The people at Politifact have declared that Local 799 President Paul Doughty’s claim that a Rescue Captain, (Providence speak for the person in charge of an ALS vehicle and crew) worked 96 hours straight as “Mostly True.” “The captain accepted one overtime shift and he was ordered to stand duty for the other three shifts. […]

Anybody who has spent any time as a firefighter or EMT knows just how pervasive the job becomes. Try as we might, we simply cannot turn the emergency responder off and turn the ordinary citizen on. Somehow, we have to become the assimilation of the two and keep work at work and home at home. […]

Images from Friday Night’s terrorist attacks are embedded in my brain. As armed mass murderers invaded civilization, and scores died and hundreds were injured,  police responded, firefighters responded and emt’s and paramedics responded. I could dwell on the blood, and the images of bullet holes, body bags, bloody shoes on a sidewalk, the faces of […]

Samuel Mann/Flickr As a firefighter, there is nothing that we can’t do, no obstacle we will not overcome, and nothing we fear…except, maybe, what to do when it is time for us to re-join the workforce after “retirement.” When our time in uniform is through, we’ll put all of our experiences together, put on our […]

Providence Fire Department under attack I understand politicians wanting to save money. I do not understand politicians with zero experience, zero understanding of fire department  operations and zero willingness to learn being given the power to dismantle one of the best and busiest fire departments in the country, maybe even the world. It’s  ameture hour […]

City Life Post Hill Press October 15, 2015 A woman escapes Pol Pot’s murderous regime in Cambodia after watching her family butchered, “like chickens” only to lose her way in America. An eight year old deaf girl breaks the hearts of the firefighters who respond to her call for help, only to find that her […]

She’s mad, so she cries, no holding back, no storing feelings for later dispensation, just raw emotion unfettered by shame, uninterrupted by years of learning how not to show it, pure, unaltered sadness expressed the only way she knows how.   Not so her mom, who has learned to be strong, and holds back her […]

Kids love firefighters, that much we all know, and pretty much take the fact for granted. A few years ago my cousin Caroline, who teaches first grade in Providence asked if I could bring Rescue Co. 1 to the school, maybe read a little to the kids and show them the truck. Great idea, I […]

Educating youths about EMS is critical for the industry, but let’s admit it—it can be a daunting task that’s easier said than done. However, one EMT-turned-author is doing just that thanks to a bit of good storytelling. From JEMS Last Word, November; Michael Morse is the author of a handful of EMS-related books, including Rescuing […]