Chapter 8 - Good Towels

CHAPTER 8 - Good Towels

"What were you doing having Beumer take your picture in your bunker gear in front of the engine?  Who are you seeing now and what is wrong with her?"

"She is hot Cap, you want to see a picture of her?"
"No she isn't,  what would a hot chick be doing with you?
"No Cap, she is smoking hot"  I can hear Tom laughing on the top bunk.

"If she isn't ugly and she is with you, she is crazy.  Based on your last girlfriend you should stick with women who are both ugly and slow.  Work yourself up to plain and boring...but for now ugly and slow is the best bet for you"

A large arm extends over the edge of the top bunk bed holding an open cell phone
with a picture on it.   "Take a look at my new girlfriend Cap"

"You better not be in the picture Tom, and you damn sure better not be naked.  I should never have to see you naked.  If you are critically hurt, burned, or dying, I am going to make the medic's cover you up while they treat you.  There is no chick hot enough to cancel out you being naked in the picture.." I tell him as I am reaching under the bed to grab my reading glasses.  

Tom is a square jawed graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy with a relaxed, easy going manner.  He is painfully honest about almost every aspect of his life.  When Tom got divorced, we got divorced right along with him.  When he started meeting women and dating again, we were with him for all of those fun, painful, and awkward moments.

Tom laughs harder and shakes the phone at me again.  I grab it and look at the picture.  There is a great looking woman in her early 40's.  She is wearing a very short plaid skirt, a white shirt unbuttoned all the way down, show casing beautiful large breasts that do not appear to be original equipment.  White knee socks and black high heels complete the ensemble.  She is bent over a wooden kitchen chair showing a off a yoga butt in low riding white bikini panties.

"How did you get her to do that?    "How do you get a woman to do that?" 
"She wanted to do it"
"No she didn't, and she does not look drunk or retarded.  You know you can go to jail for for having a retarded woman dress like that"
"She isn't retarded"
"Who took the picture?"
"I did"  I see his head hanging over the top bunk and he is grinning like the Cheshire cat.

Chris has rolled over on his elbows on the other bunk.  
"Throw me the phone Cap, lemmie see."
"You guys want to hear the rest of the story?"
"NO" everyone within earshot in the bunk room says simultaneously.  We know from previous experience that Tom will tell us the story in greater detail that we are prepared for.

The green light of the plectron lights up the room.  The familiar voice of the dispatcher comes over the radio.

2203, 2223, RESPOND 231 4th Street AND STAGE FOR A SUICIDE ATTEMPT

Everyone is out of bunks and pulling on workshirts and boots and walking down the stairs to the engine.  The quiet is a stark contrast to the banter of a minute ago.  

On the rack next to the door everyone grabs a hand held radio.  As they get into their assigned seats on the engine, everyone is double checking their gear with that OCD that all good firefighters have a touch of.  They are checking the same gear they checked less than an hour ago.  The address is close, less than 2 miles away.  

"Engine 3 in route, status 4, non emergent, confirm SO has been dispatched" I say into the hand held radio.  Short hand for we are going without lights and sirens and will wait for the sheriff officer to give us the all clear to respond in.  I look at Tom and shake my head and he smiles.   I am grateful we will have a Tom story waiting for us when we get back from this call.

Suicides are the most demanding calls we respond to, they require a depth of understanding that most of us do not possess or need in our normal day to day lives.  My observations about suicide (like most everyone else's), are made in the safety of the circle of my family or friends and in the light of a painless day.  Up close, suicide is complex and those clear observations I have at distance, seem terribly misinformed and just plain mean to the people who are going through this particular hell.  Like most everything else, suicide looks very different up close. 

"No lights or sirens, that is the Hunting Ridge subdivision, drive slow so the SO has time to clear the address.  Stage off of road 5 until the give us the OK." 
""Tom, you and Chris will have patient care"
"Beumer, you are going to be an extra set of eyes on anyone else in the house".  You guys know wearing blue does not mean shit, you all look like cops"
"Pay attention in there, if anyone one is going to do stupid shit, they are not going to announce it, they are just going to do it.  No brave shit, because brave shit is almost always stupid shit"  

We can see the lights of the patrol cars up ahead.  The engine comes to a quiet stop 1/4 mile away.  The homes here are in th 500K range and on 5 acre lots with shops and barns. .  

"Nice houses, this is high end"
"When we respond, park out on the street and leave the driveway open for the ambulance"
"Did they say how?"
"No, but we will find out in a couple of minutes"

The dispatchers voice comes over the radio and I hold up a hand so everyone will stop talking and hear the radio traffic.

2203, 2223 IT IS CODE 4 TO RESPOND IN
Code 4, everything is safe to respond in per procedure.  Nothing is ever safe, complacency kills firefighters.  Under the best of circumstances people can unpredictable. In cases like this there is just no way to tell how anyone will respond to the house filling up with blue uniforms.    The family or person you are helping never does quite respond like you would expect or want them to.  Any combination of emotional pain, drugs, or alcohol can give the smallest person super human strength.    
The house is showroom nice.  Nothing in the yard is out of place, every shrub and flowerbed is neatly manicured.  A beat up Mustang in yard is the only thing that seems out of place.  There is large wrap around porch that is well lit.  Sitting on the porch in a large white rocky chair is a tall lanky kid who is watching us walk towards him.   Bent over in front of him is a smaller man in his late 50's holding a bundle of towels on his lap and pushing down.  He is sweating and he looks exhausted.  He is talking to the kid in quiet, easy voice and I cannot make out what he is saying.

"Fire Department" I say in a conversational tone.
"What is going on fellas?"
"My wrists are cut" 
"Do you mind if I take a look?  What is your name?"
"Josh, my name is Josh"
"Josh let me look, do you have anything that is going to hurt me?"
"No, not at all"
"Josh are your parents home?"
"I am Dad" the man says, standing up slowly and he cannot stop his hands from shaking.

Josh's hands are cold to the touch and curled and cupped like he is trying to make the letter C.  Dad was trying to stop the bleeding by applying direct pressure with bathroom towels. 

"Josh, Chris is going to put these on your wrists" I hold up curlex bandages to show him.
"Chris is going to raise your hands up and hold them so we can completely stop the bleeding.  If it gets uncomfortable or you start to get anxious tell us and we will do something different"

I nod to Chris and he applies the curlex and slowly raises his hands.  This was a genuine suicide attempt.  The cuts are deep and down to the bone.  

"Josh, do you feel like hurting yourself now or hurting me?
"Naw, I am done, I am sorry for this"
"Not a problem Josh, I am going to ask you a bunch of questions that I ask everyone.  I am not a cop, I need to know so I can treat you"
"Yea, shoot, no problem ask away"

I am asking him general history and medical questions. Josh is not what I expected to find, he is easy to talk to and has a round open face.  When he smiles his entire face opens up and you cannot help but smile back at him.   

"That is my car" He flips his head to the old beat up mustang in the driveway."
"I am restoring it"
"What have you done with it?"
"Engine and transmission so far, it will outrun anything out there"  
"Yes it will" his Dad says as he sits down two freshly folded towels, his hands seem to be shaking worse now.  I am looking at him now thinking I may have 2 patients.  

Josh smiles broadly again, and despite everything, his dad smiles back.  Josh scares me, if he did not have his arms above his head with a firefighter holding bandages to the wrists, nothing in his demeanor would seem odd.  If he was talking to me, I am not sure I would have recognized he is in the kind of pain that would drive a suicide attempt.  On the surface he seems like a great kid.  Out of the corner of my eye, I see a woman walk up to the porch where we are with Josh.

"Those are my good towels" she says pointing at the folded towels and the blood towels on the floor.  She takes a long look at all of us and turns me to me.
"My good towels, these are my good towels"
"Ma'am we are not using your towels, we have our own gear"
"My good towels. 

There are times to say nothing.  I want to tell her that those bloody towels at his feet used by his Dad may have saved his life. I want to tell her no one gives a flying fuck about 100 dollars worth of designer towels.   I turn back to Josh and stay focused on him but the damage has already been done.  Chris still has Josh's arms up.  Josh cheeks are crimson and he has stopped looking at anyone.  He has a blank look, the transformation is frightening.   Dad stands up without a word and walks back into the house.  I can hear her walk away behind me. 

"Josh the ambulance is here.  We are going to load you up and get you checked out"  He is the polar opposite of the kid I was just talking to a minute ago.  His cheeks are still crimson and he is staring off to the side, not responding to me.   There is a heaviness about him that feels like despair.  It is going to be a quiet ride to the hospital.

"I have tried this before"
"What?"
"Suicide"
"When did you try it and how did you try to do it?"
"It was my birthday last month"

It is a bumpy ride and I am sitting on the bench next to him laying out the things to start an IV on him.  I am tying off the tourniquet and I am glad to talk about something lighter with him.

"Yea?  hey Happy Birthday"
"You want to know what I got for my birthday?"
"Tell me"
"A gun, I got a fucking handgun"  
"Isn't that the most fucked up thing you ever heard of?"  

He does not wait for an answer.  His eyes tear up for a moment but he does not cry.  That look of despair is back back and then Josh his eyes go blank.  He turns his head away from me and does not say another word.  The rest of the ride to the hospital is quiet.

When we get to the hospital, I hand him off to the Emergency Room doctors and I tell him to take care of himself.  I would like to go back into the room and tell him how completely fucked up it was that he was given a gun but I can't.  

It feels good to step out into the night air.  Most of the people we touch are put back together by dedicated professionals we see only briefly.  The best days are when you leave them with people who can put them all back together.  

I see Tom and Chris sitting in the engine.  Tom is talking to Chris, who is laughing and I know I am missing the start of the new girlfriend story.


EPILOGUE

It is the spring of the year and I sitting at the kitchen table with a hot cup of coffee.   I see his picture in the obituaries.   

Chapter 7 Elmo

Chapter 7 ELMO

I am beyond tired.

We are cleaning up hose from a structure fire at a gas station last night right off the Interstate. Dirty hoselines stretch from the engine all the way to the western horizon. Picking up hose is a long and painful exercise. You bend at the waist, roll the hose into a small donut and roll up the remaining hose up into a giant donut of very dirty hose. When we get back to the station, we will take it off the truck, throw out the rolls, clean the hose and hang them to dry. Then we can reload the hose from the rack.

We are going to be doing this forever.
I am at least 10 years older than most of the guys on the crew. Because I am the oldest, I am always the last one to sit down and today that is taking its toll on me. Nothing sounds better than a hot shower, a couple of a ibuprofenand a bottomless cup of hot coffee.

I love every miserable minute of this, I was always supposed to be a firefighter. My youth was wasted on a series of jobs that were not my true vocation. I got remarried late in life to a profession I love. Even as I look at the endless dirty hoselines, its hard to think that that I would ever find another job I love like this."Hey Lawler, send Tom over for coffee"

Beep Beep Beep
Engine 3, Paramedic 3 respond to Burger King for an unresponsive male

"It looks like we are all going" Chris says.
The address is right across the street where we are working. I am relieved that I will not be rolling hose for the next little while and hope the young guys will get a lot of it done before we get back. When we are done with the call we can get hot coffee and breakfast sandwiches.

The crew gets in the engine also glad to not be picking up hoselines. 

Engine 3 responding

We arrive in minutes and as we pull up that there is a body face down lying by the order board. No one is touching the person and I am thinking we have found a body.

Engine 3 arrival with one unresponsive patient in the drive through, establishing BK command, we are investigating.

I can smell the booze before we get to him. One Hispanic male flat on his face in front of the menu board in the drive thru. Everyone is looking around to find a car that may rolled away or any indication that this person was hit by a car.

The Sheriff Officer is pointing to the car behind the man in the drive thru. "She said he staggered in front of her car, yelled at the ordering box and fell down. He has alcohol onboard"

In a department where I am the only person of color, I hate to see incidents involving minorities. In our response area, most of the Hispanic wage earners work in agricultural, and the turkey processing plant in town. They work hard all week and when they have a day off during the week they play as hard as they work.

Protecting his head and neck we roll him over and find him breathing on his own and without difficulty. A wave of old beer and vomit wash over all of as he is rolled over. Quick check does not show any airway compromise, deformity, significant trauma, or blood loss. I am doing a quick secondary assessment when the patient starts to stir.

"Alto" I say to the patient and he stops and stares up at me. 

 
This is the moment I have waited for. I do not speak Spanish and everyone expects me to. Thank you Elmo, thank you Sesame Street, I am speaking Spanish to this guy and he understands me.
I ask my partner to take his vital signs and get a quick head to toe assessment done.

“Hasta Tomado?” I am on thin ice now. I have just asked him how much he has had to drink. Mercifully, he starts counting on his fingers in Spanish. He has stopped at nine and is holding up nine figures. I announce the result to everyone helping providing patient care and the Sheriff's Officers standing over us all.

"He has 9 drinks" said Captain Obvious

"Cerveza?" I ask and he nods. That does not need any translation. .
Everyone nods silently and I am floored. I am a runaway train now, way past my Sesame Street Spanish. I want to stop speaking Spanish but I can’t stop myself.

“Donde te dwelle?” I am asking where it hurts. Up until this point it does not occur to me that at some point he will answer me in Spanish I cannot understand. I should have stopped with “Alto” and called it a day. Any minute he will start talking in rapid fire Spanish that I will not understand or the Sheriff’s officer will ask me to ask him a question. I out way past thin ice.

The patient is in his late 40’s and has the look of a farm worker. Bronzed and wrinkled by the sun he is lean with strong arms and shoulders. He points to the laceration on his head and speaks to me in rapid fire Spanish. I have no clue what he has just said, but he is clearly looking at me, glad to have an interpreter, a brown face among all of the white ones. He still stinks of booze and is trying to lay back down on the pavement.

Drawing on all of my medical training, I announce in succinct medical terms just what is wrong with him.

"His head hurts”. I cannot stop myself from pointing to the laceration on his head his head.

"Paramedics are here"

I stand up, and walk towards the ambulance, glad for the last second reprieve. I am giving the paramedic a quick turnover report and he has assumed patient care.

After giving the paramedic’s a brief report I motion to my crew to come back to engine. Now we can stop for coffee, it looks like all the dirty hose is picked up and a quick update on the radio tells me there is a fresh crew back at the station ready to clean and replace the hose on the engine when we get back. 

 
Suddenly not as tired, I have my second wind now. I am more pleased with myself that I am able to admit, if I knew no one was looking I would be punching the air with my fists.

Engine 3 in service

I see the paramedic’s loading the guy up and walk over to the Sheriff’s officer to tell him we are leaving. He is facing me and I am facing away from my crew. The officer now asks me if I can ask the guy how he got there, was he with anyone else, does he have a car and to find out home address, phone number, and explain to him that he is going to detox.

Elmo where are you now?

I explain to the officer that the dialect of Spanish he is speaking is confusing for me and I am worried that I will misinterpret something or use a term he would not be familiar with. This is technically correct, his use of Spanish is confusing for me and the possibility that I could use a term that could confuse him is very probable.

Walking away from the State Patrolman, I turn to my crew and give them the thumbs up. We have saved lives and property today. I tell the engineer who is driving the engine to pull up next to the Starbucks down the street. I am buying.

Chapter 5 Tow Truck

Chapter 5 Tow Truck



"It has to be one of your people" I hear Chris say over the headset.


I can't help but smile at that. There are 2 bars within 5 miles of each other on this stretch of Interstate that cater to completely different sets of clientele. Time of day and mile marker are good indications of which patrons you might be assisting on any given night.

"Breakfast, says it isn't" I tell him. In the glow of the cab, I can see him smile and shake his head, never taking his eyes off the road. At 6' 4" in his turnout gear Chris is an imposing figure. He carries himself with the bearing of an experienced firefighter and has calm, steady manner that brings structure to the most chaotic of situations. Outside of the firehouse his 6' 4" frame looks lanky in the button down shirts and slacks. With a receding hairline and his silver reading glasses, he has a the look of a professor or lawyer. With his graduate degree in finance he should have been working his way up a corporate ladder somewhere. He is Clark Kent, a dorky Clark Kent who is hands down the bravest firefighter that I know. He also is the only male I know who can wear a bowtie and make it work.

Traffic on the Interstate is now slowing to a stop. A state patrolman waves the engine through and we see a traffic accident that is blocking both lanes of traffic.

Engine 3 arrival"Engine 3 arrival, one car accident with heavy damage, this will be 249 command"

I say providing our initial arrival report to the dispatcher. Chris is already outside setting up the portable lights and staging tools we may need. I step out of the engine and he hands me a portable box light without saying a word. I always appreciate not having to ask for the things I need here so I can focus on the larger picture.

As we walk towards the accident, there is a handful of people standing around a car that is on its roof. No one is bent down looking into the car or calling out information to us. That usually means the driver is among those standing or he is still inside the car itself. As we get closer, people are pointing down into the car, not looking down themselves, and stepping away.

The driver was partially ejected into the guardrail and is heavily pinned in the car itself. His injuries are traumatic and extensive, it is clear this is a fatality. Chris is already herding the bystanders to a safe spot close to the state patrolman.

"Check the car and do a quick walk round" I tell Chris

I reach down to see if there is a carotid pulse and find none. We need to find out how many people were in the car or were involved. He is already on his hands and knee's shining a box light into the car.

"I got nothing" he says and I look down at the driver again

Trying to describe extensive injuries and give them the appropriate weight is impossible to do. They are stark and raw in a way that is that is hard to articulate. You don't gain any additional insight or depth of character from seeing things like this. Early in my career I thought seeing these things was a right of passage. Now I think is is part of the job that is given far too much attention. Like a lot of firefighters I have become practiced in looking beyond what I see and focus on the immediate tasks at hand.

"249 Command, shutdown all incoming engines to non emergent, continue the ambulance emergent"

We have a code black, an obvious death but I cannot make this pronouncement, it has to done by paramedics. I get on a tactical radio channel to give update to the ambulance so they can start the corner to the location.

Chris is pointing at the yellow lights that are down by the State Patrol car. "Tow truck is here" I can see the patrolman leaning into the tow truck and he points down where I am standing. As he gets closer I point to a spot on the shoulder just ahead of the accident.

The tow truck driver is walking towards me. 40 years old and on the heavy side, he looks like he just rolled out of bed. Despite the cold, he is only wearing a t-shirt and overalls. He is pulling his ball cap out of his back pocket and bending the brim with his hands when he walks up.

"Sit tight for now, we have to wait for the coroner and figure out the best way to get the driver out" We are getting him covered up, so give us a minute, you don't want to see this"

As soon as the words leave my mouth, he is walking around the car to look.

"There is not much that bother's me anymore" he saying looking down.

As I look at his response to what he is seeing, I think he has in found at least one more thing that bothers him. He starts to say something but his voice trails off and he looks over at me. To make matters worse, as much as it has affected him he feels compelled to stand there for another couple of minutes so we understand he is not affected by this.

Chris is leaning on the car from the other side and he is rolling his eyes. It seems like tragedy loves the company of stupidity. They always seem to follow each other and tonight they are hanging out again After a painful, uncomfortable minute he says "Let me know, I will be in my truck" and walks back to the tow truck.

The second engine is still 10 minutes away. We have checked for gas leaks and but we need to turn the car off and take the keys out of the ignition. The car is on its top and the driver and part of the car are melded into the guard rail. I see Chris looking at the car and we both know the keys have to come out of the ignition. One of us will have to crawl in the passenger window, maneuver around the body and turn the car off. The car is not running but the lights, radio, and electrical system are all on. While they are on this poses a risk to incoming crews that we have to address.

Crawling into a car with a body is a nerve racking under the best of circumstances. At 02:00 AM in the morning it is worse because there is very little light in the car itself and we are not going to get much light in there. There is no real room for a flashlight or to wear a helmet with a light on it.

We are both looking at the passenger door trying to figure out the fastest way to get in there to get the keys. Neither one of us wants to be the one who has to get the keys and both of us will offer to get the keys.

Under normal circumstances, this can be very straight forward. Lowest ranking person who will not have an issue with doing this would be directed to get the keys. On paper I outrank Chris. Out on I25 at 02:00 AM, I do not outrank him. We have almost the same years of service and level of experience. Most importantly we have a deep abiding trust in each other and our crews. Outside of the station, we are friends who ride together, drink together, and hang out together. Tonight that is bad news because normally I would have a pass on things like this.

We turn our backs to the State Patrolman and the on lookers. I extend my outstretched palm with a fist on it.

"One out of one" I tell him and he nods. Rock, Paper, Scissors.

"Scissors cut paper" he says holding his scissor fingers in front of my face. He laughs at me and offers to get the keys from the car. Boy, I would love to take him up on this offer but I can’t. I appreciate that he is like this, he would crawl in the car without any complaint.

We walk back over to the car. Without asking he grabs a box light and follows me over to the car. I get down on my hands and knees and glance in the car. I see the outline of the driver and know enough to not shine a light directly into the car where I would end up seeing more that I need to.
Everyone is a little claustrophobic. Crawling into a car with a body will make anyone claustrophobic. I start crawling into the passenger side through the broken out window. Careful to stay focused on the ignition and the key; I start to slide into the car. It is only a matter of six feet or so but because I cannot turn around or move it feels like a longer more confined space than it really is.

I am at the steering wheel and I take a deep breath as I push his torso over to get to the key out of the ignition. He is so cold already and it takes a conscious effort to not pull back. As I reach around him his arm falls on to my back. I have to fight off momentary panic, I can’t pull his arm off without re-positioning myself and I just have to leave the arm there. I can turn the key off but I can’t find the button to pull the key out of the ignition. After a couple of attempts to remove the key, I start to think of the tow truck driver and realize there really is no real reason to struggle to try to get the key. It is time to get out of the car.

I slide back out of the car in a measured, deliberate way and find myself on my back looking up at Chris looking down at me.

"Fuck, Fuck, Fuck" I say as he is reaching down to pull me up to a standing position. He has been in this exact position and knows how it is but he cannot resist calling me out on it.

"Pussy" he says smiling

We walk back to the engine to wait for the coroner and try to get warm again and discuss how to remove the driver. It would be quick to pull or slide the car away from the guard rail and pop the door. That is quickly ruled out as we can't do it without creating more damage to the drive than the accident caused. It matters to each of us that no additional trauma is caused. For the brief time the driver is with us, he is our father, son, brother, or friend, and we treat him accordingly. Plan B is to pull the car over on it’s wheels. I wave the tow truck driver over who seems hesitant to walk towards the car. It is hard not to smile at this. Tragedy is still here on the Interstate but Stupidity has left the building. I explain to him quickly that we need to flip the car onto its wheels. He says he can do it and gets set up to do this.

I recognize the white van of the coroner. Every time I see her she causes me to pause. She has a disarming sense of humor and always seems to be dressed exceptionally well despite the hour or circumstance. She is quick and methodical and is walking over to the engine to let us know that she is ready to take him. We need to remove him from the car.

We have all of the tools ready to go and the tow truck driver is sitting in his truck waiting for us to tell him what is needed. The clock has started; we are ready to get him out as quickly as possible. State Patrol has shut down the road and we are focused on the task at hand.

I always believe in worse case scenario and Murphy’s Law. If it can go wrong, it will. I envision the car being flipped over and the driver being shot across two lanes of traffic. This would happen in full view of the horrified people who are sitting in their car trying to see around the engine and the patrol car.  The driver will land at the feet of the fearless tow truck driver who will clutch his chest and collapse of a massive heart attack. The quiet of the night only broken up only by the rhythmic whop, whop, whop of the news helicopter overhead, with our FIRE DEPARTMENT logo and our last names clearly visible on the morning news show.

The tow truck driver has the car hooked up and whistles that he is ready and is waving tentative thumbs up at me. I go over the plan with Chris and tell the coroner we will have him in a couple of minutes. She smiles, adjusts the bag on the gurney and stands (looking really good in a pinstriped pants suit) ready. I point to him, give him thumbs up and close one eye.

Mercifully the car lands on all 4 wheels with a whump and the driver slides over in the seat invisible to everyone. We have the spreaders and pop the driver’s door off the hinges. Chris pushes him up into a sitting position and within a minute we are able to move the dashboard up enough to free him. I turn to the coroner who is waiting with the gurney. She wheels this up and lowers it to the height of the seat the driver is sitting on. He slides off easily and we have him in the white bad in no time. Zipped up, she wheels him over into the white vans and closes the door. Five maybe six minutes to get him out, not bad at all.

The tow truck driver is backing up the truck to load up the car. He seems quiet and focused on getting the car on his truck and getting the hell out there as quickly as he can. From here it does not look like he is clutching his heart.

The people in the cars waiting are looking tired and bored but starting to stir because the road is going to open in a couple of minutes.

The coroner is gone with the kid in the back of her van.

I poke a gloved finger at Chris "You owe me breakfast"

Chapter 6 - Big Feet

CHAPTER 6 Big Feet


Today is my day, Fathers Day and it is more excruciating to lay in bed and be quiet today. I have gotten a glimpse at almost every gift that I will be given today and I want to open those gifts. If I wake the house up, the start of the day will be strained for everyone. The dogs stir first, and head to the kitchen to position themselves in front of the sliding glass door. They will prance around until I let them out. While they are out, I will reheat a cup of coffee, while making a new pot. The dogs will come back in and wake the kids and Laura up. About 30 minutes later, the house is awake. A gradual start to the day is easier on everyone in the house, especially me. All of my charm, wit, and humor cannot alter the order that the house needs to wake up in.

Father’s day means breakfast in bed for me. Megan will want to make sure I am still in bed for this to count as breakfast in bed. The dogs are in the room and are sound asleep. I try to stare them awake, tap the headboard quietly, but they are both down soundly sleeping.  No longer able to take it, I roll over and scratch the dog’s head that is on the floor on my side of the bed. Her eyes open but she does not raise her head. I pull on her ears, poke her so she will stir and start the process. If she wakes up and goes the to sliding glass door I have started to process. The dog gives me a disgusted look and goes into the living room to lie down in front of the couch were I will not follow her.  I am reaching over to nudge the other dog, he has one bleary eye open and is looking at me.


Beep, Beep Beep.
Engine 3 respond to rollover accident I25 & Mile Marker 245

No one will be up for another hour or so. I shut off the pager slip on my pants and head out the door.
I always believe in worst case scenario, it is always worse than they say, more people involved, tools break, radio’s go dead, and there are never enough firefighters on the engine. This morning feels like the exception, it feels like nothing. I will go out, it will be nothing and I will have killed an hour or so, have cup of coffee at the station and still be able to slip between the sheets before the house is fully awake.

As I pull up to the station I see that Chris’s truck is already out front. He is already in his gear as I walk through the door. Chris is calm, measured and methodical in his approach to everything. We work together, play together, and ride together. Exceptionally cool under pressure, it is always a relief to see him at the station.

"Happy Father's Day" Chris says

"What you got planned..." he is interrupted as the station radio comes to life. 

Engine 3, Colorado State Patrol on scene is reporting party has been ejected.

Engine 3 en route status 2, please put Air Life on standby" 

 I acknowledge the radio transmission I am mentally kicking myself. NOTHING is routine. How many times and how often do I tell this to my crews? Complacency & routine calls kill firefighters; you always plan for worst case. Today is already worst case.

The Interstate never does seem to take a holiday and Father's Day is no exception.

It is a busy morning. Engine 1 is 10 minutes away and the ambulance is just coming back from Longmont. We are going to be the first engine on scene.

It is a clear June morning and a brief rain storm has just come through, making the smell of the asphalt more distinct. As the engine pulls up on to the top of the overpass I see a white SUV in the field next to the Interstate and a state patrolman walking towards something I cannot quite make out.

We arrive a minute later. 

Engine 3 Arrival, Single Vehicle Rollover 245 Command
I am going over the list of what I need to do quickly in my head. The incoming ambulance and engine crews will be listening to the radio for an update. They will be able to tell how bad it is by the tone and inflection of my voice. Calm, measured tones can carry the unmistakable sound of how bad thing are at the scene.

The list in my head continues. There is a patient with significant trauma and I will need to launch the helicopter to get the driver to a level 1 trauma center within 6 minutes. Almost immediately after call for Air Life, the dispatcher will come up on the radio and ask me who the ground contact will be. I have no one at the moment and it will have to be me. The incoming engines will be listening to the radio traffic and what I don’t say is as important as what I do say. They will listen to the tone of my voice and try to interpret what I am dealing with. They know we are only 2 firefighters strong and if we have anything at all, we will be painfully short handed. I am conscious of this as I give updates on the radio to dispatch.

We pull up on the shoulder next to the field. From here the white SUV looks heavily damaged.

"I will get medical and O2 bag" I tell Chris
"Get backboard and collar bag"
There is a wide path of debris leading up to the crumpled white SUV. Clothes, CD’s, papers and books. The closer we get the worse the SUV looks. It looks bad, but this may be one of those times when the laws of physics are ignored. What you see and what it turns out to be are not always the same.

"Keep an eye out for another patient" I remind Chris and he nods.
The walk towards the SUV seems too long and too quiet. The only sound is the noise we are making is the sound of our bunker pants against the tall wet grass. The State Patrolman is about 30 feet from the SUV and is looking down, he must have found the driver.

We get to the SUV and the damage is extensive. I stick my head in the window and look around. Nothing, there is nothing in the SUV. We turn our attention to the State Patrolman who is still looking down at what must be the driver. We start walking towards him again and I am struck by the fact that he is not squatting down or bending over. He looks down for a long moment then looks over at us approaching him, he isn’t animated. He does not have a sense of urgency.

WAVE…I want him to motion me over to him, ask me to hurry. I want him to lean down and not raise his head back up. I want him to be impatient that I am walking in a deliberate way towards him.

I am getting nothing from him at all.  He looks down again and does not look up until we reach him and at the young boy he is standing over. The injuries are massive and traumatic; there is no way to perform basic life support functions on him. I understand why the patrolman did not say anything. As you look at him it is clear that he is dead. I reach down and feel for a pulse on his neck and due the extent of the injuries, even this is hard to do.

I get back on the radio.

Engine 3, Continue Ambulance, Cancel Engine 1, Possible Code Black.
Code Black is radio call sign for a death in the field. The paramedic’s arrive, park behind the engine and walk over to where we are standing. After a brief glance, they are calling into the emergency room doctor to do a field pronouncement.

"I can help you deliver that chair tomorrow" I tell Chris. This is a delivery for the business runs.
"Cool, thanks, I will buy you lunch for that"

And for a minute, we are not on the Interstate on Fathers Day. The inane, helping taking the edge of the scene that is unfolding in front of us.

He has huge feet, with unlaced high top tennis shoes. One his shoes is halfway off his foot and the sock is pulled way down. I have to resist the urge to reach down and pull his sock up. My guess is he is not much older than 16.

We quietly help pick up the gear the paramedics and our own gear. One of us will stay with him per our protocol. Staying with him is more than protocol, for the brief time we are with him, he is our brother, our son and we treat him that way.

The corner arrives and we are working with her to get him to her white van that is parked on the Interstate. He is wearing only one huge tennis shoe and for inexplicable reason I cannot bring myself to put his tennis shoe completely on his foot. I feel compelled to pull up both of his socks before he is transported.

The state patrolman has pulled the boys wallet. I notice for the first time there are temporary tags on the SUV. I walk away before I can hear how old he really is or what his name is. This is my best defense against carrying him with me for an indeterminate amount of time. I do not want to take him home with me on this day most of all. Father’s day every year has been about what I gained when both my children were born. I do not want to pause to contemplate that I man, a father like me will hear the most horrifying news of his life in an hour or two.

It is a quiet ride back to the station. I talk to Chris about the specifics of the chair delivery, careful to stay away from mentioning that it is Fathers Day today. The inane coming to the rescue for huge elephant in the cab of the engine on the ride back to the station. 

When I get back home the dogs are pacing in front of the sliding glass door. There is a pair of huge tennis shoes (Jake wears a size 13) and I pick them both up put them aside. I let the dogs out and back in and climb back into bed.

In another 15 minutes, I hear the kids banging around in the kitchen, I am glad the transition back to home is quick and busy. I have learned that when I am witness to those intimate, compelling events, regular time does not stop. Sinks back up, kids need rides, the normal day to day business of navigating the week does not stop.

It will always be a delicate balance balancing firefighter time with regular time.

Today, I am glad that the two laughing faces looking across the table from me have tipped the scale heavily on the side of regular time. Father's day is in full swing here. After a breakfast of eggs and pancakes in a way that only kids can do them, we had banana splits for lunch.

The kid with the big feet did two things. I hug my kids a little harder and longer on Fathers Day now and I remember how deeply I love them every time I smell the summer rain on hot asphalt.

Chapter 4 - Pig Lung Hero

Chapter 4 Pig Lung Hero

Jake has volunteered me to be a parent volunteer for a school project that he is sure I will be good at. Because of the non traditional hours I work, I am able to help out a lot during the day. Time already seems to be flying by and I am taking advantage of the time I do have. Both kids love to see me at school and because we do the Fire Safety Presentations in October, I have official hero status.
I did not think to ask him what the project was. He is always glad when I am able to be the parent volunteer and that still tugs at my heart.

I show up in the designated classroom and Jake walks over to lead me to his table. On the tables there a big plastic boxes and the smell of bad meat. There is a parent at each table and they all look as uncomfortable as I feel now. 

 
The teacher announces that today they are going to dissect a pig heart and lungs. There is an assumption that because I am a firefighter I have a higher tolerance for blood and guts. The truth is that when it comes to animals, I have a very low tolerance for any kind of traumatic injuries. If the trauma is worse, my reaction is stronger. Animals hurt in accidents or as a result of neglect make me quesy and give me the dry heaves. When this happens on a call, I have to have another person on the crew handle it. 

 
I open the lid of the cardboard box lined with heavy plastic and a nauseating wave of smells escape from the box. The scrambled eggs, toast, and sausage are really heavy in my stomach right now.
The teacher introduces all of the parent helpers and she tells the class I am a firefighter. There are a couple of oohs and ahhs in the class.

No pressure.

The teacher is walking all of the parent helpers through the dissection. On command we all put gloves on and remove the pig heart and lung from the box. Half of the kids at my table look lke I feel. My savior in the group is young AJ. AJ is looking horrified at the heart and the lungs on the table and is looking pale. He does not touch the heart or the lungs and when he glances over at them he starts to look pale.

I tell him it is ok not to look and by talking to him, I don't have to look so I feel a lot better - but not looking is short lived. The teacher produces long straws and announces we are going to inflate the lungs.

I am at a table with 4 kids (including AJ). Each kid has a straw and is trying to inflate the pig lungs. It is nauseating to look at and I am trying not to look. I am coaxing each kid to blow as hard as they can. Even AJ, has come back to the table and considering an attempt to inflate a pig lung. I keep telling him, he is OK to just watch and he looks relieved. Just when I think I am out of the woods, Jake hands me his straw and asks me to see how full I can blow the lungs up.

Jake, when you read this, I hope you realize how dearly and deeply I love you. There are two people on the planet I would inflate a pig lung for, the other one is your sister. 

 
I picked up the straw and blew hard and the lungs on the table were huge. Another round of ahh's. I smiled with the straw still in my mouth and all of that air in the pig lungs gets blown right back into my mouth. 

In what is without a doubt the bravest thing I will ever do as a firefighter, I smile and hand the straw back to Jake, who beaming. I have full blown hero status. 

AJ immediately heads over to the trashcan by the teachers desk and is heaving. I walk over to make sure he is alright and sit with him on the pretense of calming him down.

Firefighters do not throw up in elementary school trash cans. They throw up at home after going through a half a tube of toothpaste and half a bottle of mouthwash..

Chapter 3 Smiling Cheeseburger

Chapter 3 Smiling Cheeseburger

Chapter 3 -Cheeseburger

Every time I tell the “cut toe guy” story, I can see the guys who have heard it before roll their eyes. I feel compelled to tell the new guys the story. Complacency can kill you or the person you are trying to help.

The "cut toe guy" starts with an early morning dispatch to "male with a cut toe at the residence”. When the dispatch came, I had just served up a big spoon of scrambled eggs and had a piece of toast in my mouth. I put a huge forkful of egg in my mouth because I know this steaming plate of eggs I am leaving will be barely edible when I get back. You can never reheat eggs and have them taste good. .

There is general grumbling because breakfast will be cold by the time we get back. You wonder why a guy with a cut toe would not wrap it up and go the Emergency Room himself.

Engine 3 enroute status 4

We are less than 2 miles away and arrive within minutes.

"Tom, you and Chris have patient care, take everything in, O2, and med kit" I tell them.

Engine 3 arrival 14th street command
When we pull up, nothing looks like a cut toe. Sitting on the steps is visibly shaken delivery driver with his head in his hands. He looks up when we arrive and points to the open door.
Just on the inside of the open door of the house, we find a middle aged man with a cut toe who is also not breathing and has no pulse. Based on what we are observing he has been down for an extended period of time.

That is the "Cut Toe Guy" story.

The real danger in firefighting is the routine, what we do is never routine. Routine calls and responses kill firefighters. When it feels like the dispatch is sending us on another cut toe guy call, I take the opportunity to retell the story or remind them of the cut toe guy. Nothing is routine, until proven otherwise.

Today we being dispatched to an unknown medical at McDonald's. I remind everyone about the cut toe guy and get groans in response. 

 
When our engine arrives, the restaurant is packed with summer holiday travelers. Red faced kids, glad to be out of the car and a lot of tired looking parents.

People are nudging each other and looking around to find out why we are there. There is a tight circle of people who are standing around a man in his 50's, who on is laying on his back by the soft drink dispenser.

The 20 year old manager has his arms folded across his chest and has a worried look on his face. I walk over to him to ask him what has happened but as soon as he sees the crew, he walks around the counter quickly, looking relieved to no longer be in charge.

I look down and find a semi conscious heavy set man in his mid 50’s. Dressed in a pair of loose fitting khaki shorts and a open polyester shirt with a t-shirt underneath. He is sweaty, pale, and disoriented. I smile and start talking to him in even measured tones. I notice that most everyone has stopped eating and in the space that we are in, the silence feels loud. Chris is getting oxygen on him and Tom is doing an initial set of vital signs. Everyone is watching the crew work and is waiting expectantly for some drama to unfold. 

An earnest women in her mid 20's is kneeling beside him. She is telling me she is was an EMT a couple of years ago and she can help. I thank her, tell her we have it and politely move her away.

My goal here is no unfolding drama. I am talking to him in a calm, confident tones and trying to put him (and everyone else who is listening) at ease.

The worried middle aged lady sitting awkwardly on the floor holding his hand is his wife. She is trying to maintain her composure for both of them. I introduce myself and I am getting a medical history from her when the paramedics arrive.

I can tell from her expression and the look in her eyes how uncomfortable and scared she is right now. In the practiced voice of a mother and a wife, she is telling her husband in a calm and reassuring voice that everything will be OK. In another minute she will have to make a couple of quick decisions on how to handle the logistics of getting to the hospital in a strange town and taking care of the car.

In another 5 minutes she will be making more decisions on how to manage pulling everything together for both of them for the next couple of days. He will wake up in a couple of hours or days in the hospital and the first thing he will see is her tired, happy face. 

This is the quiet kind of courage that I always find remarkable. You will not find this picture on a poster and this is the very definition of courage itself. Courage is simply the refusal to give up for the sake of someone else. She is the bravest person in the room now and she just does not know it. I wish I could tell her that she is doing something exceptional, that it makes all the difference in the world, but we need to take care of the business at hand - her husband.

As I am kneeling next to him on the floor and thinking about the courage of his wife, I look over and see a stunning woman in her mid 30’s sitting on top of a laughing cheeseburger stools with her son. She is facing me with a half wrapped hamburger in her hand, arm hanging by her side, Her other hand is on the neck of a 5 year old who is unwrapping the toy in his happy meal.

She smiles at me and she follows my gaze to her knee’s where she is sitting in a very casual way. We both realize at the same moment that she is not wearing panties. An uncomfortable moment passes while both of us figure out what to do. The Hallmark moment of the brave wife has passed and it is now painful not to break out in a broad smile.

I am a big fan of the sudden gust of wind, the dress that gets stuck on the chair or door, the reach that shows more intended but not too much. This is the way the universe says “have a nice day”. Kneeling on the hard tile and feeling my uniform pants stick to the floor with a semi conscious 55 year old is not the time I expected the Universe to tell me to have a nice day. 

As stunning as she is, seeing her without panties on a smiling cheeseburger is not the best look for her. All of the cheeseburgers that people are sitting on are smiling and happy, but the one she is on looks happier than the rest of them. Even in the controlled chaos of the moment it is hard not to break into a smile thinking about how much happier her cheeseburger is than the others.

I nod to her and smile in the most generic way possible and as I am turning back to the patient she looks at me apologetically, mouths the words “I’m sorry” and swings those great legs back under the table.

Sorry? I would love to tell her that she should not be sorry. For every firefighter there are calls that will accompany you for an indeterminate amount of time. This is one of those calls that follows me to this day.

Every cheeseburger I meet will forever smile at me.

Chapter 2 - The Crying Game

CHAPTER 2 - The Crying Game


I am listening to the Prairie Home Companion radio show on National Public Radio. Garrison Keillor is telling the fictional story of a stoic Minnesota woman who buried a son and later a husband without ever crying openly for either one. When the same woman's dog died, she started crying and could not stop. It is great listening, alternately sad and funny. 

The lesson for him is clear, if you can cry a little each day you will be able to stop crying when your dog dies. I just finished kicking my flatulent dog Boomer out of the kitchen. He is glaring at me from the comfort of his dog bed, making it harder to imagine me having a extended crying jag for him.

Cry a little each day? Except for the weeks following my dad’s death, I cannot remember consecutive days where I was fighting back tears. I am like most every other guy out there. I live in the space that is between emotionally distant and emotionally available. Wide swings in my emotional availability can be directly associated with alcohol consumption.

I apply old school man logic to things like this. I have got to think if you are crying daily, you need to be under the care of a qualified health care professional. 

Good sound man logic until two things happened to me.

The first was the channel surfing episode. I was home and enjoying one of those rare free afternoon. Sitting on couch, muddy shoes on the coffee table and a cold can of Pepsi sweating a wet ring on the freshly polished coffee table. I am flipping through the channels and watching everything I would never admit to watching.

The exercise channel lady who is dressed like a stripper carrying around 2 lb dumbbells and not doing anything that resembles exercising. 

The rapper on the music music video channels who wants big butts and is surrounded by some of the biggest butts I have seen.

Daytime talk show hosts who are giving a lot of people (who should never have it) their 15 minutes of fame. People of every description are taking their clothes off, yelling an endless stream of profanities at the hosts, the audience and each other. 

Most shocking police car chases, fights, robberies, and shoot outs. There is an amazing, unending source of video clips that pander to the lowest common denominator in people.
The TV is treating me like the pig I am.

I end up on the Hallmark channel and catch 2 minutes of Little House on the Prairie. Little Laura Engels is sobbing and Michael Landon puts his hand on her shoulder and she looks up at him and his eyes water. For some inexplicable reason my eyes are also tearing up.

I take my feet off the table, wipe the end table with my sleeve and put my can on a coaster. I am embarrassed; I am not sure how I can be embarrassed when no one is around to see me, but I am. I did not do that. I have an allergy, something in my eye, or I am getting sick.

The second thing happened a couple of days later while I was working as an EMT at a karate tournament at the local high school. I spent the morning watching very small kids kick the living hell out of each other.

I cringe when two young kids are kicking each other for any reason. It does not help that they are wearing the standard white uniforms. When it comes to kids, the Dad voice will always be the loudest in my head. Yelling, kicking kids make that voice louder and overrides any appreciation I may have had for the discipline of the sport.

Just before the lunch, the final results are announced for the 7-8 year old girls. A tiny girl with a long brown braid is announced as the 3rd place finisher. Up in the bleachers you can see two middle aged women punching each other in the shoulder, yelling, whistling, and woo hooing for all they are worth. That makes everyone smile. The little girl is called up to the podium and bows deeply as the judge puts the medal around her neck. When she looks up her brown eyes are wide and red rimmed and a single tear rolls down her check. My eyes also begin tearing up. Now there are people to be embarrassed in front of and I feel embarrassed. I am looking around to make sure no one picked up on me doing that.

Now I am worried, I have a vision of my dog dying and me slipping into a depression, a year long crying jag that I cannot stop. Poetic justice, because I will become the person I was making fun of just a short time ago. It seems like I have to keep relearning the Karma lesson.

As a firefighter, I have seen people enduring catastrophic and life changing events, a lot of things that were worth crying for but never the less things I did not cry for.

I have seen how lives change in an instant with a speed and finality that is stunning. I have a deeper appreciation of how a moment in time can have a life of its own. Those single moments can be short lived or they can last an indeterminate amount of time. I only know that I do not get to determine length of time that these intimate moments of strangers will stay with me. 

 
Many of those moments stay with me with a clarity that keeps them at the forefront of my thoughts. They are not haunting or painful memories. They remind me everyday things are not always everyday things.

The 85 year old man who is bent awkwardly over the body of his wife, holding her in an embrace that looks tender and desperate at the same time.

The trophies, ribbons, and smiling pictures in the room of a teenager who has taken her own life.

The anguish of a mother who has come from identifying her oldest son to find us working to save the life of her younger son along the same road. Two separate accidents on the same stretch of road 4 hours apart.

The badly wrapped gift next to the rolled over SUV on Father's day morning.

The fishing poles and carefully packed lunch the 14 year old is trying to pick up. His father was covered by a blanket on the ground next to the demolished truck that was hit by a drunk driver at 08:00 in the morning.

Everyday things that stop being everyday things. Moments for me, entire lifetimes for the people who live them. There are a lot of things that a firefighter does not cry for.

Firefighters are the strangers who start to pick up the pieces and put order back into those unimaginable situations that are difficult for people to process. It is work that belongs with a stranger. The professional men and women who help you manage those first crucial steps should be people you only have a vague memory of.

The people who come after firefighters are the people who will hold their hands as the first wave of realization or grief washes over people who are angry or need to grieve. Grief is one of the most intimate expressions a person can have. Intimate details are gifts that belong to a person who is willing to cry all of the tears needed to start the healing process. This is not what firefighters do.
Being a regular witness gives you a deep appreciation for the people who endure the process. Some of those moments and people will remain fresh in my memory for periods of time I simply have no control over. Most fade with time and new ones always seem to take the place of old ones. A few are still with me today. 

As firefighters, we only read the last page of the book. Not the beginning, middle or end, the last page. It is easier not to cry that one would imagine, never really knowing the entire story.

Every time I think I am not empathetic, I think about what they tell you when you fly. Put your mask (oxygen) on before attempting to help anyone else. Two passed out people holding masks may seem more heartfelt but it lacks the practicality that is needed to be a good firefighter.

Well, I have answered the question then. When my dog dies, I will cry, but will be able to stop.
I am certainly a kinder, gentler, person than when I started. By my calculations this puts me somewhere between introspective and “not quite the asshole I was”. Being kinder and gentler is a function of time distance, and acquired wisdom. Firefighting has accelerated all three for me.
I still cry at weddings and funerals in that dorky way that men cry. It is like turning on a garden hose that is half frozen, never really flowing well and hard to watch. I will wipe my eyes on my sleeves in the most casual way possible when I think no one is looking.

If you ever catch me doing this (at a karate match for example), pretending you did not see me do it is a kindness I appreciate.

Chapter 1 Mile Marker 246

CHAPTER 1 –Mile Marker 246

I am sitting at the kitchen table with the first cup of coffee for the day. I love the feeling of a hot cup of coffee in my hands and my bare feet on the tile of the cool kitchen floor. There is nothing like a new blanket of snow to make my poorly tended garden and lawn look pristine. 

A snow day, it feels like a snow day, except school was not canceled. I have taken what I think is a well overdue vacation day. The kids are in school and both dogs are laying in front of the gas fireplace curled up next to each other and snoring.

The only things I have to do today is read the newspaper and finish the pot of coffee from this morning. I feel lazy and happy, I am in charge of absolutely nothing, and no one is counting on me. My razor is going to stay stuck to the bathroom sink where I left it yesterday morning. I want some toast but I am not going to get up and get any until my coffee cup is empty.   It feels good to be this damn lazy.

Beep, Beep, Beep,
Engine 03, Paramedic 33, Respond I25 & Mile Marker 245 for multiple injury accident
I get a knot in my stomach every time I hear an auto accident dispatched close to home. Lives change in an instant. The speed and the permanence of those changes have never stopped being eye opening to me.  I am putting on my jeans and listening intently to the radio traffic to hear if this is a real call or another false alarm.

As I am driving down to the station, I take a minute to listen to the radio traffic and collect my thoughts. I am my mother’s son and a good catholic boy. I always believe in worse case scenario. It is always more people than they say it is, they are hurt worse than first reported, tools and equipment will break or be missing. Radios go dead and the people there will respond to me and my crew in a way I cannot predict.

As I get near the station I am relieved to see Jim pull up at the same time. As a firefighter Jim is in his element. He is 29 years old and as far as I know he has always been an angry, paunchy, 45 year old man. Perpetually grouchy but a damn good firefighter to have if things go to hell.

Engine 03 in route, status twoThey know we are coming. Still no radio traffic and the silence looms large. A state patrol officer should be on scene now and if he is not saying anything it is bad. We will be the first engine on scene. I notice the low laying fog on the Interstate and feel another tug in the pit of my stomach.

Engine 03, 2291 on TAC 2
That is Roger, a Captain from Station 2, he has arrived in a private vehicle. He is speaking in a slow measured way and his tone is unmistakable. It is bad, I just don’t know how or what is bad. I acknowledge his request for us on the tactical channel. I am leaning forward in the seat trying to make out what is going on in the fog.

Roger is working too hard to sound calm and you can hear the tension in his voice. In every engine that is responding everyone is leaning forward to catch every nuance of his radio transmission. He is telling us on the radio to drive by the VW bug that is on fire and continue up the Interstate where he has people on the ground and a party who is heavily pinned. You can hear someone screaming in the background while he was on the radio

Engine 03 copies the radio traffic, we are 5 minutes out
We are on the overpass to the interstate and my window is down. There is an unmistakable smell of a car on fire but I cannot locate the fire by site. It looks like both lanes of the Interstate are stopped and I cannot tell how long the chain reaction accident is.  I can hear sirens coming in from the south and can hear a semi running.  As we come down the exit ramp I can see a VW bug that is burning from the engine compartment. There are three people standing around it, with a hopeless look on their faces. I lean out the window to talk to them.

“Hi guys, is this your car? I ask
“It is mine” a twenty something girl says as she raises her hand halfway.
“Listen, I have a patient is critically injured up the road, I need to get to her first. Your car is past being able to save, so I getting to her first. People before machines”
She nods back. “Sure”
“I need to make sure you guys stand over here way away from it so you do not become my next critical injured patients...OK? You cannot put that fire out, you can only get hurt”
All three nod but do not respond

From this vantage point there are 5-6 semi trucks and an undetermined number of cars at crazy angles as far as I can see. I can see the reflection of the reflective strip on a fire bunker coat and see Roger up ahead. He see's the lights and waves us over.

Engine 03 arrival
I can hear her screaming before the engine has come to a complete stop. The fog seems to carry the screaming and I cannot tell which car or truck it is coming from. I am walking towards Roger and the screaming is getting louder. He starts walking towards me.

“Hey, Cap – what do you have?” I ask
“There is a car underneath that flatbed where all the screaming is coming from. I got no idea who or what is in there but that is the first place I need you to look”. He is pointing to a low lying flatbed that is hauling steel beams. Underneath you can see a red tail light and and head light pointing out at a 90 degree angle.

“I'll take a look at let you know,” I tell Roger and trying to focus on access to the car and not the screaming which is hard to ignore. Jim is pulling the extrication equipment off of the engine and I am walking towards the sound of the screaming.

Just before I get to the car, there is a small compact car next to the screaming that is in 3 distinct pieces. Next to the largest piece of the care there are two blood soaked blankets covering different parts of the road. There are arms and legs sticking out at odd angles and it is impossible to tell how many people are under the blankets. There is a state patrolman standing in front of the blankets. As I approach him, he does not say a word just shakes his head slowly. I am scanning the road and it becomes apparent that we are working in a debris field.  I choose my steps carefully and radio a message back to Roger that recovery efforts will include the section of road I am currently on.

I am at at the semi and I have found an opening just large enough for me to crawl into. The screaming is loudest here. Like a lot of my peers, I have developed a certain kind of tunnel vision that allows me to focus on the assignment and not the overall accident scene. I am a piece of a larger rescue effort and it is critical that my part is flawless. I get on my hands and knees and even through my gear , I can already feel the cold making my knee's ache. I can't see much and my ear's are starting to ring from the screaming.

“Fire Department!” I yell into the screaming hole and the screaming stops as I crawl forward on my knee's.  I am like most of the guys in our department. We are a solid crew because most everyone has a over a decade of experience working the toughest and most demanding calls that our department runs. We are good because we understand it is about the crew not the person. I am always prepared because I have that unique brand of obsessive compulsive disorder that is bred in the fire service. I carry two of everything because one will fail or be lost and I check everything 3 times.

You could send anyone of us into the screaming hole. Today is my turn, not because I possess any more skills than the next guy, it is simply the luck of the draw.  When I first crawled into the hole, the trauma inside that space is daunting. I am not sure if the confined space, snow, and all of the blood makes it looks far worse than it is. It is cold and I can see and her her breathing heavily. She is heavily pinned, the only thing I can see is the side of her face and one arm that is free. She is lying flat on her back with the both legs elevated over her head. The leg is flat and attached to her because of the fabric of the jeans she is wearing. She is pinned in the perfect shock position and with the metal acting as a tourniquet.

As I am crawling towards her in the cold, and she is following me with one eye. Her eye looks abnormally large but it is the space and the way that she is pinned that makes it look that way. Her single free arm is hanging down and her hand is opening and closing in a pile in a pile of red snow. She is following my movements with a very wide eye and her lips are moving but she is not speaking.  

Her injuries look extensive to me and I am trying to determine what I can do to take care of her most basic needs. Plain and simple ABC, airway, breathing and circulation. I want to touch her hand so that she gets it out of the snow and she feels a warm touch of hand. She is in an unimaginable hell hole. It is important to me that she does not die before I can touch her hand.

Normally in a pinned accident you would not spend more than 20 minutes with a patient you were working to extricate. Having tools in your hands, moving metal, or providing patient care make this time fly. It is easier to provide that calm reassurance comes easy when you are at the end of a tool or providing basic life support. Here in the screaming hole, I am unable to move metal or provide meaningful medical care because of how she is pinned.

Nothing in my training and experience has prepared me for this. Without tools and medical equipment I am down to just being able to talk to her. I am the gunfighter who came to the gunfight with a plastic spoon.  As I get within arms reach of her I tell her once again

“ I am Mike, I am with the Fire Department”.
She reaches out to me and grabs the collar of my bunker coat and with superhuman strength pulls me closer where she can look into my face with that one large eye. In the cold of the space you I can see her heavy breath and feel it on my face. She has a firm grip on my collar is looking at me.  This is the start of the both the longest and shortest day of my Fire Service career. I will spend the next 3 hours in the screaming hole. It would have been too much if it lasted 10 minutes. That is lasted 3 hours has left me with the need to periodically try and reconcile a day that really cannot be reconciled well.
Out of an abundance of respect for her and with a great deal of humility for my overall role in the rescue, I realize it what followed for the next 3 hours just will never translate well. It is the 3 hours I recall in startling detail that still I cannot put into words. It was a 3 hour long roller coaster ride with progressively higher peaks and steeper downhills and turns. It stands to this day as the most intimate time I have spent with another human being.

Time on inside the screaming hole comes to a complete stop while teams of brave firefighters on the outside are racing the clock on the outside to extract her. They are working to create a small opening to extract her from the car and the semi from the opposite side that I am on. The noise from the outside of the screaming hole at first faint is now getting progressively louder. There sound of groaning metal is getting progressively louder. While she is still heavily pinned, both arms and are free and I have been able get a Cspine collar on her. It was dark for so long but now there are rays of light coming in at odd angles.

“You see the light now?” I ask her
“Mike?” huge tears are rolling down her cheeks.
“I am going to make it out here aren't I?”
“Yea, you are, it is not going to be long now. Hey, there are a couple of flight medics out there, they are going to cut your clothes away, and you are going to have a seriously cold ass for a minute. There is going to be a lot of noise and light and a lot of hands. But your warm ride is out there, you ever ride in a helicopter?
“I am not doing to die am I? She says in a wavering voice
“Not today” even as I say it out loud, I am not sure that she is not going to die today.
I can see the blue flight suits to the flight medics in an opening just behind her. Hands are starting to reach in and touch her.

“Mike, wh...” she stops in mid sentence and closes her eyes.
I am stunned, suddenly out of breath and trying to collect myself. I let go of her hand and key up my handheld radio. I don't trust my voice and put my forehead down in the snow for a minute to clear my head. As soon as I key up my mike the flight medic's head reappears in the hole.
“She is down, she just went down”
“Is she breathing? Conscious?” the medic is asking me. He turns to motion his partner over.
“She is breathing, stopped talking to me in midsentence, airway is still good” I cringe, I should have checked that before saying she was down.
“We got her, she is ok”

I push her hands up on her stomach as they are lifting her out and she is gone. Light streams into the screaming hole. The space looks more daunting in the light of the morning. The two firefighters who have been passing me gear have pulled me feet first out of the now quiet screaming hole. It is over and it does not feel like it is over. My back, legs, and arms all ache. The adrenaline that I was running on is gone.

Roger starts speaking on the radio when I am pulled out and lifts a finger for me to stop, while he finishes.
“Mike, you good?'
“I am good”
News helicopters circle overhead, and there is an army of firefighters everywhere. On the other side of Interstate the helicopter is starting up. I recognize Tim who was directing recovery efforts on the other side. On his team there are smiles all around, I wave at him and he smiles back. In the coming days, Tim will receive almost no outside acknowledgment for his efforts and he was most instrumental in saving her life.

The fog has lifted and it already seems like a different day than when I arrived. It makes the time I spent in the screaming hole seem longer.
I am walking back to the engine to find a minute to collect myself.
“Mike, Mike, Mike” Tim is motioning me over to where she is being put on a backboard .
“She wants to see you before she flies”
She is small on the board and the two medics are getting her prepped for the flight. The firefighters part to let me through and that feels weird. These are the men who worked hardest to save her life. I do not need dramatic right now. I need matter of fact and I need a minute to collect myself.
Her neck is in a Cspine collar and she can only look up. I hold her hands and and lean over so she can see my face. I have to make this short, she has shaken me down to my core and in this is not the place to break down.
“We made it” she said and tears roll down her face.
“Never doubted it for a minute” I lied
“Let these guys take care of you, gonna be a quick ride, you are going to be warm again it just a minute”
“ I will see you soon” I wink and give her hands one last squeeze. I pull back so the medics can work on her.

Roger comes over and walks to me the engine. I don’t want to talk to anyone or answer any questions. I want to get my gear straightened around and get back to normal. He hands me a warm cup of coffee in a paper cup. I feel sick to my stomach and want to sit down for a minute.
“You good?” Roger asks again
“I am good, need to sit for a minute and drink this warm coffee tho”
“You sure you are good?”
“Cap, all due respect, let me sit for a minute and warm up, I am good to go”
He looks like he is going to say something else and then nods his head and heads down to talk to the TV crews that are setting up camera's. I recognize the reporter from channel 9 and I am watching her talk to our Public Information Officers. The Battalion Chief is standing just off camera and listening to her talk. My hands just will not get warm and they are starting to shake a little now. I have my hand over the top of the paper cup trying to warm my hand.

When I look back up the Battalion Chief, PIO, and reporter are looking over to where I am standing. The Chief is pointing at me and motions me over
“Here is the guy you want to talk to, he was with her the whole time she was trapped” the chief says.
“Can we talk to you?” the reporter asks and my heart sinks. I am the wrong guy to be talking to right now.
“Sure”
The cameraman is repositioning himself and she is adjusting her clothing.
“Ready?' she asks
“Sure”
“We are here today with the brave firefighter who kept the woman talking throughout the ordeal and saved her life” I cringe at this, the guys who actually saved her life are picking up their gear now. Not one of them will receive the credit that is due outside of the firehouse. Sound bites for TV are the flavor of the day. Camera or picture time also means I owe the station ice cream. .
“What was it like in there?” the reporter asks
“That is a real brave kid, she is as tough as they come. There were a lot of firefighters working to get her out and stabilizes her. She did her part and hung in there with us for an extended extrication. We will all be looking forward to a speedy recovery for her.”
“What did you say to her to keep her spirits up”
“She is a real tough kid, she hung in there and knew our guys were going to get her out”
The reporter turns to the Chief and asks him more detailed questions about the whole Fire Department response and recovery efforts. I have stepped back out of camera range and wait for the live TV report to end. The cameraman takes the camera off of his shoulder.
“We done?” the Chief asks
“Thanks Chief, I appreciate it” she says
“Chief, I got to head back and help pick up” I say
“You good?”
“I will be when I can finish my coffee”
“Thanks Mike”

I walk back to the other side of the engine and throw up on my boots. I am in the call that is never ending. Our engine is released early and we are finally headed back to the station.

At the station the nightmare continues. We have a full house, people who have been watching the drama unfold are all coming down to check on us. Hot food, hot coffee, and clean uniforms are waiting for everyone. The chaplain is there and is taking a minute with each of us. He puts his arm around me and I have to resist an urge to punch him in the mouth.  What we need is time to debrief with each other. Nothing will ever take the place of being with people who have done what you have. Your peers understand the pace of how these things get diffused. It always depends on the person and incident. The best intentions of chaplains, friends, and family often fall painfully short.
I excuse myself, get cleaned up and manage to dodge the Chaplin and other well meaning people until my shift is over. 

At home, I take another long hot shower before I try to think through what just happened. Over a hot chicken dinner only parts and pieces of the story can be told. I believe that this is as much of the story as I will be able to tell. This amazing tribute to the human spirit will stay in my head until I can find a way to put it on paper.


EPILOG 1
After countless surgeries, she has defied the experts and has kept the leg. She has asked to come to the station to thank us all. It is going to be an extravaganza with the local Denver TV stations. She arrives and takes her place at the table. I have forgotten how small she is. Even in a wheelchair she looks tiny. She looks around for me at the table. She whispers into her mom's ear and her mom makes her way over to me. She asks if I can meet with them alone in the woman's bathroom after TV camera's are off. The camera lights come on and she has an amazing grace and composure. She is simple and elegant in her praise and wins everyone's heart all over again. Everyone is beaming.
We are in the bathroom with her mother. Her mom hands me a box of rolled mints, blue foil wrappers. “Lifesavers” he mom says and they are both beaming at me. She leans forward in her wheel chair and motions for me to come down to eye level with her.

“I will always remember your voice, but I could not remember what you looked like until they showed me a picture of you”
“That is normal stuff, your brain protects you and lets you remember what you need to remember” I say.
“I don't remember what I said or did but I will always remember your voice” “
“What did I say to you? Did I say anything crazy or out of line?” she asked
“They say you are the reason I made it”
“You made it because of who you are. In that place when everything but the most basic instincts are left, you make decisions based on how you are wired. No one can really override that. It makes great TV to say that I did something extraordinary but nothing could be further from the truth.”
“It was all you” I tell her
“Do I owe you an apology for anything I said?” she asked
“No, not at all, I wanted to thank you tho”
“Why?”
“For reminding me why I became a Firefighter in the first place”
“Really?” She is looking at her mom now
“Yea, really”
“Do you want to see my leg?'
She pulls back the blanket and shows her tiny muscled leg. It is indented, flat, and cross stitched extensively. A broad smile is on both of our faces. I reach out to touch it and stop myself.
“Its okay, go ahead”
I rest my palm on her leg and it jumps. Another broad smile crosses both of our faces.
“That is the one the best legs I have every seen”

I am recounting it to Chris later and he smiles. “You spent the most intimate time of your life with a woman half your age and she cannot remember what you look like”.
“It is hard to be me” I tell him and we both laugh.

EPILOG 2
An entire year has passed. She is graduating from college with honors. I have kept track of her in newspaper articles, in particular her struggles with post traumatic stress disorder. have spent a lot of time letting everyone know I was OK but when I read about the specifics about her struggles, I realized I have struggled the past year with some of the same things she has.

I am reading about her graduation over coffee with Chris.
“You should go see her graduate, you know you want to?”
“That is not creepy? It sounds creepy to me?” I said
“You are an idiot tough guy. Really you do not know what creepy is by now? Go.

I am in the cheap seats with my best black suit on enjoying the anonymity of a huge public ceremony. She is introduced to thunderous applause. I decide I will try to walk over to where she is after so I can say hello and good luck. I wait until the crowd clears, so I can be low key. I misjudged how long it took me to make it over the student section is and by the time I am walking down the concrete steps she is gone. I am relieved and disappointed. Most of my last minute inspirations are not very well rehearsed. I turn to walk up the stairs with my head down.
“Mike?” She is standing on the stair right in front of me. I must have walked past her.
“You came” she said
“Hey, I came to wish you luck and say congratulations”
“What is next?”
“I am going to be a teacher” she says
“I have been reading about you in the paper, they say your leg is in good shape”
“They still think I am going to keep it, I have been really working to keep it”

She is much smaller that I remember her. She is standing on the step above me and I am still a little taller than her. She hugs me hard and long and whispers thank you in my ear. For a second time, I get to tell her we made it.


FINAL EPILOG
It is 5 years past and her memory will always remain with me. Time and distance takes the edges off of everything. I am sure she has made it, it never occurs to me to think differently.
I am returning from a Paris to Denver and taking the underground train to get my bags. As I get on the train to go to baggage claim I look up and see she is right on the train behind me. Still smaller than I remember, she has on a backpack and is leaning on a great looking young guy who looks like he is on top of the world. She smiles at me and I smile back.
I wait and watch her get off the train and while the escalator takes here up she turns back to flash me one more of those brilliant broad smiles of hers. No words just a huge smile.
For the last time, she gets to tell me we made it.

Introduction Steely Eyed

Steely Eyed

Another cup of coffee and I will be fully functional this morning. Walking to the kitchen, I catch a glimpse of myself in the sliding glass door. I am wearing my favorite fleece pants – bright blue - with laughing SpongeBob Squarepants on the front and a white t-shirt with little brown circles stuck to the front of it. Those little brown circles are what is left over from my bowl of Cheerio's this morning.

I stop and turn to face my reflection. It is not the square jawed, steely eyed look that you'd expect a firefighter to have. Even when I stand straight up and suck my stomach in, I am not a heroic looking figure. I look more like I should be pushing a shopping cart full of my belongs down the street. I pick the Cheerio's off my t-shirt and feed them to my dog Boomer, who is waiting patiently by the door to be let out.

I am not sure if it is fate or destiny but the things and people that have changed my life have often found me when I was not looking for them.  Everyone single person has a hero in them, capable of extraordinary courage.  Firefighting has given me the gift of seeing a lot of everyday hero's that I would have not normally seen.

I could not have imagined what was in front of me then. Hero's and heroic things look a lot different to me now.

What follows (in random order) are some of the stories of all those remarkable people, places, and times. I hope you see the dedicated men and women of your own communities and the everyday hero in these stories.