Are You Mentally Ready for the Challenge?

摘要

THE ALARM SOUNDS, SIRENS BLARE, diaphones blast, bells and gongs ring, pagers activate, and text messages on cell phones come to life! We drop what we are doing at the moment and come rushing to the firehouse by car or by foot. Gearing up and jumping on the rigs, we head out to the alarm no matter the time of day, rain or shine. This is the home response of the quintessential volunteer firefighter. You may recall that in the movie Backdraft, Stephen McCaffery tells his brother Brian, "You have a bad day here, someone dies!" This may be a case of Hollywood dramatics at its best, but it has some truth to it. You never know when it's your department's turn for bad stuff to happen. There's no way around it; it's going to happen at some point, and when it does, we owe it to our fellow firefighters, our families, and the public to bring our "A" game every time we head toward the rig and an alarm.