My first guest is a little unusual because his employer’s rules and regs regarding social media dictate that he remain annonymous. How mysterious! That combined with the mythos surrounding his career choice make him most intriguing. Please, welcome Firefighter X (FFX)!
Cindy: Thanks for being my first guest and allowing me to share your story, Firefighter X.
FFX: Your welcome. Thanks for keeping this all on the DL.
Cindy: No worries. A writer must protect her sources.
FFX: I feel like Deep Throat
Cindy: LOL, let’s not go there. This is my radio edit blog afterall.
FFX: Agreed. But seriously, thanks for showing interest in my humble origin story.
Cindy: You forget, I’ve known you for a while and there’s very little about you that’s humble [LOL]. Occupational hazard?
FFX: [Grinning] Yes and no. I think you’d be surprised by how little professional firefighters buy into all the hero stuff said about us. Not that we don’t appreciate it. We do. Very much. But I think I can speak for all my brothers and sisters when I say, at the end of the day, we do what has to be done because it’s our job. It’s that simple.
Cindy: Well, I think I can speak for ordinary folks and say running into situations that others are running away from takes a special kind of person.
FFX: When you put it that way, I guess. Really though, we go through so much training and have a lot of equipment, we know when to run in and how to do it safely. We also know when to hold off, when there’s nothing we can do.
Cindy: That makes sense. I mean you’d have to be well-trained. You mentioned that there are times you can’t help, what constitutes that kind of situation?
FFX: [Sighing and raking a hand through his hair] That’s a tough one. I mean it time, like, when a house is already engulfed and there’s no safe entrance or exit. Or like EMS calls--
Cindy: Sorry to interrupt, for readers who aren’t familiar with firefighter jargon, EMS stands for Emergency Medical Services, right?
FFX: Right, yeah, I forget. Sorry, LOL.
Cindy: No worries, So for an injury or medical call, such as a heart attack or any time someone calls 911 for an ambulance.
FFX: Exactly. For calls like that, there are times when we get there, the patient is already gone. We still attempt resuscitation, of course but it’s more for the patient’s family, to show them we are trying to help, but sometimes we know we aren’t going to get them back.
Cindy: By that you mean patients that are dead on arrival? Someone who’s sustained an injury too severe to survive?
FFX: Yeah. Or someone who’s been down for more than ten or fifteen minutes by the time we get there. Especially when no one on the scene knows CPR. We know even with an AED we aren’t going to be able to restart their heart. Even if we did, the brain damage would be so severe, that patient is never going to have any quality of life. But like I said, we still do our best because it’s not our decision to make--who we work on and who we don’t.
Cindy: Wow. Sounds like a tough job. A really tough job.
FFX: [Leans forward, rubbing his palms on the front of his navy blue slacks, nodding] It can be and if you aren’t cut out for it, it’ll eat you alive.
Cindy: How do you know you are cut out for it or not?
FFX: You'll know during your training, during your ride alongs. If you take too much of this to heart, if you take every loss too personally, you can't do this job.
Cindy: Interesting. So you're saying a certain amount of compartmentalization is necessary? We always hear about compartmentalization as a bad thing. Can you elaborate?
FFX: Well, I mean, I can't speak to the psychology of it, but if you can't leave your day at work, this job will kill you. You see a lot of death and a lot of the worst things that can happen to people. And you never tell your family about the things you see.
Cindy: Why is that? So you don't burden them?
FFX: [shaking his head slowly] No. I mean that's part of it, but it's more you want a place to go that's free from the stuff you're surrounded by at work. It's a safe space, if that makes sense.
Cindy: But do you ever have calls that haunt you?
FFX: Of course. We're human and each firefighter has their own trigger, that patient that hits too close to home.
Cindy: What is that for you?
FFX: I'd rather not get into that. If that's okay....
Cindy: How do you know you are cut out for it or not?
FFX: You'll know during your training, during your ride alongs. If you take too much of this to heart, if you take every loss too personally, you can't do this job.
Cindy: Interesting. So you're saying a certain amount of compartmentalization is necessary? We always hear about compartmentalization as a bad thing. Can you elaborate?
FFX: Well, I mean, I can't speak to the psychology of it, but if you can't leave your day at work, this job will kill you. You see a lot of death and a lot of the worst things that can happen to people. And you never tell your family about the things you see.
Cindy: Why is that? So you don't burden them?
FFX: [shaking his head slowly] No. I mean that's part of it, but it's more you want a place to go that's free from the stuff you're surrounded by at work. It's a safe space, if that makes sense.
Cindy: But do you ever have calls that haunt you?
FFX: Of course. We're human and each firefighter has their own trigger, that patient that hits too close to home.
Cindy: What is that for you?
FFX: I'd rather not get into that. If that's okay....
Cindy: Of course....of course. All that you've just shared with us begs the question why would you choose this career path? I mean I know at some point, almost every little boy dreams of being a firefighter without understanding the reality of it. When you were young did you dream of being a fireman?
FFX: [smiling] Actually, no. I wanted to be a professional soccer player. A soccer superstar.
Cindy: Really? Who were some of your soccer heroes?
FFX: Pele, obviously. Who didn’t love Pele? Umm, let’s see, Rivaldo, he was a great midfielder. Oh and Ronaldo. Not the current one, OG Ronaldo, that man could score on anyone. That’s who I wanted to be.
Cindy: I’ll admit I have no idea who you are talking about [LOL]. I mean, I know Pele, but as you said, who doesn’t? Anyway, I take it you played soccer as a kid?
FFX: I did [puffing his chest just a bit]
Cindy: What position?
FFX: Forward. I’m a fast mother****** [grinning from ear to ear]
Cindy: Language! [LOL] But good for you. So why firefighting and not soccer?
FFX: [deflating] I made some mistakes in my youth. I won’t lie about that.
Cindy: Well, who didn’t?
FFX: Yeah, I didn’t have a lot of support from my family. I wasn’t my mother’s favorite and no one really expected me to amount to much. And for a while, I didn’t.
Cindy: What changed?
FFX: I had kids. Two beautiful kids. [he shows me the wallpaper on his phone]. They’re grown now, but this is when they were little.
Cindy: They are beautiful. Definitely a good reason to get your act together.
FFX: Yeah, unfortunately, even after they were born, it took me some time. The change wasn’t immediate and my relationship with their mother suffered.
Cindy: Are you two still together?
FFX: Nope [grinning again], but it was for the best. I met someone who showed me I could be more than people told me I could be.
Cindy: She sounds pretty special.
FFX: [blushing] Yeah, she is.
Cindy: So she encouraged you to achieve your dream of being a firefighter?
FFX: [shaking his head] A lot more than that. She taught me how to dream in the first place. I’m telling you. I came from nothing, a really hard place. You took whatever job could get, even two or three jobs and then you worked yourself to death. That was it. I didn’t want that, I just didn’t know to get more than that.
Cindy: Fair to say you had a challenging childhood and young adulthood.
FFX: Yep. That's fair to say.
Cindy: So you met your soulmate--
FFX: I hate that word, it sounds so corny.
Cindy: [LOL] Okay, how about “better half”?
FFX: That works.
Cindy: And how old were you when you two met?
FFX: Mid-twenties.
Cindy: Okay, so you met your better half in your mid-twenties and then you worked hard and became a firefighter?
FFX: No, first I was an electrician.
Cindy: [furrowing my brow] An electrician? Really? So, was this a career you loved, a career you dreamed about?
FFX: Oh hell no! God, talk about hard work. It’s awful. I did new residential installs so me and my team were out there in the weather: summer heat, rain, freezing winter days. Didn’t matter. You don’t work, you don’t get paid so you gotta tough it out. Don’t get me wrong, the money was good and that’s why I stuck with it even though I hated it.
Cindy: I’ve been there. Not working in the elements, but stuck in a job I hated because I felt as though the money and benefits were too good to walk away from.
FFX: Exactly.
Cindy: So what inspired you to leave your lucrative electrical career for emergency services?
FFX: [sarcastic laugh] My boss. He “inspired” me to become unemployed. I was laid off just before the housing bubble burst in 2008. It was Halloween 2007. I remember telling “my better half”. At first, she thought I was making a bad joke. [Clearing his throat] I remember her crying when I convinced her I was serious. I felt so useless and angry. I remember thinking, when we took her son (my stepson) trick-or-treating that we’d better save some of that candy in case we ran out of food.
Cindy: How terrifying! I can’t imagine. But that was a real fear, not having enough money for food?
FFX: [nodding, his expression blank] It was. She was a stay-at-home mom at the time because I made enough money for our bills and I wanted her to have that time with her son. And then--BOOM--we’re both unemployed and the job market was crap. I mean there was fierce competition for fast food jobs, much less good paying electrical work. And I only had residential experience. Not a lot of new houses going up then. So….[shrugging]
Cindy: What did you do?
FFX: I’d never applied for unemployment before, so she navigated all that for me. Just paying rent, buying food, keeping the lights on, we burned through our savings pretty quickly. But with a little help from her parents, her ex-husband, and the unemployment checks, we managed to stay afloat.
Cindy: Family comes together in times like that and that’s a blessing.
FFX: Some families do and we were lucky she has one of those families. I mean even her ex- stepped up. I’ll never forget what her people did for us. Not my people, her people.
Cindy: And they adopted you?
FFX: [nodding] They did and for that I’m eternally grateful.
Cindy: How long were you unemployed?
FFX: A year and a half.
Cindy: Wow. That must’ve been scary. That’s a long time to worry about where your next meal is coming from.
FFX: It was. And all the jobs I applied for, jobs I would never have considered a couple years earlier and to have everyone tell me no. I felt like a loser.
Cindy: None of that talk now. We all hit bumps in the road.
FFX: At the time, it felt like a mountain in the road, not a bump. [Smiling] I remember every first of the month….or sometimes the fifth or sixth….once we’d scraped together the rent money, we’d laugh and be like, “Yay! We have someplace to live for another month!” [chuckling].
Cindy: [Smiling] Souds like you tried to stay positive.
FFX: As best we could. If we had a little extra money, once in a while we’d take little man to McDonald’s and get him a Happy Meal and for him that was the best treat ever.
Cindy: What did you two indulge in?
FFX: We didn’t eat. Just little man with his Happy Meal. We tried to keep things as normal for him as possible.
Cindy: You two didn’t eat? That’s heartbreaking, but really sweet. So, you guys are in this scary situation, doing your best to stay afloat and stay positive, how did you decide to change your career path altogether?
FFX: We were talking one night after little man was in bed. One of my better half’s favorite sayings is “You know what the definition of insanity is? Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.” Applying for electrical job after electrical job had gotten us nowhere and she knew I had no love for electrical work, so she says, “You’ve got all this time on your hands. Why don’t you try something you want to do, even if it’s volunteer? Maybe it’ll lead to a job.”
Cindy: Sounds like a smart lady.
FFX: She is. And she really is my better half. So, we kept talking. In my twenties, I’d thought about becoming a volunteer firefighter. I mean, like you said, what boy hasn’t seen a fire truck and thought that’s so freaking cool!
Cindy: Ha! Yeah, firefighters do have such wonderful toys.
FFX: That we do. I still love turning the lights and siren on. That’s go time. It gets the adrenaline pumping. There’s no feeling like it.
Cindy: What stopped you from pursuing the firefighting in your twenties?
FFX: [groaning] All the schooling just to become a volunteer. To me in my twenties, that was craziness.
Cindy: [LOL] Not a fan of school?
FFX: No, not at all. But anything worth having is hard work, right? And I did have way too much time on my hands. So I said fff….screw it [winking], it’s one of the most macho, coolest jobs a man can have. And as a volunteer, all your training is free, so not just firefighting, but EMS certifications, too. I’d be crazy not to do it.
Cindy: And you did it. You became a volunteer and then a professional firefighter.
FFX: Well, it wasn’t quite that straight a line. While I was in fire school, I worked as a crossing guard [shaking head, laughing]. So glad this interview is annonymous. Then once I got my certs, I worked for five years as an EMT for a private ambulance service, then I became a professional firefighter.
Cindy: That’s quite the tale of perseverence. I take it there’s a lot of competition for professional firefighter jobs?
FFX: A LOT. I applied to dozens of counties before I found one that hired me.
Cindy: What do you think finally gave you that edge?
FFX: [LOL] Hydration!
Cindy: Hydration? Do tell.
FFX: Instead of using a traditional CPAT for the firefighter physical test, this county has a special physical abilities test because of their unique setting. It involves a lot of basic skills, throwing a ladder, hose control, climbing, navigating a blacked out building with lots of halls and stairways, but the last part was to drag a 150 pound dummy in the grass for thirty yards. Okay, by itself, the dummy drag wouldn't be so hard, but after all those other skills, you're tired. Add to that it was stupid hot the day of my test. Well, I've always been into fitness so I was physically ready for the challenge and I also made sure I was seriously hydrated before the test. There were young bucks, thinking before the test they were gonna blow me away, but they're drinking Coke or Red Bull before. [LOL] Halfway through they were passing out, vomiting, and someoutright quit. I crossed the finish line with a fantastic time, but then I fell to my knees and I was so weak, I couldn't unbuckle my helmet. One of the trainers comes over to help me with it and he's like, "If I'm ever in the sh**, I want this guy with me!" All the pain and misery left my body. I was so proud.
Cindy: What do you think finally gave you that edge?
FFX: [LOL] Hydration!
Cindy: Hydration? Do tell.
FFX: Instead of using a traditional CPAT for the firefighter physical test, this county has a special physical abilities test because of their unique setting. It involves a lot of basic skills, throwing a ladder, hose control, climbing, navigating a blacked out building with lots of halls and stairways, but the last part was to drag a 150 pound dummy in the grass for thirty yards. Okay, by itself, the dummy drag wouldn't be so hard, but after all those other skills, you're tired. Add to that it was stupid hot the day of my test. Well, I've always been into fitness so I was physically ready for the challenge and I also made sure I was seriously hydrated before the test. There were young bucks, thinking before the test they were gonna blow me away, but they're drinking Coke or Red Bull before. [LOL] Halfway through they were passing out, vomiting, and someoutright quit. I crossed the finish line with a fantastic time, but then I fell to my knees and I was so weak, I couldn't unbuckle my helmet. One of the trainers comes over to help me with it and he's like, "If I'm ever in the sh**, I want this guy with me!" All the pain and misery left my body. I was so proud.
Cindy: Rightfully so! Sounds like you crushed it. You mentioned younger applicants. How old were you when the county hired you?
FFX: Thirty-nine. Not ideal. Plus, I’m only 5’6” and ethnically, let’s say I’m very different from my co-workers. So yeah, there I was old, short, and Hispanic applying to a very rural county in western Virginia--not West Virginia, but it might as well be. It was the last county I expected to hire me.
Cindy: But they DID hire you. How did that feel?
FFX: [Grinning from ear to ear] Like shooting the winning goal at The World Cup. In a way, the layoff in 2007 was the best thing that could've happened to me otherwise I don't know that I would have left the electrical field.
Cindy: [LOL] What an amazing perspective. Few people would refer to a layoff as the best thing that could happen to them. Talk about making lemonade out of lemons. All your persistence, training, hard work, and hydration paid off and you love what you do.
FFX: I love every minute of it, even when I don’t love it, if that makes sense.
Cindy: It does. Like I said at the beginning of this interview, when you love your job, it never feels like work. Congratulations, FFX. And thank you for sharing your very personal tale of following your bliss. I know it wasn’t easy to tell. Thank you for doing what you do. You may not think you’re a hero, but you are to those of us who call for help on one of the worst days of our lives.
FFX: Thank you, Cindy, for helping me tell my story. If I can inspire just one young person who comes from a background like mine, who thinks they don’t have choices, who think their past defines their future, well, then the struggle was worth it.
Cindy: Well said! Keep on fighting the good fight and stay safe.
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