Steven Pell's Firefighting Page

I WISH YOU COULD

I wish you could see the sadness of a business-man as his livelihood goes up in flames,
or that family returning home, only to find their house and belongings
damaged or destroyed.

I wish you could know what it is like to search a burning bedroom for
trapped children, flames rolling above your head, your palms and knees burning
as you crawl, the floor sagging under you r weight as the kitchen
beneath you burns.

I wish you could comprehend a wife’s horror at 3 a.m. as I check her husband of
40 years for a pulse and find none. I start CPR anyway, hoping to bring him back,
knowing intuitively that it is too late. But wanting his wife and family to know
everything possible was done.

I wish you knew the unique smell of burning insulation, the taste of soot filled mucus,
the feeling of intense heat through your turnout gear, the sound of flames crackling,
the eeriness of being able to see absolutely nothing in dense smoke ~ sensations
that I have become too familiar with.

I wish you could understand how it feels to go to work in the morning after
having spent most of the night, hot and soaking wet at a multiple alarm fire.

I wish you could read my mind as I respond to a building fire.
“Is this a false alarm or a working, breathing fire? How is the building constructed?
What hazards await me? Is anyone trapped? Or to an EMS call,
“What is wrong with the patient?” Is it minor or life threatening? Is the caller
really in distress or is he or she waiting for us with a 2x4 or a gun?

I wish you could be in the emergency room as a doctor pronounces dead the
beautiful five-year-old girl that I tried to save during the past 25 minutes. Who will
never go on her first date or say the words “I love you, Mommy”
again.

I wish you could know the frustration I feel in the cab engine, the driver with his
foot pressing down hard on the pedal, my arm tugging again and again at the
air horn chain, as you fail to yield the right of way at an intersection or in traffic.
When you need us, however, your first comment upon our arrival will be, “It took
you forever to get here!”

I wish you could know my thoughts a s I help extricate a girl of teenage years
from the mangled remains of her automobile. “What if this was my sister,
my girlfriend, or a friend? What were her parents’ reaction going to be when
they opened the door to find a police officer with hat in hand?

I wish you could know how it feels to walk in the back door and greet my
parents and family, not having the heart to tell them that I nearly did not come back
from the last call I was on. I wish you could feel the hurt as people verbally
and sometime physically, abuse us or belittle what I do, or as they express their
attitudes or “It will never happen to me.”

I wish you could know the brotherhood and self-satisfaction of helping save a life,
or preserving someone’s property, of being there in time of crisis, or creating
order from total chaos.

I wish you could understand what it feels like to have a little boy tugging at
your arm and asking. “Is Mommy okay?” Not even being able to look in his eyes
without tears from your own and not knowing what to say. Or to hold back a
long-time friend who watches his buddy having rescue breathing done on him as
they take him away in the ambulance. You know all along he did not have his
seat belt on ~ Sensations I am too familiar with.

Unless you have lived with this kind of life, you will probably never
truly understand or appreciate who I am, we are, or what our job really means to us
……I WISH YOU COULD.

Author Unknown