Titus 2 Men And Women

I Wish You Could Know What It Is Like To Be A Firefighter
by Master Firefighter Scott Robinson

This article was sent to me on one of the forums I belong to. I thought this would be a blessing to our visitors, so I have included it here. This is a slightly edited version of the original document I was sent. I removed some of the language that may offend a few of our visitors. We hope you enjoy this and along with our government and military, please remember rescue workers and their families in your prayers.
--Felix

I wish you could know what it is like to be a firefighter

Written by Master Firefighter Scott Robinson
Sandy Spring VFD - Station 4
2001

I wish you could know what it is like to search a burning bedroom for a trapped family, flames rolling over my head, my hands and knees burning as I crawl, the ceiling collapses and knocks me and my crew to the floor, momentarily trapping us. The family stands outside watching. Nobody told the firefighters that they were already out.

I wish you could know my compassion as I feel a wife's horror at 3 in the morning as I check her husband of 40 years for a pulse and find none. I start CPR anyway, hoping to bring him back, knowing that it is too late. In spite of that, we continue, wanting his wife and family to know everything possible was done to try to save his life.

I wish you could know the unique smell of burning insulation, the taste of soot, the feeling of intense heat through my turnout gear, the sound of flames roaring, the fear of not being able to see even my own hands in dense smoke.

I wish you could know what it is like to search a burning building and place my life and my crew's in peril to find a woman's "baby" only to learn that it was her pet dog and was already dead.

I wish you could know how it feels to go to work in the morning exhausted after having spent most of the night in a multiple alarm fire.

I wish you could read my mind as I respond to an alarm. "Is this a [bogus call], or a worker?" "How is the building constructed and how old is it?" "Is anyone trapped?" "Where is the closest water supply?" Or, if it's an EMS call, "What is wrong with the patient?" "Is it minor or life-threatening?" "Is this for real, or is it some nut-case waiting for me with a gun?"

I wish you could know the anxiety that I feel when I think, "Will this be the final call?" And wonder if I kissed my family goodbye and told them I love them before I left home today.

I wish you could stand with me in the emergency room as the doctor pronounces dead the beautiful teenage girl that I just pulled from a drunk-driving accident. She will never walk to the alter or utter the words "I love you daddy" again.

I wish you could know the frustration and anger that I feel in the cab of the rescue squad, the driver slamming the brakes hard as I sound the air horn and people fail to yield right-of-way to us as we try to reach the scene of an infant drowning in a pool. When they need us however, they are the first to comment about how long it took us to get there or how incompetent we are.

I wish you could know how helplessness I feel when I am the first to open a closet door and find a young man hanging dead from a rope because his girlfriend broke up with him.

I wish you could know my thoughts as I help extricate the body of a child from the remains of his parents' vehicle. I cry silently and think, "What if this was my son?" What are his parents going to say when they find out that "we're doing the best we can do" means we are taking their child's lifeless body out of a twisted mass of metal. Then I learn it wasn't the drunk driver's first offense.

I wish you could feel my compulsion to help others in their hour of need. I wish you could know how it feels to face my loved one and tell her that "it was a slow night" knowing ... that something went terribly wrong and I almost answered the last call.

I wish you could feel the hurt as untrained people verbally and physically abuse me or belittle what I do, as they second-guess my decisions or tell me how I could have done my job better.

I wish you could know what it is like to awaken in the night soaked with sweat and trembling with fear as I relive terrible calls over and over.

I wish you could know what it is like to watch a man place a gun to his head and pull the trigger right before my eyes, and it happened so fast that there was no time to react. He could have shot me instead.

I wish you could realize the physical, emotional and mental drain or missed meals, lost sleep and missed family events, in addition to all of the tragedy that my eyes have seen.

I wish you could know the exhilaration and self-satisfaction of helping to save a life, preserving someone's property, or being able to be there in the time of crisis, creating order from chaos.

I wish you could know what it is like to lose a fellow firefighter to the arsonist's flame. Only to see the arsonist get probation for his crime of murder. To some, the firefighter's life is cheap.

I wish you could know what it's like to have a little boy tugging at your arm and ask, "Is mommy OK?" Not even being able to look in his eyes without tears from your own welling up and not knowing what to say.

I wish you could know what it is like to hold back a hysterical man as he watches his long time buddy who has massive head trauma, is not breathing, and is being intubated. I know all along that his friend would have walked away from the accident if he had his seatbelt on. A story that I see again and again.

I wish you could know what it is like to have the County threaten to revoke my Paramedic License because I used my skills and the county's IVs and equipment to save a dog's life. Or what it is like to be called "unprofessional" by them because you are a volunteer. My 20+ years of experience and training don't matter.

I wish you could know what it was like to stand at the gates of hell and beg God to bring you home one more time.

I wish you could know what it is like to enter the remains of a once grand building. To see innocent workers dead at their desks. To remove the mangled and charred body of a child. To watch helplessly as three-hundred of my brother and sister firefighters are killed while doing their job. All died at the hands of the terrorist. I wish you could feel the anger burn my soul as I listen to those who can't acknowledge such evil acts preach love, acceptance and forgiveness of the terrorist and his harborers.

I wish you could know what it feels like to watch as the body of a brother firefighter who died in the World Trade Center is recovered, draped with the American flag, then taken by a hundred rescuers to lie in state in a ruined church. He passes by a hundred others, saluting and weeping in silence. Everyone of us knows that had we have been there it would have been us. Did he have a family? A wife? Children? Was it quick? Did it hurt?

I wish you could know what it is like, to stand there weeping and feel the pride as a civilian woman says to her husband, "How can they take the body of their dead friend into a church, leave them, and then go right back to work?" He replies, "They are firefighters. That's what they do. They are heros, all of them."

Finally but tragically, after 343 of our brothers and sisters are lost, the public has a glimpse of our lives. Bravery. Honor. Duty. Sacrifice.

Unless you have lived this life, or loved a firefighter, you will never truly understand who I am, who we are and what it is like to be a firefighter....I wish you could know what it is like.

This page has been displayed 2 times this month, 394 times since January 9, 2005.