One reason why I'm not a firefighter anymore.....
I was out on a bicycle ride this morning and passed by a senior assisted-living facility. Basically an apartment complex for elderly people.
Anyway, a TON of fire engines and trucks converged on it while I was in the area. It reminded me of one reason why I'm not a firefighter anymore.
What was going on was that there was a general fire alarm that had been tripped at the apartment complex. If it had been a medical/EMS call, it would have been just an ambulance with maybe a fire engine/truck only. There were five pieces of apparatus on this call. And four of them were parked near the complex, they were 'staging', waiting for orders from the first-arriving officer to tell them what they needed to do.
Anyway, when I was a firefighter we had in our district one of the largest such apartment complexes in the state. A huge one. We would go on such general fire calls about every other week, all of them (fortunately) false alarms.
Once, a DOZEN pieces of apparatus showed up on one call. Turns out that someone called 911, said they needed the fire department, and then hung up. Then wouldn't answer a return call from the dispatch. In that case, you assume the worst and send everything required for a full-on general alarm.
When I got to the scene, it turns out that one resident had fallen and sustained only a minor bruise. But 18 different pieces of apparatus (fire engines, trucks, ambulances, chiefs, etc.) showed up simply because the caller didn't think things through.
The caller was the daughter of the patient, a woman in her forties, clearly able to understand that what she did wasn't too smart. I asked her to come outside and pointed out to her that because she (1) hung up on 911 before adequately answering their questions and (2) didn't answer the return phone call, all these people had to show up at 3am for nothing.
Her response: 'Hey, that's your job. Don't tell ME I did anything wrong.'
That kind of attitude is a major reason why I left being a firefighter. People simply not taking responsibility for their own behavior and expecting others to pick up their pieces. The second part of that job, that IS the job. But the first part of that, that's bullshit. So, so, SO many people who come into contact with the fire department, they simply are shitheads who don't or won't take responsibility for their own behavior and become indignant when someone even vaguely suggests that they should.
The rule of thumb we worked with is that 80% of the calls to 911 come from only 20% of the population, the 'frequent flyers' of our society. They get themselves in a jam and decide, fuck it, call 911. You never walk away with a feeling you've helped this 80% of the calls, you usually walk away feeling at best incredulous that people are that selfish, but usually feeling manipulated.
I was out on a bicycle ride this morning and passed by a senior assisted-living facility. Basically an apartment complex for elderly people.
Anyway, a TON of fire engines and trucks converged on it while I was in the area. It reminded me of one reason why I'm not a firefighter anymore.
What was going on was that there was a general fire alarm that had been tripped at the apartment complex. If it had been a medical/EMS call, it would have been just an ambulance with maybe a fire engine/truck only. There were five pieces of apparatus on this call. And four of them were parked near the complex, they were 'staging', waiting for orders from the first-arriving officer to tell them what they needed to do.
Anyway, when I was a firefighter we had in our district one of the largest such apartment complexes in the state. A huge one. We would go on such general fire calls about every other week, all of them (fortunately) false alarms.
Once, a DOZEN pieces of apparatus showed up on one call. Turns out that someone called 911, said they needed the fire department, and then hung up. Then wouldn't answer a return call from the dispatch. In that case, you assume the worst and send everything required for a full-on general alarm.
When I got to the scene, it turns out that one resident had fallen and sustained only a minor bruise. But 18 different pieces of apparatus (fire engines, trucks, ambulances, chiefs, etc.) showed up simply because the caller didn't think things through.
The caller was the daughter of the patient, a woman in her forties, clearly able to understand that what she did wasn't too smart. I asked her to come outside and pointed out to her that because she (1) hung up on 911 before adequately answering their questions and (2) didn't answer the return phone call, all these people had to show up at 3am for nothing.
Her response: 'Hey, that's your job. Don't tell ME I did anything wrong.'
That kind of attitude is a major reason why I left being a firefighter. People simply not taking responsibility for their own behavior and expecting others to pick up their pieces. The second part of that job, that IS the job. But the first part of that, that's bullshit. So, so, SO many people who come into contact with the fire department, they simply are shitheads who don't or won't take responsibility for their own behavior and become indignant when someone even vaguely suggests that they should.
The rule of thumb we worked with is that 80% of the calls to 911 come from only 20% of the population, the 'frequent flyers' of our society. They get themselves in a jam and decide, fuck it, call 911. You never walk away with a feeling you've helped this 80% of the calls, you usually walk away feeling at best incredulous that people are that selfish, but usually feeling manipulated.
posted by Tony Bags at 10:29 PM
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