Through the fire and the flames
Written by Shane Siddall
Firefighter Josh Schmitz pictured above with Fire Chief Matthew McBirney and Mayor Ann Womer Benjamin
Blaring sirens, blinding red lights, men and women in high-vis fireproof equipment, oxygen tanks on their backs, wearing their iconic firemen helmets running to your rescue, braving the most harrowing of situations with the hardened expression of their respirator masks.
If we look behind that mask and see the person behind it, what would we find? The classic fearless hero? A person who is just as scared as those they are saving? Someone brave enough to put others first? Or someone in between?
Let’s explore the requirements, training, and mindset needed to perform one of society's most dangerous jobs: a firefighter. Firefighting is one of the most respected jobs in our modern society, and it is obvious why they endure mental and physical pain and injuries on the regular, knowingly throwing themselves into infernos on nothing more than the simple motivation of trying to help others. If we are to get into the details of the injuries commonly sustained, it paints a much better picture of how resilient these men and women really are.
Unfortunately, the most common injuries sustained are burns; these not only leave physical scars that can impair the person for the rest of their life but also have the tendency to leave deep mental/emotional scars that heal far slower, if at all. FEMA says this can lead to internal burns on the lungs and throat, swelling of the lungs and or throat, airway collapse, respiratory distress, and respiratory failure. According to Aurora firefighter Josh Schmitz, the way that the Aurora fire department fights these injuries is by “ working out and trying to stay as fit as we can, it helps us deal with the main killer of firefighters, cardiac events, having a healthy heart is vital to an effective firefighter.”
To continue that thought, firefighters typically work in different specialties, well they do in the bigger cities when they have enough staffing to have one person focus on a specific task, but here in the suburbs there tends to be an overall lack in staffing numbers, which means that suburban firefighters have to be a jack of all trades. This long repertoire of skills can lead to many being highly skilled in their craft, as Schmitz points out, “Some city firefighters will only work on a rig or will only lay line, here we don’t have the same setup, here everyone can do almost everything.” The Aurora Fire Department is one of these departments that has their firefighters perform multiple roles or be able to perform multiple tasks.
Because there are multiple roles and tasks, many people are needed. Schmitz informed that the AFD has “about 19 guys and 15 part-timers to help fill in our schedule.” Obviously, the use of trucks is essential to this role; they have three ambulances, three engines, and one ladder truck so they are prepared for whatever suburbia will throw at them. Due to the multitude of vehicles and the staffing numbers, all of the firefighters are skilled and proficient in all of the vehicles from the ambulances to the ladder truck.
The average job work day is eight hours and five days a week; however, for a firefighter, it is twenty-four hours on and then forty-eight hours off, so they work every third day. Although this might sound like a relatively lax schedule, it is harder on the body than it seems, especially when they are called back in before they have gotten their full forty-eight hours off. Schmitz mentioned, “The main killer of firefighters is cardiac events, all the cardio, smoke inhalation, and lack of sleep from being on call all night puts extreme strain on the heart, and we're all aware that this job is slowly killing us.” From this, we start to look into the mindset of these firefighters despite the mental toll they charge through.
Although the motivations of each firefighter might differ, there is a common theme of putting others above themselves, and an even more common societal theme is that of underappreciation of that mindset that is so uncommon in the modern day, these men and women should be revered and honored for the pain they endure and the sacrifices they make, yet they are often tossed to the side and forgotten. That mindset is that of wanting to help others, “It's the best part of this job, being able to help people, being able to help when they need us most” Schmitz says, and from this headspace, we start to see the person behind the mask and the equipment, we see that those behind all of that bravado and heroism, are men and women that just want to do good. The idea of someone solely driven by a desire to help others is one thought to be of legend, but right here in our own town we can find these heroes, they are your neighbors, your friends, and they are just like us but make the conscious decision to do the extraordinary and go above and beyond the call of any normal person. But alas they do seem anything but normal.
Firefighter Josh Schmitz pictured above with his family