Run Sheet
00/03/10
A while ago I wrote about the six Massachussets
Firefighters who died in a warehouse fire.
Do any of you remember them?
Y'know what happened after I wrote that insallment?
The shift that they were on didn't go home, the Firefighters of that town converged on that scene and stayed there, pulling tons of wreckage apart, brick by brick, until their brothers, one by one, were found, and brought out. Each one was carried on a stretcher, borne by his fellow Firefighters. No one went home until they all went home.
It took nearly two weeks.
Members of neighbouring departments came in and manned the firehalls, they responded to the calls in that town until their fellow members had been recovered, and accounted for.
Once the bodies were out and the funeral was arranged, those same neighbouring departments manned those halls again so that every single member of that fire department could attend the funeral, and every single member turned out.
*****
Y'know what I felt when I heard?
Pain, of course as I always feel when I hear
of one of our brothers or sisters dieing in the line of duty, but admiration,
and pride too, a whole lot of both.
Here's why I feel admiration and pride.
Picture the scene as it almost certainly was, a residential structure, smoke and flame showing, the rig rolls up with a five-man crew sets to work, lines are laid, air packs donned, the crew prepares in the ways they've done countless times.
The details of how it happened are neither clear nor important. In the next instant two of the crew lay in a welter of their own blood and the other three are pinned under shotgun fire. Shortly thereafter a Sherriff's Deputy engages the gunman with his pistol and wounds him, in turn he is mortally wounded himself. A second rig will have arrived on scene by then, and further manpower will have been rolling.
Here is where the admiration and pride come in. The arriving crews, faced with four patients will have been treating their dying brothers, and doing the finest job possible, and another crew will have been treating the gunman, with not a whit of hesitation and with not a shred less care and concern, even though he just killed two of their brothers. The crews that arrived shortly after, will have seen the bodies strewn around, the blood, and the horror of the moment, they will also have seen the fire.
They will have picked up the hoses, donned their airpacks and advanced on the burning house, because that's what we do. There will have been no hesitation, no doubt or discussion. There was a fire before them, so it was time to pull lines and roll in. Once it was out, then it would have been time for tears and despair, for shock and horror, but not before.
These people aren't supermen, they're human,
frail and fallible. But they're professionals, and unfortunately, professionalism
can carry an enormous price.