Speaker 1: Disclaimer. We'd like to know before the start of this
Speaker 1: interview that the opinions about to be expressed by the
Speaker 1: guest of tonight's Getting Salty Experience Podcast are that of
Speaker 1: the guest and do not directly or necessarily reflect the
Speaker 1: views of the host of the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
Speaker 3: Hello, Hello, Mike Cologne in the chat tonight. Welcome back
Speaker 3: to the Get Insulty Experience podcast, the only one of the
Speaker 3: best fine offs. Kitchen table to you, and we just
Speaker 3: beat the living piss out of Mike at the kitchen
Speaker 3: table in the bathroom about five minutes ago.
Speaker 4: I gotta choke a hama.
Speaker 3: But he told me when I take what test?
Speaker 4: Is he taking.
Speaker 3: Seat?
Speaker 5: Pat?
Speaker 3: I should choke up on my hammer. I was like, wow,
Speaker 3: you and me both sometimes twice today, Buddy were rapid
Speaker 3: firing on Mike about five minutes before he came in
Speaker 3: on the show.
Speaker 5: How was he gone? How was it down? There was
Speaker 5: it chilling?
Speaker 3: Look at the money falling out of his pocket.
Speaker 6: I got my first stack. I got my first stack?
Speaker 4: Is right?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 6: He came in, came in already.
Speaker 3: How bad with the winds?
Speaker 6: Uh, it wasn't too bad. We chased the storm up
Speaker 6: on the back side of it, but it wasn't Uh
Speaker 6: that area where we were, the onput of Florida isn't
Speaker 6: heavily populated, So keep.
Speaker 3: Me your blow your head out of place at all.
Speaker 6: Not at first, No, I mean afterwards. It was a
Speaker 6: hat for the whole week I was there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Now, were you running the whole thing? Were you
Speaker 3: in charge of that?
Speaker 6: Uh? Me and one of the guys run the rescue squads,
Speaker 6: you know, basically coordinate all the the hasty searchers, the
Speaker 6: primaries and you know all that good stuff. Oh yeah,
Speaker 6: it sounds like I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 3: But you know, I was talking to Louis today and
Speaker 3: he's like, man, he really misses that. He wish he
Speaker 3: could be back there chasing storms and.
Speaker 5: Down there are going to get hit again.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this was this was gonna be a bad one. Well, no,
Speaker 6: it's the storm surge was was bad. But this one
Speaker 6: has both. Now it's going to have the storm surge
Speaker 6: and the wind because it's.
Speaker 3: Hit by your house all No, the.
Speaker 6: West coast, I mean, we'll feel that, you know, the
Speaker 6: outer bands will make it to us and and whatnot,
Speaker 6: But Tampa Bay area, that Fort Wyer's Beach. I would
Speaker 6: check on Hank. You know those guys that are over
Speaker 6: over that way. You know they're gonna get the dirty
Speaker 6: side of the storm, which we all know is the
Speaker 6: south side of the storm.
Speaker 3: It's dirty.
Speaker 6: There's a dirty side. There's storm where all the ship
Speaker 6: is down, you know, the southeast side of If you
Speaker 6: look at the storm.
Speaker 3: Learn something the worst part of the storm.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Oh, Rob wants you to talk about spaghetti dinner again.
Speaker 6: Oh, doesn't want me to do you want to do that?
Speaker 3: Let's say that. I don't be lading to do the commercials,
Speaker 3: so let's do the Let's do the two commercial. Actually,
Speaker 3: what we got one commercial?
Speaker 6: We really have one.
Speaker 3: We have a New Jersey Fire.
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Speaker 3: Nice, So now you gotta play that, dude. The first
Speaker 3: time I watched that, my balls were like so cringey.
Speaker 3: They were like, let me get the fuck out of here,
Speaker 3: and they climbed back up into my stomach. They're like, ah, clingy,
Speaker 3: is it that bad?
Speaker 6: No kid, we're talking about It's time to load upon
Speaker 6: those calls.
Speaker 3: Make that loud of bro.
Speaker 6: Cancer Awareness dinner that's Station eighty on October nineteenth from five. Okay,
Speaker 6: investis not that brat sum. It's time to load upon
Speaker 6: those calls. Our annual cancer awareness dinner that's Station eighty
Speaker 6: on October nineteenth from five to nine. You get pasta meeples, garlic, bread,
Speaker 6: and the drink, all for eight bucks.
Speaker 3: No cat, why is.
Speaker 6: The guy got.
Speaker 4: It? Put it right back in there?
Speaker 6: We're not terrible. All proceeds going to the University of
Speaker 6: Miami's Firefighter Cancer Initiatives. You'll gain major ooral points for
Speaker 6: attending the definitely passing the five chick common possibly pain
Speaker 6: a link to purchase a two.
Speaker 4: I'm coach, he left no proms.
Speaker 6: That's my favorite part is the slaps.
Speaker 3: Slaps this right here, Oh it's the slaps. Why is
Speaker 3: he gonna have his bucker coat while he's cooking? Yeah,
Speaker 3: it goes against fucking he's not supposed to have down
Speaker 3: in the kitchen, bro, you know, for cancer too for advertising,
Speaker 3: you know, National Firefighter Safety, Health and Safety. Your guys
Speaker 3: wearing a fucking bucket jacket in the kitchen.
Speaker 6: Well he started to go for the look. It's clean
Speaker 6: cleaning all the time, those things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well denty fire either. Oh but bump, that's good.
Speaker 3: How do if they want to go to this SPAGINNTI dinner,
Speaker 3: what do they gotta do?
Speaker 6: They have to follow it on Instagram? You do a link?
Speaker 6: If not, you go to Cold Springs dot dot organ
Speaker 6: nick or scoose me dot gov.
Speaker 3: We got up.
Speaker 6: I don't know, I gotta I don't get those the
Speaker 6: information stats. But it's the local thing that we do
Speaker 6: to raise cancer for breast raise money for breast cancer.
Speaker 4: Excuse me?
Speaker 6: And uh, you know we feed about I think fifteen
Speaker 6: hundred meals. Get you know, the philosophicity why it's it ranges.
Speaker 6: You know, some years are busier some last year, I
Speaker 6: think it was the sauce. Our city manager makes the sauce.
Speaker 6: He was the x fire chief. And obviously we cook
Speaker 6: up the past. Everything's all prepped the day before. So
Speaker 6: when it comes.
Speaker 3: Into meatballs, who makes the meatballs?
Speaker 6: The old is the city manager and his crew is
Speaker 6: a bunch of people that come regularly that do.
Speaker 3: All the t for that rough you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: You know it's good stuff. It's a good little meal
Speaker 6: for eight bucks, no cat. You know it's one of
Speaker 6: those cap When when is that October.
Speaker 3: Nineteenth that's coming up next week?
Speaker 6: Right, that's coming up.
Speaker 3: I mean, if I wanted a second place, did I
Speaker 3: get a second plate or you got a paid twice?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Usually, like I said, the the trays and trays
Speaker 6: apasta that we have, and we usually have leftover. We
Speaker 6: usually send it to the stations afterwards. But yeah, it's
Speaker 6: a good thing.
Speaker 3: You should have put the spoon right back in the SCE.
Speaker 6: I thought about it. I was gonna scoop it myself.
Speaker 6: That was like takes I had to do to get
Speaker 6: the line down.
Speaker 5: You know, you're a real natural and and the you
Speaker 5: know under the spotlight that comfortable there too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you got a stick shoved up at the back.
Speaker 3: I'm kidding, take it, take it easy, take you. We
Speaker 3: got another jagg off from Chicago from my chief mo
Speaker 3: is he in the chat.
Speaker 6: Chief he didn't he better be in the chat. There's
Speaker 6: some of.
Speaker 3: Them, somebody said, Momo. So he's got to be in here.
Speaker 3: He's too short. I can't even see him in the chat.
Speaker 3: There he is, Maurice. I love that guy. All right,
Speaker 3: bring your may rough, do your thing.
Speaker 6: Bro, Baby, you're ready, Yes, sir, I'm ready, all right,
Speaker 6: coming to.
Speaker 4: The stage all the way from Chicago, FD. Lieutenant Brett Snow.
Speaker 7: There he is.
Speaker 3: They make bats and balls in Chicago.
Speaker 6: I'm here, ju.
Speaker 3: What are they calling over there?
Speaker 4: Something the busting balls? You said?
Speaker 3: No, bats and balls?
Speaker 4: What they call it?
Speaker 3: We gotta get patriotic before we dive into Brett Snow.
Speaker 3: Get Brett Weir, I said, Brett Snow's career.
Speaker 6: Here we go.
Speaker 2: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
Speaker 2: of America and to the Republic, for which it stands,
Speaker 2: one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Speaker 3: We shot them two shows this week. Baby, look at us,
Speaker 3: back in the swing of things. But then, roof you
Speaker 3: will go. He'll be away soon.
Speaker 6: Aren't you going away too?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I'm going to Mexico coming up. But let's get
Speaker 3: Let's not talk about me a little. Let's talk about
Speaker 3: mister Snow.
Speaker 4: Bro.
Speaker 3: He said he grew up in a very rural area,
Speaker 3: killed a couple of swirls and rabbits, but nothing really
Speaker 3: to speaker very very quiet.
Speaker 6: I'm hunting weapons.
Speaker 3: I mean, you didn't enjoy sitting out like ten degrees
Speaker 3: up in a in a stand with snat freeze into
Speaker 3: your face for like ten hours. That's that you think?
Speaker 4: I did not? You know, I did try it once, and.
Speaker 8: Of course I fell asleep, right, Yeah, when I woke up,
Speaker 8: there was a deer like right there. Then you can't
Speaker 8: you can't stir right, so you get up and you
Speaker 8: try to get set, and then it took off run.
Speaker 4: So that was it. It was done.
Speaker 3: I tell us about when you grew up what you know, Yeah, Illinois,
Speaker 3: And yeah, it.
Speaker 4: Was central central part of Illinois.
Speaker 8: It's a small farmtown called Hayworth and it's in between
Speaker 8: Champagne or band of Bloomington, Normal and Springfield and those
Speaker 8: who are from Illinois. And the time that I was there,
Speaker 8: seventeen hundred population and.
Speaker 3: Seventeen hundreds you almost knew everybody in town.
Speaker 8: Basically knew everyone, right, and so which was great. I
Speaker 8: mean it's good and bad, right, it has its bad points.
Speaker 8: Everybody knows your whole life. But we knew everyone. We
Speaker 8: knew there were families. I had three, three sets of
Speaker 8: relatives that lived in that town. So we had our
Speaker 8: relatives had some pretty popular that were quite popular in
Speaker 8: that area. But we had seventeen hundred population, and so
Speaker 8: it was something where you don't see that much now,
Speaker 8: you know, even in my kids where I'm at now
Speaker 8: in Orland Park, which.
Speaker 4: Is it's a bigger it's a bigger town, and.
Speaker 8: Their schools are huge, and their schools are larger than
Speaker 8: the population.
Speaker 4: Their schools are larger than the town I grew up in.
Speaker 8: Right, So for me, it's really hard to you know,
Speaker 8: to understand that, you know, and.
Speaker 3: How far were you away from Chicago where you were living.
Speaker 4: It's it's around it's about three hours.
Speaker 8: It's about one hundred and seventy five, one hundred and
Speaker 8: eighty miles south.
Speaker 3: Now, you come from a big family, you know, immediate family.
Speaker 8: My my family has just had one brother, huh yeah,
Speaker 8: and my mom had two two brothers, two sisters, and
Speaker 8: they had a large family, and we grew up with
Speaker 8: them right down this street, you know, black Top Road
Speaker 8: where I grew up and.
Speaker 4: And grew up bayl and Hay and riding dirt bikes.
Speaker 3: It's kind of bay Middle America, right roof, Yeah, we
Speaker 3: have shrinking. What did your dad do when he was
Speaker 3: in a fine.
Speaker 4: And was he No, he he was in construction.
Speaker 8: So he did construction and worked his way up to
Speaker 8: the general contractor. Then he had his own business for
Speaker 8: a number of years, general contracting.
Speaker 6: To take.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna take it shot out there.
Speaker 3: Listen, dude, the snows were big name over there. Listen,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna build this building for you, but you're going
Speaker 3: to pay me three times what it's worked. All right, I'm.
Speaker 7: Gonna sell, said Louis and Johnny over there to help
Speaker 7: you find your checkbook?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 3: What what was the interest in becoming a five man?
Speaker 3: Where did that come from?
Speaker 8: So my whole life I wanted to be in the military.
Speaker 8: That was my biggest That was my biggest dream is
Speaker 8: to be in the military and special forces. And and
Speaker 8: I had an uncle that I never had a chance
Speaker 8: to meet, and he was killed during in Vienna, Vietnam
Speaker 8: era while he was training to be a great Green
Speaker 8: Bray and he got killed during his training, and so
Speaker 8: I never had a chance to meet him. And it's
Speaker 8: always had a passionate sort of following his footsteps. And
Speaker 8: I loved the military and the whole idea of it.
Speaker 8: You know, he grew up in the country. You know
Speaker 8: the show Ramble right with so me and you know,
Speaker 8: my friends and cousins, we'd spend our days in the
Speaker 8: in the timbers and painting ourselves up.
Speaker 4: And shooting each other with with pellet guns.
Speaker 3: Right two eyes out, you know what could happen?
Speaker 8: And so when it came to my junior year of
Speaker 8: high school, I developed a seizure disorder. And so I
Speaker 8: started having seizures and they really didn't know what was
Speaker 8: the cause of it. And so when you have two
Speaker 8: or three, they give you an epilepsy diagnosis. And so
Speaker 8: when that happened, then it sort of took me out
Speaker 8: of the box and going to the military.
Speaker 4: So that was kind of a dream destroyer.
Speaker 8: And and so I was kind of lost right without
Speaker 8: purpose and having purpose, of course is is you know,
Speaker 8: it's a it's a necessary thing.
Speaker 4: To have in your life.
Speaker 8: And and so I was a little lost. And my
Speaker 8: senior year, you know, I can take those those career
Speaker 8: aptitude tests where you can kind of get a measurement
Speaker 8: of what you might be good at doing, and it
Speaker 8: measured that that I would be good at at being
Speaker 8: an EMT.
Speaker 4: I never really thought about it.
Speaker 8: And I had a cousin that was a MEDICA out
Speaker 8: in Las Vegas, and so I called and talked to
Speaker 8: him about it and got some insight.
Speaker 4: And I looked to see if having a.
Speaker 8: Seizure disorder, if I would even be able to get,
Speaker 8: you know, in the fire service, and and thankfully I was.
Speaker 8: I was able to do that as long as it
Speaker 8: was controlled for six months under medication.
Speaker 4: And so I'm like, okay, So I'm like, all right,
Speaker 4: I'll try it.
Speaker 8: And right after high school I got into an empt
Speaker 8: class and joined the volunteer fire Department. And you know,
Speaker 8: basically that the the last bill the day of the year,
Speaker 8: the summer at school that was probably still ringing.
Speaker 4: I was jumping on the tailboard of the engine, you know.
Speaker 3: So you go out of high school. I was getting
Speaker 3: by the bug right from there or what right out
Speaker 3: of high school?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's paramilitary, right, So it's something.
Speaker 8: That I to do and and learned that I was
Speaker 8: going to be good at it and had a passion,
Speaker 8: and soon it just kind of took off from there.
Speaker 3: So so what happens with the seizures. Did they just
Speaker 3: subsorbed on medication for life now?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 8: Yeah, And you know, about probably about two years later,
Speaker 8: maybe about two years after high school, I just stopped
Speaker 8: taking it and because I just knew, you know, there's
Speaker 8: side effects of everything you take, and and it was
Speaker 8: gonna could have led to a plasticanemia and cancers, and
Speaker 8: and so I'm like, you know what, I'm just gonna
Speaker 8: I'm just gonna wean myself off of it and see
Speaker 8: what happens. And you know, thank the Lord, I never
Speaker 8: I didn't didn't have any afterwards, and I was for you,
Speaker 8: so good thing nobody got.
Speaker 3: So let's see how it We say this all the time, right,
Speaker 3: how you get pushed in a certain direction and a
Speaker 3: point in your life for some reason, right trajectory man?
Speaker 7: Yeah, the time that happens with guys, either they had
Speaker 7: somebody in their family who they knew right away, or
Speaker 7: it's something like like that where you wanted to go
Speaker 7: in a totally different direction, or you know.
Speaker 4: Somebody says, yeah, take this.
Speaker 3: Test, Yeah you have, you have no direction you're going on,
Speaker 3: and you enable walks down the blockhangent application and then
Speaker 3: next thing you know, you know.
Speaker 4: Sure, thirty years of the fight department, right, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: You got you became a paramedic and you were paid
Speaker 3: paramedic for a while.
Speaker 4: Right, it was, Yeah, so I did.
Speaker 8: I was a medic for three years in Champagne, and
Speaker 8: it was interesting while I was still volunteering. I did
Speaker 8: volunteering too while I was doing that, and we had
Speaker 8: I was in Champagne or ban and we had ambulances,
Speaker 8: but we also had ambulances or box trucks back then
Speaker 8: that we carried all extrication equipment and everything like that.
Speaker 4: So it was very unique.
Speaker 8: And we covered Champagne, Ravana and then a lot of
Speaker 8: about four or five rural areas outside of that area.
Speaker 8: And so we were going in the rural areas and
Speaker 8: and uh taking in runs. But there's a lot there
Speaker 8: was a lot of pen ins and things out there,
Speaker 8: so we did a lot of pen in work while
Speaker 8: we did the medical work too.
Speaker 4: So it was it was an a.
Speaker 3: Good jump start and fight a bull.
Speaker 7: When did you When did you? And how did that
Speaker 7: come about? Where you would what test did you take?
Speaker 7: Did you just take Chicago? How did that come about?
Speaker 4: For when I got on the city, Yeah.
Speaker 7: To take the test for that how did that even
Speaker 7: come about? Like, this is what I want to do.
Speaker 7: I'm going to Chicago, right? Is that how that work?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Well, I think it was one of those things. As
Speaker 8: soon as I got the bug, I wanted to do
Speaker 8: it right. And so you know, if you're if you're
Speaker 8: going to do it, you got to go where the
Speaker 8: work is and where the big dogs baby, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 8: And so that's what it was. It was just I
Speaker 8: had the bug, and I think my desire was to
Speaker 8: be urban right in Chicago was certainly.
Speaker 4: One in Illinois, and I had had my eyes on.
Speaker 3: And did you go with any friends to take the tests?
Speaker 3: You took it by myself?
Speaker 4: No, I just took it. I took it by myself
Speaker 4: when I was in the suburbs.
Speaker 8: So I was a medic for three years and then
Speaker 8: I came up to the suburban areas and worked as
Speaker 8: a as a cross train paramid re fireman for a
Speaker 8: department outside of the city. And I was there from
Speaker 8: ninety seven to two thousand and the members I worked
Speaker 8: with there, a few of them were from Chicago, and
Speaker 8: I had an opportunity to ride on the city to
Speaker 8: call it Fanning right, So on the West side on
Speaker 8: truck twenty six and I and Mow had mentioned his name,
Speaker 8: Frankie Corone, and so that was around ninety five ninety six.
Speaker 8: I went and roaded with them for a couple of
Speaker 8: years actually, and really learned about the West Side and
Speaker 8: learned some trump work and got to know a lot
Speaker 8: of the members in ninety five and the entire thirteenth
Speaker 8: Battalion actually in and and so again that just really
Speaker 8: reinforced my desire to go to the city.
Speaker 4: And and so.
Speaker 8: We took a test, right, so it's huge, it's you know,
Speaker 8: the filled I think I think at that time they
Speaker 8: had it two days in a row because they couldn't
Speaker 8: they couldn't get enough people in the stage.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of competition obviously a lot.
Speaker 8: Of competition, right, and so I was just fortunate to
Speaker 8: land the top fifteen hundred out of I don't know
Speaker 8: how yeah thousands, So yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: So how long did after he took the test that
Speaker 3: they finally called it?
Speaker 8: It was we took it ninety five, so you're thinking
Speaker 8: ninety five to get it goes through all the illegal stuff,
Speaker 8: and a year or so later it came out. I
Speaker 8: think it was supposed in ninety six, ninety six, ninety seven,
Speaker 8: and and so I got on two thousand, so right
Speaker 8: around three little.
Speaker 3: Well, you ride with those guys in Chicago. You knew
Speaker 3: you were in the other list, so that I would be nice, right, Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Did you run it to mout back then? Did you
Speaker 3: know who he was?
Speaker 4: You know what?
Speaker 8: I'm sure I did. I don't know if you was
Speaker 8: on the first shift or not, but I'm quite sure
Speaker 8: I did.
Speaker 4: They didn't know. I didn't know who he was at
Speaker 4: that time.
Speaker 3: Really told guy. Yeah, really, they come to jaggle of
Speaker 3: watch throw.
Speaker 6: Something out there.
Speaker 3: So you go to the oh there he is here.
Speaker 4: There it is, right, So it was a big group.
Speaker 3: Where is their academy? Is it in Chicago?
Speaker 8: It is, Well, it's in Chicago, to the Quinn Academy.
Speaker 8: It's it's basically where the history of is where the
Speaker 8: great Chicago Fire in eighteen seventy one started. Really yeah,
Speaker 8: So put that academy there, and and they recently, over
Speaker 8: the last year or so, they built a new public
Speaker 8: safety entire complex and it's really stay of the art,
Speaker 8: and they put that on the West Side.
Speaker 4: So they used the Quinn Academy.
Speaker 8: For for certain things, and then they used the other
Speaker 8: the other site for for other things.
Speaker 3: How many people in your US.
Speaker 8: We had one hundred. I think we had one hundred.
Speaker 8: We might have been we might have been right at
Speaker 8: one hundred decent size.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, So.
Speaker 7: Let me ask you us Brett, when you get into
Speaker 7: the academy, then do you how does that work over there?
Speaker 7: Is it similar to New York where you have to
Speaker 7: make a phone call like you're trying to get to
Speaker 7: certain places over and.
Speaker 8: You know what, I came in probably on the late
Speaker 8: stages of that. If not, that might have been a
Speaker 8: little but it was still it was still going on, right.
Speaker 8: You still had people that had which I am completely
Speaker 8: in favor of, is when you have family on the
Speaker 8: job that you get taken care of.
Speaker 4: There's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 8: If you had a parent they got killed on the job,
Speaker 8: I think take care of with that doubt. And if
Speaker 8: you served right, if you served the military, and I
Speaker 8: think you should for sure I have that's I'm all.
Speaker 3: Who did you call Freddy to fix a Well?
Speaker 4: You know that I did. Well.
Speaker 8: At that time, they were they were going around and
Speaker 8: asking you where you lived, and and so they were
Speaker 8: trying to put you in an assignment close to where
Speaker 8: you lived, and I was trying to tell him I
Speaker 8: lived in the West Side, so they weren't buying it.
Speaker 5: You know, but you're planking, he is no, he is no,
Speaker 5: Oh you are, oh you are.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: Did you have an apartment in them you moved up
Speaker 3: for the academy.
Speaker 4: I did, and I had a house way out in
Speaker 4: the suburbs.
Speaker 8: And when I got the letters saying that you that
Speaker 8: you're on the list and your waiting list, and you
Speaker 8: had to have a residency by the time your academy started,
Speaker 8: So when you step foot on the academy, you.
Speaker 4: Had to have a city address. And so I was.
Speaker 8: Fortunate enough to be able to sell my house I
Speaker 8: had within thirty days and and bought it, you.
Speaker 4: Know, rent an apartment up north and got a city address.
Speaker 3: You single at the time, I'm sorry when you single
Speaker 3: at the Yeah, I had his own house before that.
Speaker 4: If he's doing something, I try to do it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I know all the guys who own houses too. Club Lord,
Speaker 3: So that where do you I think I have it?
Speaker 4: Hit?
Speaker 3: He goes to one thirteen. Where are they located now?
Speaker 4: So they are on the West Side.
Speaker 8: They're Laramie and Harrison, and they're in uh what it
Speaker 8: used to be the old thirteenth battalion, and that's the
Speaker 8: eighteenth battalion.
Speaker 4: Now it's a fourth district.
Speaker 3: So they they're rock and rolling all.
Speaker 4: There gets worse, they all that's a solid, solid battalion. Thirteenth.
Speaker 8: It's a solid district thirteenth and the old thirteenth and
Speaker 8: old fourteenth they're different, different numbers now. But that's where
Speaker 8: actually Mo spent some of his time. And and Chicorotis
Speaker 8: we had him. He did Squad two and in the
Speaker 8: west side and the old thirteenth.
Speaker 3: Did you go there by himself? He went there with
Speaker 3: another I don't know if they call Proby's proby.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I had two. Now I had one other candidate
Speaker 8: that went there. Otherwise I was the only one and
Speaker 8: the other one was the only one that went to
Speaker 8: the thirteenth.
Speaker 3: Was it a young house or a lot of senior
Speaker 3: guys in there?
Speaker 4: The it was a it was an old house.
Speaker 8: Yeah, at a lot of twenty twenty five year your guys,
Speaker 8: which was great, you know.
Speaker 4: What I mean.
Speaker 8: And and to step foot in that and my officer
Speaker 8: was awesome. Jack Cummings, John Cummings is real name, but
Speaker 8: he he was from the sixties and guy and he
Speaker 8: had no one of his voices.
Speaker 4: It was yeah right, distinct.
Speaker 5: Very up pilgrim.
Speaker 6: Yeah, such a shutdown thirty three just no fucking back
Speaker 6: up John waiting time. You want your own boss, so
Speaker 6: you uh.
Speaker 3: Sorry sorry read what do they ride five min engine
Speaker 3: former into? What do they have there?
Speaker 6: The heavy? You're all heavy?
Speaker 4: Yeah? It was five that's fine, man, And it was
Speaker 4: an ALS engine.
Speaker 8: It was one of the first couple of engines they
Speaker 8: started an ALS program, which is.
Speaker 3: Good for you, because you're already a paramedic.
Speaker 4: Right, I wasn't medic, which did help me get that spot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, correct, it's something else helped me get in that
Speaker 3: spot too, right.
Speaker 7: Roy fiction, How did uh do you remember your first job?
Speaker 4: That's yeah, no, it was don't pretty much ride out
Speaker 4: the door.
Speaker 8: I couldn't tell you my first one, and actually we
Speaker 8: could probably talk about later, but I journaled my first
Speaker 8: year and uh, my first year on one thirteen and
Speaker 8: my last year of five years on Squad two and
Speaker 8: uh and put it in a book.
Speaker 3: Oh right, we got to talk about the book, man.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I wish I would have done that man.
Speaker 8: Yeah, right, and that's right there. Yeah, Bernie, Bernie Burne.
Speaker 8: This is it here.
Speaker 3: Let's see what does it take.
Speaker 5: Take it right on the west side.
Speaker 3: That's pretty cool. Where do we find that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's on Amazon Amazon. Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's very very thin, right, So it's it's our
Speaker 8: firefighters attention span.
Speaker 4: So it's about get on the floor.
Speaker 5: For the toilet, you zip, you zip out.
Speaker 3: It's like dropped the kids off of the pool. You
Speaker 3: mean this beautiful? So it has like word for word
Speaker 3: of what you experienced your first year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it was. It's it's a street view perspective, right.
Speaker 8: So it's the first year, and I tried capturing everything,
Speaker 8: but I couldn't and we were just too too busy,
Speaker 8: so I just kept the interesting ones and uh, and
Speaker 8: then put it in.
Speaker 4: It's kind of a journal form for it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh that's cool man. I had started the journal too,
Speaker 3: and those idiots like six months and thought I was
Speaker 3: writing about them, like I was ratting on with up
Speaker 3: and they threw it out. If it's my journal?
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 8: One of the guys that had twenty he had twenty
Speaker 8: twenty two years on and and he had mentioned that
Speaker 8: my first day there that he had wished he had
Speaker 8: done that, And I'm like, what.
Speaker 3: A great that's a great tip for young guys.
Speaker 4: Problem.
Speaker 3: Look like we just gave an old school tip of
Speaker 3: the day right here, man oh man, journal Right, maybe
Speaker 3: you want a journal about wearing a pink shirt? Makes
Speaker 3: it spaghetti me bulls or I don't know what you
Speaker 3: want to delicious?
Speaker 5: Well, you know what it was, Kobe.
Speaker 7: Even when you guys came on right the uh they
Speaker 7: were keeping a journal.
Speaker 5: But I don't know if it was more people.
Speaker 3: I wasn't the same journal. Yeah, drills that they were doing.
Speaker 3: And you know what, guys wouldn't even do it every day.
Speaker 3: They wait till you have to go give it in
Speaker 3: and they would write, you know, five months.
Speaker 4: Keep I did keep.
Speaker 7: I have my first run, I have my first fire,
Speaker 7: I have I think I have a lot of first.
Speaker 3: You're the one who told me to keep it hanging
Speaker 3: right over here.
Speaker 5: I watched. I think I was because you forget everything right.
Speaker 7: I mean, guys come up there like you know all
Speaker 7: this time later be like, hey, bro, if you remember
Speaker 7: that job and we had over that, I'm like, holy shit,
Speaker 7: I do remember that job. But I would have never
Speaker 7: thought of it, you know, on my own, just because
Speaker 7: you can't remember anything.
Speaker 3: Was it like social stuff that went out of the
Speaker 3: firehouse too, Bret, Like every day stuff like bull breaking.
Speaker 8: Or I put a little of that in there, you
Speaker 8: know what, and a lot of just of course it's humor, right,
Speaker 8: and just the neighborhood that we were in, and and
Speaker 8: just you know, it's sometimes it's a little.
Speaker 4: Theater, right. You got the garage doors up, you're sitting
Speaker 4: out there and it's entertaining.
Speaker 8: And then some of the neighbors, right, they would come
Speaker 8: in and talk and have conversations.
Speaker 4: So I put some of that stuff in there too.
Speaker 3: You're gonna make a little movie out of that, bro.
Speaker 3: It was a little TV series or something that'll be great.
Speaker 3: So who wrote something about Chicago firefighters? I don't know Chicago.
Speaker 3: The other pole with that is everybody is good looking
Speaker 3: in there, and they're all banging each other in the firehouse,
Speaker 3: Like this is so unrealistic. Come on, Chicken Rotes, cry
Speaker 3: it out loud.
Speaker 7: Who were Who are some of the guys that you
Speaker 7: were working with that you remember that that took you
Speaker 7: under their wing kind of thing.
Speaker 8: Bernie Byrne was one we have some great relief officers,
Speaker 8: Nicky Cairo and Roy Dean and.
Speaker 4: Who else?
Speaker 8: Boy, I tell you Ron Mainley was on Tower fourteen
Speaker 8: over on the out of one seventeen's house, and and
Speaker 8: Jimmy Davis will learn a lot from him with engine
Speaker 8: work and Joey. But NICKI Cairo, he's a relief officer.
Speaker 8: He and well and Mitch Crooker as well. So he
Speaker 8: was the captain at one thirteen?
Speaker 3: Was he when you were there? He was the captain man?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Wow, I love yeah. So and you know it's just
Speaker 8: just a yeah, just the endless list of names for sure.
Speaker 3: Right, So, now, how does it? How does Chicago break down?
Speaker 3: Is that the south side of the Is that what
Speaker 3: it is? The south side? Are they the busiest?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 8: I think if you wanted to do some comparisons, I
Speaker 8: would say that the west Inglewood, which is like south
Speaker 8: but like north south, like a mid south, but it's south.
Speaker 8: And then you go far south, which is Roseland so
Speaker 8: you got Roseland and you got Inglewood, and then you
Speaker 8: got the west side.
Speaker 4: So you got.
Speaker 8: Inglewood that's south side, and they got Rosand that's far south.
Speaker 8: And then you have the west side and they're pretty comparative.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, some of the engine one thirteen.
Speaker 7: Those guys are consistent all this time too, right, they
Speaker 7: kind of do this, you know, they're always in the numbers,
Speaker 7: right for the most part.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of Did you ever did you have
Speaker 3: a ride in New York at all? Did you have
Speaker 3: a I never?
Speaker 4: I never did.
Speaker 8: I tell you my first time to New York City
Speaker 8: and my last. I haven't been back unfortunately, kind of
Speaker 8: ashamed of it, but was during the last three days
Speaker 8: of rescue effort after nine eleven, so so that I
Speaker 8: was there with uh four or five other other guys,
Speaker 8: went and we're there for about sixteen hours. We spent
Speaker 8: sixteen hours there and then and then then came back.
Speaker 8: And I haven't in the bad.
Speaker 3: Since they seem they seem kind of similar New York
Speaker 3: City fire and in Chicago fire, you know, yeah, same
Speaker 3: ghetto type.
Speaker 7: You know, five fighters, I mean every guy we've had
Speaker 7: on from Chicago. I think we've had about five guys on.
Speaker 3: Everyone than that. They're all hot, joy.
Speaker 4: Mold, same mold, you know, like definitely the same mold. Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, you know what it's it's it's where you work,
Speaker 8: right too, It's you know when you go to those
Speaker 8: areas that that requires you to want to be there
Speaker 8: and want to do the job. The people who don't
Speaker 8: want to be there don't last long.
Speaker 3: Right, we'll find that, we'll find that place to settle
Speaker 3: in these people.
Speaker 8: But those who stay are quite like minded, right, and
Speaker 8: they're they're into the and they're trustworthy. Right there, go get.
Speaker 3: What did my brother used to say? Rough the seat
Speaker 3: for every as they find the seat somewhere else, right,
Speaker 3: Brett likes that's.
Speaker 4: Fine too, that's okay all the time. Yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it'll either be voluntary or involuntary, but they'll right.
Speaker 8: And you know what it is too, it's if you
Speaker 8: get people who don't want to do the job and
Speaker 8: you get them into the firehouses that are slow and
Speaker 8: they fill them seats up and then when there's you know,
Speaker 8: that means that we're not getting detailed of those houses.
Speaker 8: We're staying where we want to be. And right, so hey,
Speaker 8: if you if you guys, you know, if you got
Speaker 8: people that want to be in the slow houses, then
Speaker 8: you know, more power to you.
Speaker 3: Now, how did they used to run on a still alarm?
Speaker 3: What do you get?
Speaker 4: Three engines?
Speaker 3: Two trucks and the rest, and they call them squads.
Speaker 4: Right yeah.
Speaker 8: On the on the still alarm, we get two engines,
Speaker 8: two trucks, a writ truck, and then we get the
Speaker 8: squad and command band and am but tie chief?
Speaker 3: Do the chiefs still drive themselves over there?
Speaker 4: They do?
Speaker 8: The battalion chiefs do. Yeah, yeah, they still do. They
Speaker 8: did have drivers years ago, but they still drive themselves.
Speaker 3: So Crook used to use a crate. I guess to
Speaker 3: sit up.
Speaker 4: All of them, every one of them.
Speaker 8: You seem pretty so I've told you, bro I am
Speaker 8: six maybe five, you know, right, you know.
Speaker 3: That's the purple unicorn, right.
Speaker 4: Everybody looks, Yeah, what.
Speaker 7: Was the other guy? Oh? Chief Timothy as well. He's
Speaker 7: kind of Uh.
Speaker 3: We had a lot of chicken roots him. Crook a
Speaker 3: Crooker book? Where is that? Jack?
Speaker 6: Know?
Speaker 7: Another thing that I find, Like we've had a bunch
Speaker 7: of those guys come on the boat trip, right, We've
Speaker 7: seen him at parties and stuff over the years.
Speaker 5: Uh, they could take.
Speaker 7: It, man and give it right that there's very few
Speaker 7: people even like people around the country, like we go
Speaker 7: to shows and stuff. You could tell you could get them,
Speaker 7: you know what I mean? Like not those guys. Not
Speaker 7: not the Chicago guys. You can definitely tell they have.
Speaker 3: I talked to Mo and he doesn't call me a
Speaker 3: jack off. At least ten times. I feel like something's wrong,
Speaker 3: jack ban, jack off something.
Speaker 7: Timothy Chief Timothy is the same. I told him, Yeah,
Speaker 7: he's freaking hilarious.
Speaker 3: Did you work with him, Timothy?
Speaker 4: I did?
Speaker 8: Timothy was he he was relieving as a as a
Speaker 8: chief in and out in the thirteenth as well.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I should have wont my jack off shirt tonight.
Speaker 4: Man, Yeah, I should have won a jack off.
Speaker 3: He got me the jack of shirt.
Speaker 6: Yeah, slacker.
Speaker 3: So why do you decide to leave? You go to engine?
Speaker 3: How long did you put in one thirteen before?
Speaker 4: For five years?
Speaker 8: And I like moving around and so that was that
Speaker 8: was kind of that was gonna be my my m O. Anyway,
Speaker 8: when I went, I wanted to move around, see different
Speaker 8: parts of the city and just getting different perspectives.
Speaker 4: Well, Engine one thirteen.
Speaker 8: So the thirteenth Battalion is heavy in apartment building six flats,
Speaker 8: three flats, courtyards l shaped, and a lot of flat
Speaker 8: roofs right, and a lot of back porch fires, a
Speaker 8: lot of arson jobs and and things like that and so,
Speaker 8: and it was an ALS engine, single engine with with stairs,
Speaker 8: and so I kind of wanted to see what it
Speaker 8: was like to be on another I liked single engines.
Speaker 8: That's why I went to the other one. And they
Speaker 8: were they were it was a west Side engine. It
Speaker 8: neighbors where I was at a fourteenth battalion, and they
Speaker 8: had they had more frames, so it was a it
Speaker 8: was a BLS engine.
Speaker 4: It was an ALS and they had more frames.
Speaker 8: They ran with, you know, thirty eight and one on
Speaker 8: nine forty four, some really good houses. So I went
Speaker 8: over there and I was there for for two years.
Speaker 3: And how big guys feel about you leaving from one.
Speaker 4: Fote one thirteen? You know what I did? I think
Speaker 4: I caught a little slackh from it, a little bit, sure, sure,
Speaker 4: a little slack. But they understood, of course, right, And
Speaker 4: it was kind of breaking up.
Speaker 8: Some guys were getting promoted and people were retiring, and
Speaker 8: so it was kind of breaking up anyhow. I know, bitch,
Speaker 8: he gave me a hard time for going, but I
Speaker 8: just it was one of those things I kind of
Speaker 8: had to do what you know, of course, you got
Speaker 8: to do what's good for you and and and I
Speaker 8: just kind of wanted to just to change and and.
Speaker 3: What are you studying it all by that time?
Speaker 8: And not I was in college. I was doing that.
Speaker 8: I wasn't studying for any promotional.
Speaker 3: It was one of these smot guys bro to.
Speaker 4: Science I was doing at that time.
Speaker 8: I think, Yeah, I finished an undergrad and behavioral science,
Speaker 8: and then that one I was working on a graduate
Speaker 8: degree in public safety.
Speaker 3: We got a really schmock guy.
Speaker 4: I'm smot miking.
Speaker 3: Not like everybody, what are you gonna say?
Speaker 7: No, I was saying that, if I remember right, it
Speaker 7: seemed like a lot of the Chicago guy guys kind
Speaker 7: of bumped around.
Speaker 5: A little bit all over the place. Yeah, it seemed
Speaker 5: like like I think we brought that up last time.
Speaker 5: Like in New York.
Speaker 7: It's kind of like most guys stay unless they get promoted.
Speaker 7: You know, they might go from an edge to a
Speaker 7: truck or to the rescue, but they don't go generally
Speaker 7: engine to engine to engine or something like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, because most of.
Speaker 3: The stuff like did those like something called bidding. Did
Speaker 3: you have to bid that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, yeah I remember, yeah yeah, And that's uh
Speaker 8: And that's the thing too, you know, just like anything else.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure on New York how they did it.
Speaker 8: I think I was talking to something from Boston a
Speaker 8: few years back and they were seeing how their candidates
Speaker 8: would rotate around every I don't know, every year, every
Speaker 8: couple of years or whatever. But it's in the city. Yeah,
Speaker 8: you you've come out and you're there. And so if
Speaker 8: you're a hard charger, you know, post military and just
Speaker 8: able right to do the job, and you get out
Speaker 8: of the academy and get second in slow house, you're
Speaker 8: like a lion, you know, in a cage.
Speaker 4: But that's on fortunate. You could be stuck there for
Speaker 4: five years.
Speaker 8: To just move up to something that's that's even a
Speaker 8: medium you know, medium pace.
Speaker 3: You know that sucks. So it's good to know Freddy
Speaker 3: to fix it, you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: What was it?
Speaker 7: What company did you transfer to? One seven? Who was
Speaker 7: who was over that that? You remember?
Speaker 5: That was?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 8: I had Joe Muscollino who was Battalian chief there, which
Speaker 8: just a great guy, and he was my captain when
Speaker 8: I first came out. I went to an engine forty
Speaker 8: three for three for two months because we had temporary assignments,
Speaker 8: and so he was my captain at that house, and
Speaker 8: he he was the one that I could probably get
Speaker 8: credit to get me into to the thirteenth. Yeah, I
Speaker 8: met the engine one thirteen, so he was there. I
Speaker 8: went over there, and Jerry McKee was an awesome, well
Speaker 8: known guy, just a great guy. He was another chief
Speaker 8: on another ship there, and and.
Speaker 4: I knew a few other firemen and so it was good.
Speaker 4: It was a good move.
Speaker 3: How did they do over there in those busy areas,
Speaker 3: because I know a lot you busy areas don't necessarily
Speaker 3: cook all the time, right and out Like in the
Speaker 3: squad we we out of the road a lot. So
Speaker 3: do they do the same over there, you know in
Speaker 3: the busy areas, No.
Speaker 4: They still cook.
Speaker 8: Sure, we leave the cook back and unless it's still
Speaker 8: and they run. I think for the most part, traditionally
Speaker 8: the cook is there and usually sits, you know, it
Speaker 8: stays back, you know, for for ambo runs and you know,
Speaker 8: the anything that's really not a still alarmed for the
Speaker 8: most part, because you know, it's kind of an incentive. Right,
Speaker 8: So you're you're in the kitchen all day and you're
Speaker 8: doing this and that, and you stay back on all
Speaker 8: the runs.
Speaker 4: And at nights and at ninth and you can hop
Speaker 4: on the runs and go out.
Speaker 8: I know some houses one of the houses I was at,
Speaker 8: they even at night unless it was still run. That
Speaker 8: it was kind of an incentive that he didn't they
Speaker 8: didn't get on the ring unless it was a fire.
Speaker 4: Interesting.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that even a bad game, let's sit
Speaker 3: back and cook unless it's a job. I no, no elevator,
Speaker 3: no fighting cook.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, it's you know, you guys know it.
Speaker 8: Shoot, you can be there's houses with you know, twenty
Speaker 8: twenty one people on the firehouse.
Speaker 4: That's oh yeah, booking a mass unit, right, so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, all right, do you have to call
Speaker 3: Freddy to fix every game? Because this is a big
Speaker 3: movie here.
Speaker 4: Bro, you have a big one. Yeah, it was a
Speaker 4: big Yeah.
Speaker 3: What makes Did you have your eye on going to
Speaker 3: the squad for a while?
Speaker 8: I did, you know, Uh, I was put myself through
Speaker 8: a lot of the certifications, the rope, you know, certifications
Speaker 8: they're repelling, and most of everything that you needed to
Speaker 8: get on there, and even Patty the scuba diving and
Speaker 8: things like.
Speaker 4: That, you had to have to get on there.
Speaker 8: And and so I did that on my own and
Speaker 8: just put in for it there was an opportunity to do.
Speaker 8: They would do ninety day right, and they would do
Speaker 8: ninety days details on the squads, and it was a
Speaker 8: ninety day you would kind of get it, get a
Speaker 8: feel for it. For ninety they would fill you out too, right,
Speaker 8: so you'd go ninety days and then if you if
Speaker 8: you were a fit and if that was something you
Speaker 8: wanted to do also.
Speaker 4: But if you were a fit, they would be able
Speaker 4: to extend it.
Speaker 8: And then once that spot would open up, they would
Speaker 8: put open it up for bid, and then you would.
Speaker 4: Put in for it and then have a good shot
Speaker 4: of getting it.
Speaker 3: So I was very helped to train yourself on all
Speaker 3: those huh.
Speaker 8: Well and then and then one I was on there.
Speaker 8: I took a few more courses that I didn't have,
Speaker 8: like collapse attack and things like that, but for the
Speaker 8: most part I had.
Speaker 4: I had it. And I'm not sure how they run
Speaker 4: it now, But to bid.
Speaker 8: For a squad you have to have most of those
Speaker 8: You have to have a lot of those shirts before
Speaker 8: you even go.
Speaker 3: And how many squads are there, again, Brett.
Speaker 8: There is Some people will make a joke of it,
Speaker 8: but there's Squad one, Squad two, Squad five and Squad
Speaker 8: seven is out on the airport. So Squad one is
Speaker 8: is mainly the downtown squad and stuff.
Speaker 9: Yeah, they cover they cover some some parts of the
Speaker 9: west side south sort of west side right, and then
Speaker 9: Squad two covers all the west side and part of
Speaker 9: the north, a little bit of northeast.
Speaker 3: So they get the fuego. Squad two is what you
Speaker 3: tell you give me the wink right the way wink.
Speaker 4: And then Squad five is the south side squad.
Speaker 7: So what was that like went from the engine going
Speaker 7: to that place, like how to be like everything you
Speaker 7: would would have hoped.
Speaker 4: If it was? Yeah, with that that that was great.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was awesome, I tell you it was. I
Speaker 8: was very fortunate, immeasurable experience. I would say that the
Speaker 8: five years I spent there, I would have never gone
Speaker 8: to as many roofs as I did and had a
Speaker 8: chance to do force as many doors. So when you're
Speaker 8: on that squad, you just you kind of can dial
Speaker 8: into certain things like we went to roofs all the time, and.
Speaker 4: We had we went to a lot of flat rope,
Speaker 4: so we covered the west side.
Speaker 8: We were the west side squad, and so there's a
Speaker 8: lot of flat ropes there, and so we had an
Speaker 8: opportunity to go to a lot of roofs. When you
Speaker 8: go to the peaks, generally, if you know, if there's
Speaker 8: if there's a need to go to the roof and
Speaker 8: it's a peak, you don't really want to put more
Speaker 8: than you know, two or three guys on the peak.
Speaker 8: So we would usually not go to a peak roof
Speaker 8: we would, but more often we would just we would
Speaker 8: find ourselves on the flats, right, you don't want to
Speaker 8: crowd the peaks, so if they, you know, if they
Speaker 8: needed help, we'd go up.
Speaker 4: If not, then if we went.
Speaker 8: To the slower areas where the experience was a little lower,
Speaker 8: then we would find ourselves going up on peaks.
Speaker 3: That's the most work fire.
Speaker 4: Du Yeah, I would say.
Speaker 8: I would say two and five in for the most
Speaker 8: part are pretty close neck and neck, right, So yeah,
Speaker 8: I would say I would say that for sure, Squad five,
Speaker 8: I would say, if there was a if you would say,
Speaker 8: you know, you would have probably they're probably ahead a
Speaker 8: little bit.
Speaker 4: But not that much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Now you guys didn't have a walk through. Do
Speaker 3: they have a walk through now or they don't have
Speaker 3: the walk through rigs.
Speaker 4: Yep, that is that's the box there.
Speaker 8: It looks like it's a box and uh and then
Speaker 8: there's a snorkel, so there's a yeah, well you mean.
Speaker 7: You have two riggs that you kneeling down in that
Speaker 7: picture might have been yeah, got back up?
Speaker 5: Yes right, yeah, wow, different went out the stash.
Speaker 4: Yeah right, Yeah, that's the box truck though. So that's
Speaker 4: the box truck.
Speaker 8: That's where we kept you know, all the dive equipment
Speaker 8: and the tanks and all that stuff in there.
Speaker 3: And you and then you had a snoreful that you
Speaker 3: would have.
Speaker 4: A snorkel that followed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, really so, but god, see if you can find
Speaker 3: that I don't see that looks like I'm almost sure
Speaker 3: we've probably seen.
Speaker 4: It in the past, but no, we had it up.
Speaker 4: We played it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, gonna see the frush my memory A right, who is.
Speaker 7: Some of the guys there that as soon as you
Speaker 7: got there that you were like, Holy Michael, these guys
Speaker 7: are the real deal.
Speaker 8: Yeah good, A few a few of the guys that
Speaker 8: came on with Yeah, Squad one Downtown.
Speaker 4: So that's Squad one. That's the Downtown ring there.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but that's a that's your snorkel.
Speaker 3: You're talking about, right, yeah, yeah, ok, yeah, So that's
Speaker 3: the snorkel and you have a box truck that goes
Speaker 3: with that. They go to every every run you go
Speaker 3: on every run.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so they lead and the snorkel follows.
Speaker 8: Sometimes they switch it up, but for the most part
Speaker 8: of the box the leads and the snorkel follows.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so then uh, it depends, you know, Squad five,
Speaker 8: they may run it a little different. I know, we
Speaker 8: ran it where the box tracked the front rig. The
Speaker 8: driver and the one sitting behind went to the roof
Speaker 8: if we went and the officer and the one sitting
Speaker 8: behind the officer and the boy in the in the
Speaker 8: box rig went to the front and went with the
Speaker 8: engine to the front and make sure the front was open.
Speaker 8: And then you know primaries and then the two that
Speaker 8: ran the snorkel. If we didn't set it up, we
Speaker 8: went to the rear.
Speaker 4: So that was kind of how we did it.
Speaker 3: Similar right foremost Yeah.
Speaker 7: Interesting, So getting back to that question, what what what
Speaker 7: were some of the guys that when you got there,
Speaker 7: that that stuck out.
Speaker 4: To you like these are the real deal.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, some of the offerers, for sure. Pat Pat
Speaker 8: Maloney was the captain on the squad.
Speaker 3: He's pretty sorry to get him on bro. I am
Speaker 3: he's the chief that he was a chief too, right,
Speaker 3: wasn't he the chief of special operations too?
Speaker 4: He was yeah? Yeah for yeah he was.
Speaker 3: Again tomorrow.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, my crew, I was on the third and I
Speaker 8: wasn't in the military, but most of them were. So
Speaker 8: their marines. He was a marine, Kenny Giraz, Jean Row.
Speaker 8: So Gene Row was the one that you're trying to
Speaker 8: get a hold of. Another guy, Yeah, he's he was man,
Speaker 8: he was a monster, right, man.
Speaker 4: So he played for the Bears.
Speaker 8: Right, so Bears, we heard Seahawks and just an awesome guy.
Speaker 8: And uh yeah, so Brian Glas, he he's he's off
Speaker 8: the job now he's down in Florida. Actually, oh, he's
Speaker 8: a training captain and in a department north of Tampa somewhere.
Speaker 6: Was about to get hit.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Who who would you think of all the guys that
Speaker 3: you work with, You're like that that guy is the
Speaker 3: best fireman I've ever worked with.
Speaker 4: Off the squad or just anywhere, just anywhere put.
Speaker 3: Your hand down of God in your career, which guy
Speaker 3: would you say, like, Holy ship is the best fireman
Speaker 3: I've ever worked.
Speaker 4: Okay, boy, that's tough.
Speaker 8: One, I would say, well, yeah, that's tough.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh sure, I don't you want to give me
Speaker 3: top three? How about that?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Top three? I would say. Frank Corone for sure.
Speaker 8: He's got just a just a wealthy knowledge and Italian.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 8: So yeah, Frank Corone. And Barry Temple, which he uh
Speaker 8: was my officer. He was at he was on the
Speaker 8: West Side, he was on truck twenty six and ninety
Speaker 8: five for a while and he ended up being my
Speaker 8: officer on ninety three.
Speaker 4: And learned a ton from him.
Speaker 8: And uh, you know Pat Maloney of course, my captain
Speaker 8: Pat Lynch, who was a captain on squad too.
Speaker 4: Just I learned a lot from him.
Speaker 8: Just a lot of wisdom, right, so, and then we
Speaker 8: learned about leadouts and talents and h then you're looking
Speaker 8: at Nicky Cairo, who was a relief officer in the
Speaker 8: West Side, who came from seventy seven and just just
Speaker 8: a really really genuine guy, but just a hard charger
Speaker 8: and knew knew something, knew his engine work, and so
Speaker 8: I picked his brain and all the time.
Speaker 3: And some guys just have that natural to be in
Speaker 3: the right place. So that's sense to be in the
Speaker 3: right place at the right time, right. Yeah, I'm sure
Speaker 3: you've worked with guys like that. They're just always in
Speaker 3: the right place, you know.
Speaker 8: Yeah. Yeah, already. Rand us a great you know friend
Speaker 8: of mine. He was squad too. It's solid.
Speaker 4: He was he was.
Speaker 8: Another marine and and so he he as a hard
Speaker 8: charger and he was on he was he's still on
Speaker 8: the job as an officer and run on the south
Speaker 8: side trucks. Yeah, and you know, I tell you, it's
Speaker 8: it's just it was just never ending over there, especially
Speaker 8: where I was at there, and and uh and you
Speaker 8: know squad because we served the West side, and and
Speaker 8: and roseland just everyone of us just great.
Speaker 4: And it was just that was very fortunate. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 7: What was some of the jobs that stick out to you? Like,
Speaker 7: if you had to think of some jobs that really is.
Speaker 3: You want to you want to pull some pictures up
Speaker 3: and you can give us a load down on these jobs.
Speaker 3: Pete put that up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say that one out. I don't I don't.
Speaker 8: Remember that one as far as I think I know
Speaker 8: if that one was, it was it was in the
Speaker 8: morning and the sun was going to start coming up there,
Speaker 8: and the it was a it was an abandoned building,
Speaker 8: and that second floor.
Speaker 4: Was was rolling and we were it was lit up.
Speaker 8: It was an arson job and it ended up getting
Speaker 8: through the roof there after a while. But that, uh,
Speaker 8: that ended up being a snorkel job. We set the
Speaker 8: snorkel up for that. And you know, it's just pictures.
Speaker 8: Like when you look at the pictures and you look
Speaker 8: at you know, I remember that fire, and and when
Speaker 8: you're on squads is when all the pictures show up,
Speaker 8: because you have people that write the squads, that do
Speaker 8: photos and they sell the photos to the magazines and stuff.
Speaker 8: But I went out, like when I was on Engine
Speaker 8: one thirteen or over on seven or ninety three, a
Speaker 8: few shots. You just didn't you know, you didn't get
Speaker 8: a lot of pictures because you weren't.
Speaker 4: You weren't right right right, you know.
Speaker 6: So all right, we got another one. We got the
Speaker 6: church job.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, so this one look out, Yeah, this one
Speaker 8: sticks out to me. I actually I give a talk
Speaker 8: to candidates and when I talk about you know, lessons
Speaker 8: learned and things like that with when it comes to
Speaker 8: self discipline and listening to the radio and and things
Speaker 8: like such as getting out when when they tell you
Speaker 8: to get out, and you know, we tend to have
Speaker 8: that sense in us that we've got it right, and
Speaker 8: let's just just give us, you know, a few more minutes.
Speaker 4: We've got it.
Speaker 8: I see it, we're hitting it and and really not
Speaker 8: realizing what what they see on the.
Speaker 4: Outside, right, And.
Speaker 8: A number of times, I mean, we just kind of
Speaker 8: don't listen to the radio and just keep going and
Speaker 8: and but sooner or later it's going to bite you.
Speaker 8: And and this one, in particular was was one of
Speaker 8: those situations where we pulled up and this started off.
Speaker 8: I guess they got the calls a dumpster outside and
Speaker 8: and they got there and realized that it got inside,
Speaker 8: it was taken off, and we got there and we
Speaker 8: went to the rear, and that was the picture that
Speaker 8: we have coming up.
Speaker 3: For it doesn't look like that much from the ria, but.
Speaker 8: Right, and we were still chasing it around. We went
Speaker 8: up and it was already and I from squad to
Speaker 8: arranda and we went up and forced that door, and
Speaker 8: we were getting ready to go in, and so we
Speaker 8: started to go in after we forced it, and then
Speaker 8: another company brought a line in and we went a
Speaker 8: little bit eager, about thirty maybe forty feet in there,
Speaker 8: and I had a camera too. We were just searching
Speaker 8: around and we finally started, you know, confidence of ceiling,
Speaker 8: and we found it a little bit deep in there,
Speaker 8: and so we found it. We were just going to
Speaker 8: go to work, and then we heard on the radio.
Speaker 8: It's just the emergency, emergency, emergency, you know, everyone out,
Speaker 8: and you know, we're we're kind of thinking ourselves, right,
Speaker 8: it's right here, We're getting it, you know, And we
Speaker 8: got had a line in there, and it's just one
Speaker 8: of those things that you just don't realize what's happening outside,
Speaker 8: and and I'm like, okay, and then we started things
Speaker 8: started falling right, and started falling and hitting a helmet
Speaker 8: and then I'm like, all right, you know.
Speaker 4: Let's go.
Speaker 8: And I had the camera and it was just me
Speaker 8: and at the time, I thought it was just me,
Speaker 8: Artoranda and the guy on the engine, and so things
Speaker 8: were happening, and and some people passed me, and I
Speaker 8: thought it was them, and I thought I was the
Speaker 8: last one out, and I was going for the back
Speaker 8: door the way we came in, and things just started
Speaker 8: coming down even more and it just went orange, and
Speaker 8: I remember going through, uh, you know, having to go
Speaker 8: through my mind that the only thing that that I
Speaker 8: was thinking about was getting as close as I could
Speaker 8: in the back door to so they can find my body.
Speaker 4: That was that was that was the only thing in
Speaker 4: my mind at that point, right.
Speaker 8: And so when I got out to the door, got
Speaker 8: out the door, and it was raining out is icy, right,
Speaker 8: and the staircases were icy. And so I got out
Speaker 8: and I was trying to look down the smoke line.
Speaker 4: Because it was all come out the door.
Speaker 8: And we had a writer a photographer with us, and
Speaker 8: and uh he was in the backyard in the gangway
Speaker 8: back there and they're in the back alley and he
Speaker 8: was he was taking picture. He's the one who took
Speaker 8: that picture and he thought it killed all three of
Speaker 8: us when when it lit up, he was he was
Speaker 8: shocked to see us, uh, you know come out of
Speaker 8: that and uh. And so that's just something that that
Speaker 8: I share with with others and lessons learned and classes
Speaker 8: and recruits, you know, the recruit classes that I teach
Speaker 8: now is is it's just one of those it's just
Speaker 8: you have to you have to start policing yourself and
Speaker 8: taking in these these lessons learned, and because you know,
Speaker 8: not not all, not everyone is able to you know,
Speaker 8: to to live to tell their lessons learned.
Speaker 4: And when we have them, we gotta we gotta share it.
Speaker 7: If we had a nickel for every guy on this show,
Speaker 7: even you know for us too. Where you're in, you
Speaker 7: know whatever, it is, two rooms into the thing and
Speaker 7: the same exact thing, the chiefs selling you to get out,
Speaker 7: and you're like, all right, we're getting it, and he's
Speaker 7: like get out, get out, and you're like, this freaking guy,
Speaker 7: like this right, And then you come out the door
Speaker 7: and the whole place is on fire, right like you
Speaker 7: know where you are.
Speaker 5: It's like like you were just saying, it's just this
Speaker 5: little bit.
Speaker 7: But you know, Kevin said, you know, when he was
Speaker 7: getting out of the job, his brother was a deputy chief,
Speaker 7: and he said this so many times on the podcast
Speaker 7: that when he drove his brother for the last year.
Speaker 5: When he was, you know, getting.
Speaker 7: Out, he realized how that was, like how the chief
Speaker 7: is making these decisions based on what he's seeing and
Speaker 7: information he's getting right, and it's always the guys on
Speaker 7: the inside who are like, we got it, you know,
Speaker 7: like you said, yeah.
Speaker 5: One. Meanwhile, the whole place, I mean, it's happened to
Speaker 5: all of us.
Speaker 7: You come out and it's like four floors of fire
Speaker 7: and you're like in the first floor putting out this
Speaker 7: little store fire.
Speaker 5: You think like you're getting it knocked down with you.
Speaker 4: I got Yeah, it's gone.
Speaker 5: The whole building is gone. We didn't do good there,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean, it's done.
Speaker 4: And you know too.
Speaker 8: It's it's it's all those things that you put together
Speaker 8: and remember and talk about it, right and and and
Speaker 8: share your experiences.
Speaker 4: It's it's really.
Speaker 8: About maintaining your awareness of the environment in there, right,
Speaker 8: And even though you know we're going to find your
Speaker 8: you're going to find yourself.
Speaker 4: And that's just what we do.
Speaker 8: Of being above the fire floor, right, You're you're getting
Speaker 8: up there and you're doing any searches, and you're going
Speaker 8: to be above the you're gonna be on the floor
Speaker 8: about the fire. And and to still pay attention to
Speaker 8: the environment, regardless of the engine crew you know you
Speaker 8: have below you, because you know that our chargers are
Speaker 8: getting a job done and and and maybe they're not
Speaker 8: not no fault of their own, but because the situations
Speaker 8: down there, whether it's compartmentalized basement or the ceiling fell.
Speaker 8: Of course, you know, we had one where a ceiling
Speaker 8: came down and and these guys into ninety six were
Speaker 8: just a great company.
Speaker 4: They were coming in.
Speaker 8: From the back and they were in there trying to
Speaker 8: hit it or thinking they were hitting it, but the
Speaker 8: ceiling had dropped in front of them. But it was dark,
Speaker 8: they couldn't see they weren't hitting anything, and so it
Speaker 8: was blocking it up and started coming up the interior case.
Speaker 8: And I know I was doing a search up there,
Speaker 8: and I was getting steam burned, and you know, I
Speaker 8: was so hot up there and thinking what is happening? Well,
Speaker 8: they call us out, and so now we're listening, and
Speaker 8: I'm listening to that, right, So they call us out
Speaker 8: and we backed out, and they back out of the basement,
Speaker 8: and no, probably maybe five ten minutes later, that whole
Speaker 8: section where I was doing searches came down and because
Speaker 8: they got caught in the walls and the floors and
Speaker 8: they just took off.
Speaker 4: It's just made paying attention to your environment, right and
Speaker 4: well floor above.
Speaker 8: Which started it's hard to teach in the academies now, right,
Speaker 8: is is really helping them know when they're losing and winning.
Speaker 6: You know, yeah, what's your take on?
Speaker 3: You could be doing everything right right time and still yeah,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 6: What's your your take on? Sub sub sub sub sellers.
Speaker 7: Make fun of me because every time I say yeah,
Speaker 7: oh yeah, squad go down into the triple subseller, I'm.
Speaker 4: Like that stuff.
Speaker 5: I mean, we did it, but I always not that
Speaker 5: might have been a little puckering.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: What are some other good fires that you had that
Speaker 3: you can remember, Brett?
Speaker 8: Yeah, so well this one here is, uh, this is
Speaker 8: one of those that I that just sticks to me.
Speaker 8: And you know, you can go to hundreds and hundreds
Speaker 8: of fires and you're you're you're still going to have
Speaker 8: those that.
Speaker 4: Didn't really had an impact on you.
Speaker 8: It's one of those things that that direct you and
Speaker 8: guide you in your career and and and pivoting points right.
Speaker 4: So but this one here was was.
Speaker 8: An interesting one because it's one of those things where
Speaker 8: you know when you pull out and you're on the
Speaker 8: way and and you hear you know, it's confirmed fire
Speaker 8: and and you're hearing the radio traffic and your your
Speaker 8: fist bumping your partner on the way there, and and
Speaker 8: then boom that you hear all the radio, you got
Speaker 8: confirmed civilians trapped, and so then now that's just that's
Speaker 8: just you know, right, it just changes.
Speaker 4: Our you know, our faces.
Speaker 8: And and now now we know that we are going
Speaker 8: to someone, you know, to a situation where we have
Speaker 8: confirmed people trapped, and uh. And now it's it's about
Speaker 8: the risk and benefit, right, So now they're going to
Speaker 8: be equal, and we're going to make the risks for
Speaker 8: that benefit. And so we pull up and and this
Speaker 8: whole as you can see right to the right there,
Speaker 8: it's it's an enclosed staircase. This is kind of a
Speaker 8: late picture, of course, but the to the right it's
Speaker 8: an enclosed staircase.
Speaker 4: And this is an arson job.
Speaker 8: And they lit that whole thing up, and so the
Speaker 8: whole staircase was rolling and and uh and and with
Speaker 8: that being so, it was going all the way to
Speaker 8: the top, and of course it has nowhere else to go,
Speaker 8: so it starts pushing into these apartments. Well, we were
Speaker 8: assigned to go to the rear, I mean, Kenny draz
Speaker 8: and and so we pulled up and there was an
Speaker 8: injine grew out there already, and this was kind of
Speaker 8: the distance fire. So this is kind of northeast a
Speaker 8: little bit, and we get there and their rigs are
Speaker 8: already set up and they were trying to they just
Speaker 8: started hitting the front and we went in through the
Speaker 8: rear and we had three confirmed victims.
Speaker 4: In here, and.
Speaker 8: We didn't know where they were at, and so we
Speaker 8: went in and these are the situations where where we
Speaker 8: just this is kind of where we do the risk
Speaker 8: and benefit analysis, right, And we pull up and we
Speaker 8: got into the rear and we had no line to
Speaker 8: go in with, but we knew there was victims in there,
Speaker 8: and that's just those are the things that we're going
Speaker 8: to do, right. And you know, the people in there
Speaker 8: don't they don't have the gear, they don't have the
Speaker 8: air tanks that can breathing on and what we do,
Speaker 8: and that's what we signed up for. And this job
Speaker 8: is dangerous and we're going to find ourselves taking these risks.
Speaker 8: So we went in and and we went into the
Speaker 8: first floor and me and Kenny were searching that and
Speaker 8: then and then and Joey Martinelli and Alex went up
Speaker 8: to the second floor and they did the search, and
Speaker 8: then Jane Rowe and another guy went up to the
Speaker 8: top floor and we were searching in that first floor,
Speaker 8: and it was kind of a weird layout where you
Speaker 8: know a lot of these things get remodeled and things
Speaker 8: like that to fit, you know, more people.
Speaker 4: And they had walled the wall to come into the rear.
Speaker 4: There was a wall.
Speaker 8: Almost like it was a solid wall all the way
Speaker 8: to the front, and you'd had to go into the
Speaker 8: front and then their bedrooms and you turn and then
Speaker 8: you go back in, and all the bedrooms were adjoining, right,
Speaker 8: so in order for us to get in there and
Speaker 8: do a search, we had to go all the way
Speaker 8: to the front, and on our way there, of course,
Speaker 8: that the you know, the fire was breaking through the
Speaker 8: door and shooting across the ceiling. It was getting hot
Speaker 8: in there, and we were making our turn and we
Speaker 8: were just going as far as we can go, knowing
Speaker 8: our time was going to be limited, right, we didn't
Speaker 8: have a line. And thankfully we were about halfway through
Speaker 8: that floor plan and then we hear that the victims
Speaker 8: there was a pregnant woman and her daughter were found
Speaker 8: on the second floor and they were of course deceased,
Speaker 8: and and Joey Martinelli got he uh.
Speaker 4: He got a reward for that.
Speaker 8: He him and Alex mindez he we they he took
Speaker 8: the daughter out, and then Joe was pulling that the
Speaker 8: mother out in some very high intense heat conditions, and
Speaker 8: it was his second floor was lightened up on him
Speaker 8: and and he was basically almost barey crawling to get
Speaker 8: her out. And so he got her out, and then
Speaker 8: the guy on top I had a daughter up there
Speaker 8: that he couldn't get down the stairs because the staircase
Speaker 8: was so thick, and the front staircase, of course, was
Speaker 8: just you couldn't it was unattenable. Well, he ended up
Speaker 8: dropping his daughter out of the third floor window and
Speaker 8: she busted some ankles, but she lived. He ended up
Speaker 8: passing away. And and so it's one of those things
Speaker 8: where it's, you know, you kind of uh, you start
Speaker 8: you struggle with some of the you know, with.
Speaker 4: What could we have done differently? And and but you know,
Speaker 4: it's it's a timeline.
Speaker 8: So it's one of those things I talked about, is
Speaker 8: that it's that timeline when we get there, and it's
Speaker 8: a reflex time. Right, So it's whenever that nine one
Speaker 8: one comes in you and you kick out and go
Speaker 8: to the scene. There's things we just have no control over, right,
Speaker 8: We're always up against the clock, the time that and
Speaker 8: the natural laws that we.
Speaker 4: Just can't we can't change.
Speaker 8: So all we can do is is is is put
Speaker 8: our game and play when we get there, right, That's
Speaker 8: when the kickoff is is when we get there.
Speaker 4: That's all we can do.
Speaker 8: We can try and make up for the time on
Speaker 8: the way there and route right, the push out is
Speaker 8: his is where it counts, and it's hard to make
Speaker 8: it up on street right.
Speaker 4: So anyway, all these.
Speaker 8: Kind of things that kind of starts beating you up,
Speaker 8: you know, where we could have got in there quicker,
Speaker 8: and because they didn't, you know, they didn't they didn't die,
Speaker 8: They wasn't thermal injury, right, so smoking relation and and
Speaker 8: so if we could have got there faster, or if
Speaker 8: you know, if the cruis are on scene, could have
Speaker 8: gotten it sooner.
Speaker 4: Who knows.
Speaker 8: But it's one of those things that that I always
Speaker 8: talk about in in our you know, in my classes
Speaker 8: and even the talks that I have is is all
Speaker 8: we can do, is is always all we can do
Speaker 8: is put one hundred percent into what we can do.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 8: We can't control are the outcomes. We can't control things
Speaker 8: that we want to control. We don't have the power
Speaker 8: to do that. And and so you know, really, you know,
Speaker 8: all we can do is apply experience, lessons learn basically,
Speaker 8: wisdom to the to the situation, wisdom to the incident
Speaker 8: that comes from it, Lessons learned, and an experience to
Speaker 8: move that needle of probability to the outcome that we want.
Speaker 8: But we cannot determine the outcome of our actions, right
Speaker 8: we All we can do is part our actions in motion,
Speaker 8: and whatever happens, whatever the outcome is, isn't up.
Speaker 4: To us except the big guy upstairs.
Speaker 8: And and and so it's it's one of those things
Speaker 8: where it's just to let go the guilt, right, like
Speaker 8: the guilt because we're not designed to own that. And
Speaker 8: we're not you know, we're not supposed to own that, right.
Speaker 7: You know what's funny you say, like you could have
Speaker 7: went to five jobs, ten jobs where people died, right,
Speaker 7: you know before that job, and it might not have
Speaker 7: affected you. But it's always like something about a certain job,
Speaker 7: like you said that that one was changing, life changing
Speaker 7: for you, right, whatever it was. So, whether it's kids,
Speaker 7: whether it's you know, the just out of your reach,
Speaker 7: whatever it is that that affected you on that one
Speaker 7: right and then and that's just that's what everybody, you
Speaker 7: know what I mean, It doesn't I could go to
Speaker 7: ten jobs where at you know, unfortunately see kids you know,
Speaker 7: passed away and it didn't affect me like as as
Speaker 7: the next job, you.
Speaker 4: Know what I mean.
Speaker 7: I don't know why that is, but right, yeah, of
Speaker 7: course just happens. And like you said, you can only
Speaker 7: do so much.
Speaker 4: You know. We've had a few guys. Yeah, right, dry
Speaker 4: fast take chances.
Speaker 6: That's what I turn out.
Speaker 3: I can't make it up on the road.
Speaker 4: Can't make it can't make it up on the road. Yeah,
Speaker 4: breascinny the rigs skinny.
Speaker 3: A picture of now God that they were asking for
Speaker 3: talk about that one.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was a mess. Yeah, this one. This was
Speaker 8: a career changer for me as well. And this was
Speaker 8: a Stone Park engine. This was in two thousand and
Speaker 8: four April twenty seventh, two thousand and four, and this
Speaker 8: was a department that I had worked on on the side.
Speaker 8: I'd been there for I did forty eighths between the
Speaker 8: city and here for about ten years. And this was
Speaker 8: a it was a small town, but it was one
Speaker 8: of those towns that was surrounded and it was a
Speaker 8: it was a drug gang town, and it was surrounded
Speaker 8: by towns that went to work, and it was a
Speaker 8: pretty active engine even though it's just a single engine department.
Speaker 8: So I would I was working with Jeff Bergstrom. Him
Speaker 8: and I were partners for three years at Stone Park,
Speaker 8: and he was a paramedic, single ro medic on the
Speaker 8: job and waiting to cross over. And I was on
Speaker 8: the city on the west side at the time and
Speaker 8: on the fireside. And when him and I would work together,
Speaker 8: there would be times where I would go to school
Speaker 8: and I would I would head out and go to
Speaker 8: school for about an hour or two and then come back,
Speaker 8: and when I was gone, he would jump up front.
Speaker 4: He had seen already at that time, you.
Speaker 8: Know, on that shift and stuff, so he would jump
Speaker 8: up front and do the acting officer and until I
Speaker 8: got back, and then we would switch. Well, we were
Speaker 8: working all day and just just just a typical day, right,
Speaker 8: just having fun. We were actually doing training with the
Speaker 8: nearby town Melrose. We were doing hasbat training or something,
Speaker 8: and so we were just having you know, having fun
Speaker 8: and socializing and and then we got back to quarters
Speaker 8: and I had to get going to school, and.
Speaker 4: So I uh wow. So I had left, he moved
Speaker 4: his stuff up.
Speaker 8: I kept my gear on the rig because I was
Speaker 8: coming back right, so my all my gear was on
Speaker 8: the rig. He jumped up front and I wasn't gone
Speaker 8: ten minutes and they they catch an alley garage and
Speaker 8: they pull out and they're heading up down Mannheim, which
Speaker 8: is one of the main main main roads in the town.
Speaker 8: They're heading north and they ended up colliding with another
Speaker 8: department who was also sending an engine to that alley
Speaker 8: garage had an intersection, so they hit, they t boned,
Speaker 8: and uh and Jeff went I went through the windshield
Speaker 8: and they killed him instantly. And the driver he was
Speaker 8: in a coma for several months. He he had skull
Speaker 8: and facial fractures from hitting the a posts and he
Speaker 8: was out for quite quite a while.
Speaker 4: And so this was the aftermath.
Speaker 8: And so on my way to school, I get a
Speaker 8: phone call on my cell phone from Nick Steck or
Speaker 8: a good friend of mine in a department that just
Speaker 8: there was just north of Stone Park there in Franklin Park.
Speaker 8: And I answered the phone and he's like, oh man,
Speaker 8: He's like, I'm glad you answered the phone.
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, what do you mean?
Speaker 8: He goes, your engine is on Mannheim on the news
Speaker 8: and it's upside down and they're doing CPR and someone
Speaker 8: on Manheim, and I just I wanted to make.
Speaker 4: Sure it wasn't you, right. So he's like, oh, good,
Speaker 4: you you answer the phone. I'm like wow.
Speaker 8: So I turned around and headed back and that was
Speaker 8: the scene that I pulled up in and so I
Speaker 8: walked up and through the neighboring cruise came running up
Speaker 8: to me. And because they thought I was under the rig,
Speaker 8: and so they were right at that time I showed up,
Speaker 8: they were getting in.
Speaker 4: In position to start to try and lift the rig.
Speaker 8: They were just trying to conteplate how are we going
Speaker 8: to get this rig up, you know, and because they
Speaker 8: thought I was underneath it, because all my gear was there,
Speaker 8: my my coat and helmet was laying on right, So
Speaker 8: because I was just we were just with them, you know,
Speaker 8: an hour before that, you know, training with them. So yeah,
Speaker 8: and so for me, that that was that was a
Speaker 8: major humbling experience for me, and too, you know, that
Speaker 8: was probably that was you know, almost fourteen fourteen years
Speaker 8: that was two thousand and four, started eighty, so that
Speaker 8: was you know, over fourteen years into the career.
Speaker 4: And that was my first personal experience with an l
Speaker 4: O d D.
Speaker 8: And and of course they had to be you know,
Speaker 8: a good friend of mine, him and I were we
Speaker 8: had just busted concrete out, you know, a week before that,
Speaker 8: born concrete and hanging out on our days off and
Speaker 8: and and.
Speaker 4: So it was about two years. I struggled with that
Speaker 4: and with the survivor's guilt.
Speaker 8: And you know, I seen him in my my my mind,
Speaker 8: sleeping every time I went to bed, and always wondering,
Speaker 8: you know, if.
Speaker 4: I just didn't, you know, always applying a planing, a a.
Speaker 8: Certainty to to something that's already happened, right, and which
Speaker 8: we just can't do it. And if I didn't go
Speaker 8: to school, he'd be fine if we took it, you know,
Speaker 8: if I was there, we wouldn't, This wouldn't happen.
Speaker 4: And we just don't know that. We can't. We can't
Speaker 4: make those conclusions your time, that's it.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And so I really struggled with that for a
Speaker 8: while and and and went and went and see you know, I,
Speaker 8: you know, I sawt I help with you know, counselors
Speaker 8: and clinicians and of all types and and I just
Speaker 8: I just couldn't. It just wasn't helping me, right, they
Speaker 8: couldn't reach me. And and and so I went and
Speaker 8: seen father McCrone, which was our Chicago Department chaplain at
Speaker 8: the time. He'd been there twenty five thirty years at
Speaker 8: the time, just a really really good guy. And I
Speaker 8: sat down with him, and he really helped reorient reorient
Speaker 8: my way of thinking. So recalibrating my way of thinking, right,
Speaker 8: so really learning that you know, this is a dangerous life, right,
Speaker 8: and it's just a life circumstance, and that you know,
Speaker 8: we're not we're not designed to carry the yesterdays and
Speaker 8: and nor you know, nor can we apply any certainties
Speaker 8: to to an outcome that's already happened. And and so
Speaker 8: that that was a that was a certainly lesson learned
Speaker 8: from me and and helped reorient my way of thinking.
Speaker 4: And and uh and so that's tough, yeah, m hm
Speaker 4: for sure.
Speaker 6: Mhai.
Speaker 8: Well, and that's uh, that's the the tough part about it,
Speaker 8: is he right? You know, probably not even I would say,
Speaker 8: not even a week maybe even give it two weeks
Speaker 8: before that he found out he was a dad, Oh
Speaker 8: my god, a daughter he never met, and so they
Speaker 8: were trying to work it out to where he can
Speaker 8: meet the daughter, and so he never never had a
Speaker 8: chance to meet her.
Speaker 3: Wow, we choose bro.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I only have two pictures of it. Was this
Speaker 6: back in the game? Was this related to that incident?
Speaker 6: Was this something different?
Speaker 4: That was different? Yeah? That was later on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it looks like a squad two, right, squad too?
Speaker 4: That was that was a District six. That was a
Speaker 4: relief relief and.
Speaker 3: Oh right, because you got promoted, right, yeah, so you're
Speaker 3: promoted while you're in squad and you go to.
Speaker 4: It's on the set of Chicago Fire or something I
Speaker 4: picked up.
Speaker 8: Right, Yeah, so I went from squad to to engine
Speaker 8: ninety three and right, and that's that was Southside that
Speaker 8: I think you remember. Chief Chicarota, Steve Chicarotas was saying
Speaker 8: that he went to ninety three year out of the academy, right,
Speaker 8: So it's same yeah, same engine, And so I went there.
Speaker 8: It's roseland it's a great it's a great battalion, very active,
Speaker 8: just a great group of guys in that house and
Speaker 8: the other houses that are in the battalion.
Speaker 4: And that shot there was.
Speaker 8: That was a fire that's kind of encompassed a few
Speaker 8: things of lessons learned, for sure, And that was a
Speaker 8: fire that we pull up and the neighbor comes running
Speaker 8: out and he started pointing at the second floor saying
Speaker 8: that it's in the second floor. And so Barry and
Speaker 8: I were Verry Temple as my officer, and and so
Speaker 8: we're looking up and we're like, okay, So we went
Speaker 8: to the front door and they popped the door and
Speaker 8: looked at the smoke line, and then we started going
Speaker 8: in and we were actually just we were looking for
Speaker 8: the stairs right to go to go up, and made
Speaker 8: it all the way halfway through, and then the battalion chief,
Speaker 8: which was who was great, and he said, hey, you know,
Speaker 8: ninety three, it's in the basement. And so we back out,
Speaker 8: and of course these lessons learned, right, you're one of
Speaker 8: those things that I always stick stuck with. And sometimes
Speaker 8: you just move faster than you can think right, and
Speaker 8: and you miss it. And which is a basement fire,
Speaker 8: which is something that I grew to. Always check the
Speaker 8: basement before you go in, right, and don't cross that
Speaker 8: threshold unless you know that you're not walking over walking
Speaker 8: under fire.
Speaker 4: You don't know about but.
Speaker 8: We don't always know that, but at least we can
Speaker 8: put forth an effort to try and know, right. And
Speaker 8: so that was something that we just got not really
Speaker 8: I could say tunnel.
Speaker 4: But we just kind of I guess maybe tunnel vision. Right.
Speaker 8: So we got got the front door and we started
Speaker 8: going in, and then the sense in the base Onnth's
Speaker 8: way backed out and then it was then started venting
Speaker 8: out the window up front of the basement. So I
Speaker 8: started knocking it from the gangway and Engine sixty two,
Speaker 8: it's another great engine.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 8: They led out to the rear and they were just
Speaker 8: getting ready to make their push in the basement. So
Speaker 8: I shut down and then we re routed back into
Speaker 8: the front and then we went back through the front
Speaker 8: to the back and went through the whole floor plan.
Speaker 8: I was still looking for the stairs and made a
Speaker 8: turn and I went into a doorway and I was
Speaker 8: feeling with my foot for the stairs, and I kept
Speaker 8: going in and I realized I was in a small,
Speaker 8: little makeshift bedroom and like in the back porch, and
Speaker 8: so I reached out and there was a lady laying
Speaker 8: there right.
Speaker 4: So there was a person.
Speaker 8: So I'm like, oh, my I'm like, hey, Barry, I
Speaker 8: got a you know, I got a victim or civilian.
Speaker 8: And so it's still pitch black right that It's just
Speaker 8: you can't see a thing.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 8: By that time, after going in the first time, coming
Speaker 8: back out, and then going back in and navigate through, I.
Speaker 4: Was about out of air.
Speaker 8: So I found her and pulled her off, and I
Speaker 8: was rapping her with a with the webbing and my
Speaker 8: I ran out of air, right, So my barrels bells
Speaker 8: were going off, and I pulled her off.
Speaker 4: I was getting her going and my no, I'm out
Speaker 4: of air.
Speaker 8: And so I'm pulling my face piece off, and you know,
Speaker 8: I told, you know, bear, we got a victim.
Speaker 4: And they're calling truck twenty seven is coming around.
Speaker 8: And so we got I got her to the back
Speaker 8: and handed them, handed her off, and then went outside
Speaker 8: and kind of reoriented myself.
Speaker 4: And then came back in.
Speaker 8: And and so a couple of things, right is is
Speaker 8: man just check that basement, right, so we really have
Speaker 8: to just not overlook that.
Speaker 4: And the other thing is don't get tunnel vision.
Speaker 8: And and then after that fire, we were picking up
Speaker 8: and and and I went.
Speaker 4: Upstairs after I would do it all after all my fires.
Speaker 8: I would go in and walk in and I do
Speaker 8: a walk through, right, just to kind of see where
Speaker 8: I was, you know, did I think this is where
Speaker 8: I was at?
Speaker 4: How? You know, did it look like how I thought envisioned?
Speaker 4: You know in the blind?
Speaker 3: Nothing great right there?
Speaker 4: That's a good, right. I mean a lot of guys
Speaker 4: do that, but you don't even think about it now, right.
Speaker 8: And then so I kind of walked around and then
Speaker 8: went and looked at the basement too, and and then
Speaker 8: just walked upstairs and uh and walked up and it
Speaker 8: was like it.
Speaker 4: Was it wasn't a finished attic, but it was.
Speaker 8: It was an addict that had decking throwed down for
Speaker 8: kids to play, right, And.
Speaker 4: Of course there's a tricycle there and a.
Speaker 8: Ball and I didn't think anything of it, right, So
Speaker 8: I'm standing up there looking and it was kind of
Speaker 8: pretty much clear. And went back down and finished getting
Speaker 8: ready and you know, load and load, nose up and
Speaker 8: in about you know, twenty minutes thirty minutes later, Oh no,
Speaker 8: we get a call saying that we missed a kid.
Speaker 8: Oh no, it was missed, yeah, and it was I
Speaker 8: think it was a seven year old and uh, who
Speaker 8: had stuffed himself into the into the uh, into the
Speaker 8: the sofet right inside and and trying and breathe right,
Speaker 8: so where the attic space and in the soft events,
Speaker 8: I think he was probably trying to get as much
Speaker 8: fresh air as it could. Wow, ended up not making
Speaker 8: it right. So, but it was dark up there, right,
Speaker 8: so you look where the you know where the roof
Speaker 8: the floor, It was dark, right, I couldn't see anything
Speaker 8: even just standing up there with with the smoke clear.
Speaker 4: And and so they found him, and uh, it sucks
Speaker 4: right so right.
Speaker 8: So again those are just but that's again, those are circumstances,
Speaker 8: right then, that's just that's life that we do. And
Speaker 8: and you know we're not we're not always gonna win, right,
Speaker 8: so and again we could just put our heart into
Speaker 8: it and put our efforts into it, and you know,
Speaker 8: things aren't always gonna they're not going to turn out
Speaker 8: how we want.
Speaker 4: And did the woman make it?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 8: Just she I'm not sure when I heard that they
Speaker 8: did a write up on or whatever that she was
Speaker 8: taken to hospital in critical condition, but I'm not sure she.
Speaker 3: May y Yeah, right, bro, you can't control the outcome.
Speaker 4: No, you can't. That happens. That's always. Yeah, maybe a
Speaker 4: few a year.
Speaker 7: You hear it happens like in New York especially, like
Speaker 7: you might hear it.
Speaker 4: If it's not in your burrow, it'll be in a
Speaker 4: different borough. You'll hear that.
Speaker 7: You know, they they found somebody, you know, after the
Speaker 7: secondary or something like that, like you said ten minutes
Speaker 7: later or something like that.
Speaker 3: Of course, yeah, you got another one guns.
Speaker 6: You gotta have one more that he wanted to share
Speaker 6: with us.
Speaker 7: Here.
Speaker 6: There was this one here the want to use for
Speaker 6: the thumbnail.
Speaker 8: Oh right, right, yeah, that was just a just look
Speaker 8: at all the abandoned buildings.
Speaker 4: I know you guys were talking to I think it
Speaker 4: was more. It might have been more.
Speaker 8: I'm not sure where you guys we were talking about
Speaker 8: how New York they didn't have a lot of bandoned buildings, right.
Speaker 4: Not anymore?
Speaker 6: No, oh, Nony won years ago, but the Bronx was burning.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, I would say I would the war zone,
Speaker 7: you can count on one hand, even in the shittiest areas,
Speaker 7: that can count on one hand.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 3: What now you mean.
Speaker 7: Today, if you went into East New York, you could
Speaker 7: put count on one hand the amount of fake buildings
Speaker 7: one hand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yuppies walking around too, not any York but like
Speaker 3: in bed Sty either.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yea.
Speaker 3: So maybe I got this wrong. You went from squad
Speaker 3: to to engine ninety three because you promoted or you
Speaker 3: went there to transfer.
Speaker 8: I went there too, I was getting you. So I
Speaker 8: was getting close to getting promoted. So being on squad
Speaker 8: was great, of course, and so I wanted to get
Speaker 8: back to I'd never been down in that area in Roselynd,
Speaker 8: so I wanted I knew Barry Temple was down there,
Speaker 8: and so I wanted to go work with him. And
Speaker 8: it was, Uh, it was closer to home. It's seven
Speaker 8: minutes from where I lived, and uh, and they were
Speaker 8: and they were rocking and rolling right and so im
Speaker 8: plus it was you know, it was a single engine house.
Speaker 8: But I was getting close to get promoted, and so
Speaker 8: I wanted to get back into the first in rig right,
Speaker 8: so first and you know, when you're on a squad,
Speaker 8: you're you're you do a lot of work, but you're
Speaker 8: not you don't get there.
Speaker 3: First a lot night, so it's a different kind of work.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I wanted to get back to getting first in
Speaker 8: and and making those first in decisions.
Speaker 3: Thanks so you got promoted and you were just a
Speaker 3: relief lieutenant. You never got I never got a spot.
Speaker 4: You just bounced.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I got a spot. Like the last maybe ten
Speaker 8: months or so. I went in Roseland it was just
Speaker 8: it's a Roseland had five houses. This was another Roseland
Speaker 8: house and it was Engine eighty. It's a little slower engine,
Speaker 8: but it had it covered a seventeen hundred low rise
Speaker 8: c CHA complex and in another housing area that it
Speaker 8: was low income, and and then and then in an
Speaker 8: express way. But as far as the engine goes itself,
Speaker 8: it it was a little slower as far as runs go.
Speaker 8: And when I went there, I was getting detailed there
Speaker 8: and as a as an officer, and and they were
Speaker 8: getting a handful of candidates that weren't and they didn't
Speaker 8: have an officer assigned there. So when you you have
Speaker 8: a spot that you don't have an officer assigned, you
Speaker 8: get a lot of.
Speaker 4: You know, say uh yeah, well right right right there.
Speaker 8: And then you know the candidates they're not going to
Speaker 8: get the training they need because you're going to have
Speaker 8: the officers that come in from the day and they're
Speaker 8: just not going to get it right. And and Barry Temple,
Speaker 8: who was my officer at ninety three, was the batalty
Speaker 8: chief and uh so, you know, I only had about
Speaker 8: another you know, ten months to go, and I was,
Speaker 8: you know, I was leaving the job. And so I'm like,
Speaker 8: you know what, I'm gonna sit here instead of bouncing
Speaker 8: around and and work with Barry's battalion chief and and
Speaker 8: Tom Footscruber, which was a silid guy. He was a
Speaker 8: captain on the truck. And uh so I'm like, you
Speaker 8: know what, this is good, this would be good for me,
Speaker 8: and and we and we had a couple of fires,
Speaker 8: you know, but we had candidates that they were eager
Speaker 8: to train, and we trained a lot and and I
Speaker 8: was I was happy about that.
Speaker 3: So yeah, decided to pack it in.
Speaker 8: So while I was going to be I was going
Speaker 8: to be fifty. So I was turned fifty, gonna have
Speaker 8: twenty one years credits, and I had kind of wanted
Speaker 8: to do that anyhow. I was going to try and
Speaker 8: put twenty in the city and then uh and then
Speaker 8: and then get out because you know, your city residents.
Speaker 8: I didn't grow up in the city, and I just
Speaker 8: kind of wanted a different lifestyle as well. And and
Speaker 8: of course the city at that time, of course, you know,
Speaker 8: which it was always rough anyhow, but it was even
Speaker 8: getting a little more shaky because of the riots, and
Speaker 8: you know, police didn't have any authority any more, and
Speaker 8: and it was just getting more and more dangerous. And
Speaker 8: you know, my my boys are still you know, they
Speaker 8: were still young teenagers at the time too, or teenage,
Speaker 8: you know, teens, and and you know, you start thinking
Speaker 8: about that that you know, I have an opportunity to
Speaker 8: pull out of here and get out of the.
Speaker 4: City and and and live some dodge the hell out.
Speaker 6: Baby.
Speaker 4: It all looks good in the rear view mirror.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, you don't want to get deployed. You
Speaker 6: want to go back out the door.
Speaker 4: Yea.
Speaker 8: So it was an opportunity, and so I'm like, I'll
Speaker 8: just I'll take it, you know.
Speaker 4: And how do you adjust when you well, you know
Speaker 4: what That's another.
Speaker 8: Those are some of the things to talk about too,
Speaker 8: is being repurposed, right, I think that's important. Is purpose
Speaker 8: is to find a purpose and and then to be
Speaker 8: you know, repurposed, and which there you know, there's a
Speaker 8: purpose in all of us. And you know the main
Speaker 8: purpose is that we will never be without his is
Speaker 8: the one is to be is to be a good neighbor, right,
Speaker 8: to be a loving human being and and be a
Speaker 8: good neighbor and and uh, and that's that's a purpose
Speaker 8: that we all have. You know, no one can ever
Speaker 8: take that away from us. And we'll always have that.
Speaker 8: But if you wanted to do something that's it's more
Speaker 8: of a work related purpose, is you know, My my
Speaker 8: hope was when I left, was I was going to
Speaker 8: do a run a an online ministry. So I just
Speaker 8: I finished, uh a doctorate in in Christian counseling at
Speaker 8: the seminary.
Speaker 3: We got to call you doctor. I knew you were
Speaker 3: hold that to the end, doctor Brett, doctor doctor.
Speaker 8: So this is what I wanted to do, is I
Speaker 8: wanted to run that ministry and work with trauma right,
Speaker 8: work with first responders and help help navigate them right,
Speaker 8: help them navigate through through trauma biblical with you know,
Speaker 8: with the biblical direction and and family members and all
Speaker 8: that stuff.
Speaker 4: And that was a passion of mine.
Speaker 8: And you know, and then of course COVID really strained
Speaker 8: a lot of things like that. You couldn't you couldn't,
Speaker 8: you couldn't give talks, you couldn't do anything face to face,
Speaker 8: and so it was hard to market yourself right to
Speaker 8: get out there, and and so it was hard to
Speaker 8: get that off the ground.
Speaker 4: And so I struggled with that for a little bit.
Speaker 8: And during that time of not being able to do that,
Speaker 8: I was running and I.
Speaker 4: Was feeling a lot of.
Speaker 8: It's a sensation which I can actually talk about too,
Speaker 8: if you if you guys are up for that. It's
Speaker 8: it's something I call mission deprivation, and it.
Speaker 4: It's something that.
Speaker 8: I don't want to say I coined the term, but
Speaker 8: it's it's the stress of not experiencing the stress, and
Speaker 8: it's a it's a it's a pre like a pre
Speaker 8: trump traumatic stress, right, it's a stress paradox where if
Speaker 8: you think about it, if you are on this job
Speaker 8: and you are trained for a mission, right, your mission driven,
Speaker 8: and you're being constrained from doing that mission, it really
Speaker 8: has an impact on you.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 8: So even for me, for my whole career, when I
Speaker 8: missed a fire, I hated it. I hated miss some fires.
Speaker 8: Even when I was younger, I hated going on furloughs. Right,
Speaker 8: So our furloughs were seventeen days, you know, I mean,
Speaker 8: how many fires are I going.
Speaker 5: To miss in the same vacation for God's sake?
Speaker 4: I know, right, I.
Speaker 8: Hated it so but even you know, even then, you know,
Speaker 8: regards to how many fires that I went to, and
Speaker 8: you know, you guys do it's just you don't like
Speaker 8: missing it, right, It's just it's something you like to do.
Speaker 8: And but when you spend a period of time not
Speaker 8: being able to fulfill some sort of a mission or
Speaker 8: a purpose, it can have a huge impact on you.
Speaker 8: And I did a research project with mission deprivation and
Speaker 8: I had nine hundred and thirty one response respondents and
Speaker 8: it took me about a year to get the data
Speaker 8: and it's really interesting. And so what motivated me from
Speaker 8: doing that research was I read an article. In addition
Speaker 8: to it's a personal experience, right, actually hated missing stuff.
Speaker 4: And I read an article.
Speaker 8: Written by a marine who had three or four different
Speaker 8: chances to be deployed overseas and his unit got shut
Speaker 8: down every time, so he never was able to go.
Speaker 8: And he wrote an article how it screwed him up.
Speaker 8: It messed him up because he was never able to
Speaker 8: serve and he started experiencing guilt when he was praised.
Speaker 8: You start walking through Millet you know, the airports and
Speaker 8: if you weren't fatigues and all that stuff, and people
Speaker 8: say thank you for you know, what you're doing. And
Speaker 8: it really started bothering him internally because he knew he
Speaker 8: didn't go, and so he started feeling like this, this
Speaker 8: like a fraud, you know what I mean. And he
Speaker 8: started really having some psychological impacts of that. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 8: that's really interesting. So I wanted to do a research
Speaker 8: which on that, and out of nine hundred and thirty one,
Speaker 8: it's it's it's really it's it's interesting. The data that
Speaker 8: that came about that is that like forty eight percent,
Speaker 8: so I had had it written down, like forty eight
Speaker 8: percent of nine hundred and thirty one claimed to feel
Speaker 8: guilt and win praise in public because they aren't doing
Speaker 8: the job right. There might be a busy department or
Speaker 8: a slow department, slow houses or whatever.
Speaker 3: And uh.
Speaker 8: And for another you know, forty eight percent, which was interesting,
Speaker 8: felt unfulfilled in their careers.
Speaker 4: So think about that.
Speaker 8: Out of nine hundred and thirty one, it's a it's
Speaker 8: a good sample size, right, and forty five percent would
Speaker 8: get upset when with missing fires. And I looked at
Speaker 8: that from either from zero to five years on the
Speaker 8: job and over twenty one years in the job, and
Speaker 8: the numbers were near the same.
Speaker 4: So people just they just don't like missing fires, right.
Speaker 8: And it's forty six percent of the single role medics
Speaker 8: when they took the data, when they took the survey,
Speaker 8: forty six They they claim to get upset and missing equality.
Speaker 4: Ms ron pen and or you know, traumas or whatever.
Speaker 8: So so when you look at that, it's it's remarkable
Speaker 8: compelling when you think about what which isn't looked at.
Speaker 8: Like so when you look at post traumatic stress and
Speaker 8: you look at things like you know, like anxiety and
Speaker 8: and you know our our race or suicide and things,
Speaker 8: that's one thing that it's not looked at. It's like
Speaker 8: cancer research, right, that for a couple of years, and
Speaker 8: the crosshairs are always on the same thing. When they
Speaker 8: look at the fire service, they look at the smoke
Speaker 8: and the toxins, but they kind of overlook all the
Speaker 8: other things. But this is one thing that's overlooked, is
Speaker 8: what's going on in the minds of those who aren't
Speaker 8: doing the job, who aren't getting the stress, right, who
Speaker 8: aren't going to the calls again.
Speaker 4: It's like it's a paradox. So I found that really interesting.
Speaker 8: And to get back to retiring and finding yourself, leaving
Speaker 8: something you've done for thirty two years, your entire adult life,
Speaker 8: and you you're sort of without purpose, without direction, those
Speaker 8: same things, that same experience can start to develop and
Speaker 8: bubble up. And what I was learning is the side
Speaker 8: effects of that is very parallel and very similar to
Speaker 8: what's diagnosed and postmatic stress disease or.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know what, something that was weird. I think
Speaker 4: we might have talked about this coops.
Speaker 7: Like for me, the thing that the fact that we
Speaker 7: started this podcast kind of like right after I retired
Speaker 7: in twenty or whatever it was, so it kind of
Speaker 7: kept me close. You know, guys always say I missed
Speaker 7: the kitchen or whatever. Right, you missed the guys, So
Speaker 7: it's kind of kept us with the guys. Right, we
Speaker 7: have the banter, we talk about fires, we talk about
Speaker 7: the job, so that part is not missing.
Speaker 3: Giving good information which helps.
Speaker 5: Right, you feel like you're there's a lot of young right.
Speaker 7: I would say the thing that I missed the most
Speaker 7: is the rush of like turning the corner right, like
Speaker 7: turning you're on the rig like like you said before,
Speaker 7: just even when you said it while you were talking,
Speaker 7: I get it's in me like you're getting. You hear
Speaker 7: on the radio, numerous calls, people trapped to call on
Speaker 7: you on the radio. You got kids trapped on whatever
Speaker 7: on the floor above, Like you cannot there is.
Speaker 5: No way that you get there's you cannot replicate that.
Speaker 7: And maybe in the military if they're guys shooting bullets
Speaker 7: at you, But I don't know how you replicate that
Speaker 7: scenario where it's all on you, right, your guys, your
Speaker 7: company right, and like you said, the outcome And I
Speaker 7: think that's why you take that so to heart if
Speaker 7: it doesn't go your way, is because you're putting all
Speaker 7: the effort right, Like people really have no idea how
Speaker 7: much effort that is to.
Speaker 5: To do what we're doing there, right. I mean, it's
Speaker 5: really an incredible thing.
Speaker 7: Like when when I these just be so proud to
Speaker 7: like stand outside after a job and no matter who
Speaker 7: made the grab or who, you know, the engine went
Speaker 7: down the basement, you know, put the fire out. Some
Speaker 7: guy on the top floor in an attic made a
Speaker 7: grab like coming in the rear window like you know
Speaker 7: with fire shown, it's like incredible stuff that we do.
Speaker 8: You know, like, oh, it's awesome without a doubt, and
Speaker 8: you know it's something too that to kind of you know,
Speaker 8: dovetail off.
Speaker 4: That is is the.
Speaker 8: Is the identifying with the the the idea of being
Speaker 8: a hero, right So, which I talk about in the
Speaker 8: talks that I give, is we have to be really
Speaker 8: really super careful with that, right So, and it's not
Speaker 8: really I don't really say that that those of us
Speaker 8: who are in this line of work and who have
Speaker 8: done this line of work see ourselves as that because
Speaker 8: it's usually the public, right that stamps that word, that
Speaker 8: that definition and that term on us. And it's one
Speaker 8: of those things where you know, we're not superheroes, right
Speaker 8: and so we're human beings that are willing to do
Speaker 8: hero things, but we're not superheroes. And the reason why
Speaker 8: we have to be careful with that is because we
Speaker 8: can talk about things that we were able to accomplish.
Speaker 8: Is look at what I did. I was able to
Speaker 8: do that and then have that feeling of being a hero.
Speaker 8: But when but when it doesn't go right, when you
Speaker 8: miss that kid, when when things go wrong, what are
Speaker 8: you now, right, what would you just become. It's a
Speaker 8: huge fall, right, so we have to be super careful
Speaker 8: with that.
Speaker 3: But what I'm gonna throw this at you then? But
Speaker 3: what I mean, it's the closest thing. I just say
Speaker 3: to my wife, it's the closest thing to faking or
Speaker 3: playing superhero. So if you look at it, Cole comes
Speaker 3: in for help, what do you do? You slide the
Speaker 3: pole right, just like Batman? What does he do? Get
Speaker 3: in this uniform? We get into a uniform? What does
Speaker 3: he do? Jumps into the batmobile, drives like a bad
Speaker 3: to go help somebody. What do we do get in
Speaker 3: the ring? We drive like a man. They have to
Speaker 3: go help somebody with the intention of just helping somebody.
Speaker 3: So if that's not the closest thing to play.
Speaker 4: In this healthy hero, I don't know.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, And you're not going to ever repeat
Speaker 3: that adrenaline rush being retired. You can't what happens?
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: It's my line between danger and panic and not adrenaline
Speaker 3: rush in between.
Speaker 4: It's just like, yeah, exactly, so, Brett, did you have
Speaker 4: the dream? But have you had the dream?
Speaker 6: Have you had the dream?
Speaker 3: I was just gonna ask you don't have it because
Speaker 3: you're still working.
Speaker 6: I'm just asking that.
Speaker 3: I have talked to Like maybe I haven't done a
Speaker 3: study like you, but I have talked to so many
Speaker 3: guys who say they have the same dream all the time.
Speaker 3: The run comes in, they can't find their gear, they
Speaker 3: can't get onto.
Speaker 4: The the time you have it. Yeah, I told you why.
Speaker 3: I'm retired ten years and I still have it.
Speaker 4: Where right and that adrenaline rush?
Speaker 8: Yeah, because I'm sort of considered myself organized, and so
Speaker 8: I wake up frustrated because I couldn't Why didn't I
Speaker 8: have my gear right?
Speaker 4: Or where's my gear? All the time?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, isn't that something that's crazy?
Speaker 3: I gotta find out that's about something, right, some research doctor.
Speaker 3: Can you tell me whether that's.
Speaker 4: I haven't had that while I haven't had that in
Speaker 4: a while, But I don't.
Speaker 3: Have that.
Speaker 4: Every week.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be lying two to three times a week
Speaker 3: I had that same dream.
Speaker 4: Well, why do you.
Speaker 5: Think that is?
Speaker 7: That we all have the dream where we can't we
Speaker 7: can't find the game. Sometimes I have a dream where
Speaker 7: I'm putting it on the wrong feet and I can't
Speaker 7: get the stuff going like fast enough, like it just
Speaker 7: has to be just all those years of having to
Speaker 7: do that so quickly, it's like a stress or pressure
Speaker 7: on you that you don't even realize that you've done.
Speaker 8: You do you think that you think you started having
Speaker 8: those after you left the job?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 4: Right, So I will look into that. It's interesting.
Speaker 8: It's almost like you you sort of you're you're you're
Speaker 8: kind of detached, right from from that line of work
Speaker 8: and that routine everyday stuff. And you may it's possible
Speaker 8: that we can start feeling like we're in a pasture, right, so,
Speaker 8: or we're not not adequate anymore, right, we're inadequate, or
Speaker 8: sort of maybe we can't do it anymore, right, And
Speaker 8: so who knows. I don't know what it is, you know,
Speaker 8: but it's one of those, you know, lack of confidence.
Speaker 8: I don't know what it is, but I used.
Speaker 5: To say that all the time. Right, you're you were
Speaker 5: a lieutenant.
Speaker 7: You know, you were in sock, you were in special operations,
Speaker 7: you were in a squad. Now you're Brett who moses long.
Speaker 7: That's it, you know, now you're that guy.
Speaker 5: That's right. You know, you're you're nobody.
Speaker 3: You know life and your kids? Now you say something stupid.
Speaker 3: They're like, yeah, no, that's that's not the fire house
Speaker 3: not funny, and you're just dad all right now, don't
Speaker 3: get me the butter and of refrigerator right.
Speaker 8: See, now that's interesting. I'm glad you guys brought that up.
Speaker 8: I look, I'll look at that. It's good, look at that.
Speaker 4: We talked.
Speaker 7: We've actually talked to a few people about that, and
Speaker 7: I would say most people definitely have something to that
Speaker 7: effect where they're mission their groun or they can't get
Speaker 7: on the rig or whatever it is, I can't find
Speaker 7: their stuff.
Speaker 3: I have a shoot to that dream too, Like I'll
Speaker 3: have a dream that I can't find my gear because
Speaker 3: I left it on the rig last time and that's
Speaker 3: a no no, and they hit it on me in
Speaker 3: the fireouse. Now I got no looking all over the
Speaker 3: firehouse for my gear.
Speaker 4: I wonder if it's the same with So.
Speaker 8: I know he was on the job, but he was
Speaker 8: great and he was a fighter, right, So he would
Speaker 8: dream when when he would dream, and he when he
Speaker 8: would get in fights in his dream, he would lose.
Speaker 8: He said he would always lose his fights.
Speaker 4: Isn't that something? Yeah, I don't know, unless you always.
Speaker 3: Know I expect to hear expect to hear back from
Speaker 3: you doctor snow them.
Speaker 5: Uh yeah, do we find out where we can get
Speaker 5: the book?
Speaker 4: Guns?
Speaker 6: It's on Amazon.
Speaker 4: I have a picture on Amazon.
Speaker 6: Yes, right there, baby, twelve bucks, twelve books go to
Speaker 6: sixty percent discount. Bro, it's not free.
Speaker 5: I'm I'm going to order it tomorrow. I'm honering it yourself.
Speaker 3: Bull of shit. You ain't I'm ordering a kid. They
Speaker 3: no money coming out of that pocket, bro.
Speaker 5: That one I'm going to read. All the other ones
Speaker 5: I don't read, right, that one I want to.
Speaker 4: Read day to day.
Speaker 6: I want it in the fucking tree stand, you know,
Speaker 6: kind of like it wasn't it.
Speaker 5: Wasn't ninety two dollars, it was twelve dollars.
Speaker 3: Right, Why don't you get some of those in handled
Speaker 3: out it the spaghetti and meat old dinner?
Speaker 4: Bro?
Speaker 3: You know you really you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I can try that, but you know what time it is, bro?
Speaker 3: Right now before we get any Oh yeah it is.
Speaker 3: Even though he's been laid these at the whole.
Speaker 6: Show, It's time for my friend d school kick of
Speaker 6: the day, day day day, all right, my friend, I've
Speaker 6: had it.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I do have a couple and it's something that's
Speaker 8: it's certain that is that I realized how important it
Speaker 8: is too to make sure that the candidates and people
Speaker 8: that are new in this job start off on the
Speaker 8: right foot right. So we need to get them to
Speaker 8: where while their feet are still in the starting blocks
Speaker 8: and before they take off down that lane. And some
Speaker 8: of the things that that I really hone in on
Speaker 8: when I'm talking to the candidates and giving a talk
Speaker 8: is is what's expected. So if you're you know, if
Speaker 8: you're a candidates and you're getting into the fire school,
Speaker 8: or maybe you're even thinking about it, or maybe you
Speaker 8: graduated and you're.
Speaker 4: You're you're going to your assignment.
Speaker 8: And here's a this is what we need to really
Speaker 8: think about. And this is something I learned and certainly
Speaker 8: was was drilled into me my first day on the job.
Speaker 8: The city, for sure is is to know what's expected
Speaker 8: of you as an individual and as a new candidate,
Speaker 8: as a rookie, and that is to to want to
Speaker 8: be here right, to want to be there. So your crew,
Speaker 8: your team, you're you're, the members that you are signed
Speaker 8: with and the company you're on, they want you to
Speaker 8: want to be there, and that's important, and to ask
Speaker 8: questions and to remain humble. Remaining humble is a key
Speaker 8: to this job. Is to not let it go to
Speaker 8: your head, regardless of how busy your company is. Is
Speaker 8: to stay humble because we all fumble ball, all of
Speaker 8: us and uh and you will too at some point.
Speaker 4: So we need to stay humble. And and to be
Speaker 4: the first in to work.
Speaker 8: It was always a thing that I always prided myself on,
Speaker 8: is to be there as early as I could. And
Speaker 8: and maybe I was a little overzealous, but but it
Speaker 8: was something actually that the Mitch Crooker had said to me,
Speaker 8: is is you know that the earlier you get, you know,
Speaker 8: you just you can add about another seventy fires to
Speaker 8: your career. And and and that's without a doubt. And
Speaker 8: so I like to get early. And so you get early.
Speaker 8: That so it shows that you have your care, your
Speaker 8: passion in your job, you have pride in your.
Speaker 4: Job, and uh and the sooner you get to work,
Speaker 4: you can get get in service.
Speaker 8: And so get to work and try to be first,
Speaker 8: get in service, avoid having to be asked to get
Speaker 8: something done, and stay fit for duty both physically and mentally.
Speaker 4: Meaning that I stay fit. Right.
Speaker 8: So when those when that nine oh one comes across
Speaker 8: as people that are calling that phone that number, they.
Speaker 4: Expect you to show up. They expect you to be
Speaker 4: prepared to know the job.
Speaker 8: And that's your responsibility is to learn this job and
Speaker 8: put forth a level of excellence. And again, we can't
Speaker 8: control the outcomes, but we can control the effort that
Speaker 8: we put into what we do. And and check yourself
Speaker 8: right and before getting home, meaning that when you leave
Speaker 8: the job and you're going home, you've got a family
Speaker 8: to come to.
Speaker 4: Check yourself, check your attitude. You're going to be tired.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you're may have had a bad day, rough day,
Speaker 8: may have seen some things that yeah, I understand, but
Speaker 8: so what right you'll get over yourself. Know that you
Speaker 8: have a responsibility and and and again resume the duties
Speaker 8: that you have when you're off of work, right, meaning
Speaker 8: that you leave work, you clock out, You got duties
Speaker 8: off the job.
Speaker 4: You got your your parents, your spouse, you're.
Speaker 8: A neighbor, you're someone to someone else, and you have
Speaker 8: a responsibility to to stay and resume your duties in
Speaker 8: those roles. And uh and no one, uh you know,
Speaker 8: asked you to do this job. You chose it, you
Speaker 8: picked it, and this is what comes with it is
Speaker 8: you're going to be tired and uh and that's just
Speaker 8: the way it is. And and learn to live through
Speaker 8: that and rise above that and talk about it. Right,
Speaker 8: So things that are that are bothering you don't be
Speaker 8: afraid to talk about it.
Speaker 4: It's okay.
Speaker 8: It's one of those things that there was a school
Speaker 8: of thought where we don't we don't talk about it.
Speaker 4: We go home.
Speaker 8: We don't want to share things because we don't want
Speaker 8: a secondary you know, trauma our family. And sometimes I
Speaker 8: think we need to rethink that. Right, We may need
Speaker 8: to change a paradigm on that way of thinking because
Speaker 8: we don't need to get into the gross details. But
Speaker 8: if we want a spouse to be our support system,
Speaker 8: we need to learn to be able to talk to
Speaker 8: them about it, right. We need to pull them in
Speaker 8: and have them let them be a support system. The
Speaker 8: more that we don't, we're just putting that brick by
Speaker 8: brick and that wall, and sooner or later that wall
Speaker 8: is going to be tall enough to where we can't
Speaker 8: get over here around it, and then your family falls apart.
Speaker 8: And the word that we turn right, we turn to
Speaker 8: coworkers because they know the language. We turn to the bars,
Speaker 8: we turn to other things, and and that is a
Speaker 8: is a one.
Speaker 4: Of the precursors to high rates of divorce in this
Speaker 4: job is.
Speaker 8: Just a distance ourselves. So another thing is to is
Speaker 8: to have a healthy stress mindset. Is is to know
Speaker 8: this is not a ninety five job, right, This isn't
Speaker 8: working at Chase Bank, This isn't.
Speaker 4: An office job.
Speaker 8: This is a job out that requires commitment, physical commitment
Speaker 8: and mental comment commitment. This job is more mental than
Speaker 8: this physical at most times. And uh, and it's dangerous. Right,
Speaker 8: We're going to see death. We're not always going to win. Right,
Speaker 8: We're going to go in and we're going to look
Speaker 8: for victims, and we may not always find them. Right,
Speaker 8: We may not be able to get there soon enough
Speaker 8: to do what we want to do. We can't control
Speaker 8: that as those outcomes, right, we talked about that, let
Speaker 8: go of feeling responsible for those final outcomes.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 8: So here here's a thing that if if we have
Speaker 8: the power to control the final outcomes of our actions,
Speaker 8: then every football kicked would be a field goal, every
Speaker 8: golf call set in flight would be a whole and
Speaker 8: one we don't have it. We don't have the control
Speaker 8: of controlling and determining that final outcome, the desired outcome
Speaker 8: of our actions.
Speaker 4: We just don't have it.
Speaker 8: We can train, we can apply wisdom through lessons learned,
Speaker 8: just to.
Speaker 4: Move that needle closer to that probability.
Speaker 8: Right we all we can do is apply our excellence
Speaker 8: and move that needle closer to the probability of having
Speaker 8: a desired outcome.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 8: We can't determine it. All we can do is move
Speaker 8: that needle as close as we can. We will go
Speaker 8: toe to toe with human nature. You're going to be
Speaker 8: inside you will you will come to that delineating point
Speaker 8: in your in your career and on the fire right
Speaker 8: in on the scene where you need to decide whether
Speaker 8: or not you're going to listen to your instincts of
Speaker 8: telling you to turn around, or you're going to push
Speaker 8: past that knowing that you have a job to do
Speaker 8: and stay mission driven. You're going to come toe to
Speaker 8: toe with that delineated line. You're going to be exposed
Speaker 8: to suicide. You're going to be exposed to or at
Speaker 8: least or maybe an experience of the line and due
Speaker 8: to death and the close number. You're going to hear
Speaker 8: about it in this line of work. But suicides are
Speaker 8: are at this point are not going down. They're outpacing
Speaker 8: l O d ds. And so that's something that we
Speaker 8: all need to pull together and just see if we
Speaker 8: can drop those statistics. And it comes with uh, it
Speaker 8: comes with talking about it and not being afraid to
Speaker 8: reach out.
Speaker 4: We can.
Speaker 8: We can maintain a soldier a uh, a warrior spirit
Speaker 8: while at the same time needing a little joct There's
Speaker 8: nothing wrong with that, all right.
Speaker 4: We can maintain a warrior spirit like and still get
Speaker 4: a little help. I like it. Sure, very good.
Speaker 6: So you muted.
Speaker 3: Sure, Oh it's a great job, Brett, And uh, we
Speaker 3: gonna play. We gonna play one more commercial.
Speaker 6: You got you got one que up? Yeah, here we go.
Speaker 10: The First Responder Center for Excellence is a not for
Speaker 10: profit organization dedicated to protecting the lives and livelihoods of
Speaker 10: first responders. Their education and research initiatives aim to bring
Speaker 10: greater awareness and understand the challenges to the health, safety,
Speaker 10: and well being of firefighters, EMS personnel, and other first
Speaker 10: responders too. They are an affiliate of the National Volume
Speaker 10: Firefighter Foundation.
Speaker 3: And you know what the old school health and safety
Speaker 3: tip tonight. It's going to come from something that Brett
Speaker 3: just joggled in my well. Doctor Brett just joggled in
Speaker 3: my head, and it was, don't take this job out
Speaker 3: on your family. So what I used to do is
Speaker 3: on the ride home, I would try to listen to something,
Speaker 3: not like that would get me much politics or anything,
Speaker 3: on the way home, some music. And I had a
Speaker 3: rule in my house that well, we kind of came
Speaker 3: up with it together. Really wasn't a rule, but Daddy
Speaker 3: would be home ten minutes and just quiet time for
Speaker 3: Daddy until I would engage. And it will allow me
Speaker 3: to shift gears. Because you're hanging out with guys, you're
Speaker 3: seeing stuff that normal people don't see, your curse and
Speaker 3: your breaking balls, and that doesn't translate to home. So
Speaker 3: that ten minutes of just sitting quiet and listening to
Speaker 3: my kids' voices, listening to my wife's voice, patting the dog, whatever,
Speaker 3: get your back into dad husband mode, kicking the dog,
Speaker 3: kicking the dog and the ass because he just pressed
Speaker 3: on the floor. Whatever it is, get your back into
Speaker 3: the mode that you're supposed to be while you're at home.
Speaker 3: You're not supposed to be a fine at the kitchen
Speaker 3: table at your own house.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 6: That's all you's gonna say.
Speaker 3: Brett, thank you for coming on. Appreciate it.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you what it was. It was a pleasure.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me. It was great.
Speaker 8: You guys job just right, just just tailboard conversations, right,
Speaker 8: and baby's awesome.
Speaker 3: And my boy over the city news support from the
Speaker 3: Left coast keep sending me the stuff for Coops podcast.
Speaker 3: Coops podcast at gmail dot com. For the Cup of
Speaker 3: Joes in the morning.
Speaker 5: We had a lot of jag ops in there.
Speaker 3: We had a lot of jacks. You were a lot
Speaker 3: of guys you were talking about, Brett were actually in there.
Speaker 3: Ai Audi Aranda is in there.
Speaker 4: Oh nice.
Speaker 6: I was standing with my brother.
Speaker 3: Vegus Momo.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, for Suo.
Speaker 7: Actually the guy you had said, unfortunately who made the
Speaker 7: phone call. He was in the chat to the guy
Speaker 7: called you before when you mentioned his name. He actually
Speaker 7: said that he was making that phone Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: All right, gods enjoy When does speak at you next week?
Speaker 6: Yes, October nineteenth, this week you gotta be are Thursday.
Speaker 3: Yes, we got another show on Thursday. Right. This guy's
Speaker 3: older than dirt. Right, he's old gil Roy, right, McIlroy.
Speaker 6: That's how I say.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's an old guy.
Speaker 6: Chief.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think he's eighty something, eighty six. He is
Speaker 4: umped right now. He is so pumped.
Speaker 7: I have to stop him, start telling stories. As soon
Speaker 7: as I get on the phone, I got.
Speaker 4: To call him.
Speaker 3: Used to take it. I got another guy on the hook,
Speaker 3: got on in fifty nine and he was in twenty
Speaker 3: sixth section two.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: I didn't see any fire that guy. So we will
Speaker 3: see you Thursday night for the second show of the week.
Speaker 3: Until then, you know what.
Speaker 6: I only.
Speaker 5: Go and go Brett, thank you again. I'll see it
Speaker 5: the big one.
Speaker 6: Everybody, all right, guys, for those in the storm's path,
Speaker 6: be careful, Dylan should be careful, but evacuate. Don't take
Speaker 6: any chances. Man, this is gonna be a one two
Speaker 6: punch and a little shout out to the boys is destined.
Speaker 6: Engine Company nine who accompanied me for a couple of days.
Speaker 6: I forgot to mention them earlier. So, uh, those guys
Speaker 6: are heavy. They were They were not only rolling light
Speaker 6: like me, three three of us on an engine company.
Speaker 6: But we're gonna yeah, go ahead, I don't know what
Speaker 6: you're talking about, all right. Guys, stay safe out there,
Speaker 6: have a good
Speaker 4: Night, all right, okay,