My venture into firefighting officially began on Sunday, October 25 at a meet-and-greet inside the fire hall. That same day I turned 32 years old and ironically received badge number 32! Getting used to sleeping alongside a 24-7 pager took some time; I didn't sleep well the first few nights. Now don't get me wrong, we only get about 150 calls per year, but there was some anxiety waiting for the pager to go off for the first time nonetheless.
I missed two calls prior to my first response because they occurred while I was at work. One was a call about a gas smell and the other was in response to a carbon monoxide alarm. They weren't high-excitement calls, but being that I was eager to respond to my first call I was disappointed.
My time came on Friday, November 6, 2009. My wife and I were selecting our dinners from Pei Wei's website. We had been planning a nice night in with Chinese food and wine. Just when my wife was about to submit our order my pager went off.
I looked at her and asked, "Can I go?!"
"Of course!" she shouted.
Of course I knew I had to go as well, but how else would you expect a proby to react?! I was especially excited because the call was about a possible grass fire in someone's yard. What great experience I was about to get! I rushed down to the station (obeying all traffic laws of course ;)) and joined about eight other firefighters in a scene that must have resembled a costume change at an SNL taping. I had about half of my bunker gear on when our training officer came begrudgingly out of the office to break the news to us that the call had been cancelled. Apparently some passerby spotted a large bonfire that seemed a bit too big, but the police deemed it within the city's size restrictions. An emotional roller coaster indeed, but there's always next time. Unfortunately the other bad news is that our training officer gave the probies specific instructions for next time, "Come straight to the radio room, don't change and get out of everyone's way."
I have a long way to go.
AE
