True story, strange day. Happy Halloween! It’s noon, and hour 19 of a 38-hour day. My partner Adam and I are riding back to the station after responding to 16 calls so far – and we’re both a little jumpy. “The sun is hurting my eyes.” “That’s because you lost your sunglasses.” “I think something […]

GoLocalProv continues with Rescue 1, Responding, publishing Chapter 23 today… The book is available at local bookstores and can be found HERE. Note from the Author This chapter brings Rescue Co. 1 and Engine Co. 13 to the home of a person suffering from a diabetic emergency. This is the meat and potatoes of EMS. Diabetics, […]

His hand went wrist deep into a vat of hot- 350 degree hot- tar. He pulled it out, looked at it and had his son call 911. We were enroute to a combative, emotional, suicidal female at the time, and were driving right past the man with the tarred hand. The emotional combative female could […]

Life changes in an instant. For first responders, a tone or radio transmission is the beginning, then action, then reflection, and usually satisfaction, regardless of the outcome. We know that whatever happened on the other end of the tones happened before we were aware, and would have happened with or without us. We do our […]

Who’s better? Me? You? I’m better, they’re better, you’re better, the better man wins! Better yet, let’s make everybody better. I’ve never been a competitive person. I like to win, and like it when my favorite teams win, but I really don’t get too unraveled when I or they don’t. I do have to admit, […]

Its just a show, good TV, entertaining for some, devastating for me. A little kid is walking to school, blood splattered on his clothes; his mothers, his father had killed her. One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three… Just like that, I was there, ten , fifteen, jeez was it twenty years ago? […]

The Thing I Feared Most Wasn’t Fire: A Firefighter’s Tale October 18, 2016 Back to Blog We firefighters belong to an exclusive club, the “The Brotherhood.” So do law officers and other first responders. We can come to think that membership in this club makes us special compared to the average citizen. We also like […]

“Nobody wants to be the person to tell survivors that their loved one is gone. It was, by far, my most dreaded event in a career full of unpleasant moments. People tend to exist in a state of disbelief when somebody dies unexpectedly or even after a long illness; they often await someone else to […]

  A collection of stories that I wrote during the Holiday Season is now available at Amazon, I think you and everybody on your early Christmas list will enjoy!

I wrote this for Fire Engineering’s Fire Life Column, thanks for reading! “Rescue 1 and Engine 13, respond to 8276 Roosevelt Street for a possible DOA.” The definite “dead on arrival” was considering the repercussions of not dragging his old, grungy, completely unmotivated self out of the bunk and responding to the call. This was […]