I WISH YOU COULD SEE
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 your weight as the kitchen below you burns.
I wish you could comprehend a wife's horror at three in the morning as I check her husband of forty years for a pulse and find none. I start CPR anyway, hoping to bring him back. Knowing intuitively it is too late. But wanting his wife and family to know everything possible was done to try to save his life.
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 I've 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 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 fire? How is the building constructed? What hazards await me? Is anyone trapped?" Or to an EMS call, "What is wrong with this patient? Is it minor or life threatening? Is the caller really in distress or is he waiting for us with a 2X4 or a gun?"
I wish you could comprehend my feelings that the beautiful five year old girl that I'm trying to save may never go on her first date or say the words "I love you Daddy" again (all the while thinking of my own child).
I wish you could know the frustration I feel in the cab of the engine or my personal vehicle, as you fail to yield the right-of-way at an intersection or in traffic. When you need us however, your first comment upon arrival will be, "it took you forever to get here!"
I wish you could know my thoughts as I help extricate a girl of teenage years from the remains of her automobile. "What if this was my sister, my girlfriend or a friend? What was 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 great my parents or family, not having the heart to tell them I nearly did not come back from the last call. I wish you could feel the hurt as people verbally, and sometimes physically abuse us or belittle what I do, or express their attitudes of "it will never happen to me".
I wish you could realize the physical, emotional and mental drain or missed meals, lost sleep and forgone social activities, in addition to all the tragedy my eyes have seen. I wish you could know the brotherhood and self-satisfaction of helping save a life or preserving someone's property, or being able to be there in time of crisis, or creating order from total chaos. I wish you could understand what it fells like to have a little boy tugging at your arm 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 having to hold back along time friend who watches his buddy having rescue breathing done on him as they take him away in the ambulance when you know all along he did not have his seat belt on; a sensation that I have become too familiar with. Unless you have lived with this kind of life, you will never truly understand or appreciate who I am, who we are, or what our job really means to us...... I wish you could, though.
Author Unknown
In your travels today, please give a thanks to our Firefigthers, EMS Workers, Police Officers, Service Men and Women. Give a hug to your family.
Pete
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