I see that FireFighter Nation has just registered member #38,000. Continuing that kind of growth is simply amazing. They must be doing something right.
One of our readers sent us this photo the other day of a dedicated truckie:
I love the special Halligan clip that carries the iron wherever he goes, just as important to him as the SCBA, if not more so. It immediately reminded me of the brief episode in my early days as a shift leader when we got a guy like that transferred over to our company.
Elmer was one of those dedicated truckies and he had all the right qualifications. He was 6-ft. 2 in., weighed about 210, and was completely nuts. Elmer’s personna was similar to a walking beehive, a constant buzzing blob of unstructured hyper-activity. As such, he was constantly being transferred around because he never failed to eventually turn his captain-of-the-moment into a screaming meemee.
Elmer was assigned to the truck that ran most of our 1st-due territory, so we were acquainted with him already when he suddenly showed up one day to fill a vacancy on our shift. It was puzzling at first because we didn’t have a truck, only an engine and an ambulance. But it was obvious that Elmer had finished fracturing the crew at Truck 8. But my shift was a loose, happy-go-lucky bunch that enjoyed our job and we looked at Elmer as a form of entertainment rather than an irritant, so we all got along just fine.
But since you would never, ever put Elmer on the ambulance, then he ended up always a few feet away from me on the engine. And that’s where the irons come in. Our dept. at that time had a standard pack of a Halligan and flat-head axe nested together and secured with a postoffice strap. It was carried on every piece, trucks, engines, squads…..and Elmer. It didn’t matter what kind of call we were on, you knew what was behind you every time.
Elmer, you see, lived for destruction. His only mission in life was to get above the fire and VENTILATE. There was no finesse or technique involved. Just brute force and he relished in it. The problem was, he would always ventilate even if there wasn’t any fire. Like a trained fighting-cock, that’s what he did. So I had to institute a special rule just for Elmer. If we were on an assist, his assignment was to stay within 3 ft. of me at all times until I gave him a specific task. And that worked pretty well. It kept both of us out of trouble. It was funny, we would be out front watching the others do their evolutions and Elmer would be standing there with his irons and -always- a sledgehammer in the other hand.
He was very disciplined that way, staying right there despite his temptations, staring at the fire building with a fierce hate in his eyes and snorting like Ferdinand the Bull. “I hate that fire” was the emotion that you felt radiating out of him as he stood there just waiting for those three magic words, “Elmer, open up.”
And to be honest with you, I was always wishing to be able to tell him, too. Because there was nothing more remarkable to see than to unleash Elmer and watch him charge into the house, and then within moments you start hearing the tell-tale “Thump, thump, Bam!” Shortly after that you would see windows everywhere smashing outwards. None were safe from destruction. Elmer was at work.
We only got to enjoy Elmer for a few months because he wangled a transfer to a truck company somewhere, I don’t remember which one. But we never did forget our time with Elmer the Truckie.
Hey, we’d better get this equipment checked out now. I need to get the coffee pot filled again.
