The Specter of Death

In the United States we kill roughly 100 firemen a year in the line of duty. Roughly 50% of those deaths are due to Heart Attacks, and another 25% are due to apparatus accidents, but that still leaves roughly 25 firemen a year who are dying because of something like being trapped, being disorientated, being struck by a wall or collapsing roof. We buried 106 Brothers and Sisters in 2005, and the United States Fire Administration has recorded 24 Firefighter fatalities so far in 2006. It's not the events like 9/11 which give me pause, but when you read about men like Robert Gallardy, a 47 year old Fire Capitan from PA who died from burns he suffered while conducting a training burn, or Lt. Curtis Meyran and FF John Bellew, who along with four other Brothers jumped from a sixth floor window of a New York City Tenement because they were steamed out. They died, and their bodies broke the falls of the four men who lived.

February 11th, 1998 my friend Tony Lockhart died when he became disoriented and ran out of air inside a tire shop at 106th and Western Ave. I was there. I got there after the fire had gone to shit and didn't find out Tony was missing until probably 20 minutes after I got there. I want to say that was about 11:00 p.m. I stayed that night until 2 a.m. or so when they recovered and removed Tony's body and the body of Pat King, another firemen who died in the same fire. Could Tony or Pat have been saved? Probably, if the level of training in Firefighter Survival and Rescue that is now widely available had been taught back then, but I know for me Tony's death served as a focal point of why one must take this job seriously. I can't say I've ever felt "Oh shit, I'm dead," in the moment of fighting a fire… for me I am so focused on doing what has to be done that there is little "fear", more a calculating though process. The fear comes afterwards. When you realize that putting your foot through a hole in the floor could have been really bad, or when you think about "What if…", "What if I hadn't gotten the hose unkinked?", "What if those guys hadn't gotten the windows taken out?"… those are the things that stick with you. Death is something that each of us needs to come to grips with in his own way. For me I have what some would say is a fatalistic attitude… if it's meant to be, then it's meant to be. I just assume that if it's my day then it won't matter if I'm crawling down a shitty hallway or that I choke on a piece of broccoli that is how things go. We all die. It isn't something to be feared, unless you live your life in fear. If you spend everyday afraid to live life to the fullest, afraid to embrace opportunities, to take chances and to live like you have nothing to loose then you will die scared and full of regret. To borrow a few lines from Jonathan Larson:

"… forget regret, or life is yours to miss… no day but today."

I love my job. I love what I do and if it is in the grand plan of the Universe that I should fall doing something that I believe is noble and honorable and love then I think that I will have achieved something few people ever do.