what can you do to prevent yourself from having some envy when they get on the good calls. Well here I can tell you that after the first hour and a half, I would be ready to head back to the station to prep for the next call. I guess the last couple of years of being able to sleep in my bed at night and only be stirred if one of my kids comes upstairs because they couldn't sleep, it is really hard to get excited about staying up to 4-5 o'clock in the morning to have misting master streams over head while you feet become water logged and frozen in the cold early spring nights.
So, I did find it exciting to listen to the radio traffic and to microblog right along with it, but I will keep may day job!!!
Take Care and Stay Safe
The Combomedic - David Blevins
twitter.com/dsblev
Comments
Post a Comment