Firefighter - A Day in the Life

my name's Jess [Music] reporting from the way overseas [Applause] [Music] [Music] thirty-five nakama three confirmed multiple a structure fire so welcome to day two station 12 this is our ladder we just got back from a run this morning diabetic wake up so day two is a little bit different than the day one because we worked that 48 hour shift so usually day 1 I come through I'm checking the rig making sure that we have all our equipment and then I know it's there for day 2 so I line up all my stuff put my bunker gear in here then I'll jump up we have our path in the seat here so I generally pull my pack down this is after I've got everything connected ready to go I'm gonna check my air so you can see here I'm going to check my level and I take my mask check and make sure that my lights work put my mask on breathe down all my hair make sure everything works make sure that my mask is clean generally those lights there we go so as you go the fire service things are sporadic so [Music] no problem okay okay [Music] [Music] generally we like to talk about is when you go and you it's probably gonna be sore like your neck your back your knees you hit anything that you can't control like aspirin ibuprofen Lana I was just going to get checked that you're clear so we're just headed into the store and I'm gonna get some food for breakfast at another graph pretty typical for our firehouse trying to do something and you get a problem for one for something else and ice we go to medical balls in case it's really critical manpower their larger patient so the fire department comes and there's a fire truck comes and it's for that especially the critical patients Gela way more than you grocery shop we got any other runs a false alarm somebody burnt some food as I said earlier luckily they were able to reset the system and ensure that there is no risk of fire so we got the call now we're back in service will Co continue shopping working as a firefighter that's a big part of what we do here at station 12 we cook on the first day we do a lunch and a dinner and then the second day we do a brunch into dinner so somebody's always cooking and it's for meals these guys will definitely talk to you about it if your cooking's not the Bears tiny boys [Music] [Applause] this is a dish vicious time since our dishwashers broke so you gotta be good at washing dishes appreciate it over here not this logo here is is pretty cool for us it's a prideful thing in the fact that like every station is its own so you know if you see this like the Pirates of Broadway are wherever right there unseen fighting fires in or whatever so it's kind of our station pride in each station has a different logo like engine 11 they're the main street screamers because they have downtown Littleton and it's Main Street that they run through so each crew gun has their own logo that they come up with and then we have our station pride and we wear em on our shirts and we have stickers and stuff to give away as well this truck here at twelve latter twelve this is a name the Black Pearl Black Pearl of Broadway here so we have our logo up there you can see we have our coconut and the flag hanging on the inside so at this station we obviously have our ladder truck here but we also run a battalion chief for battalion two and then we run a medic unit on the other side what you'll see this year this is our reserve for the Department of stuff about reserve for this station but it's just a house for so we keep it here at the station just in case any of our truck companies go down they can get on a reserve and it's ready to go this is the Arapaho rescue patrol room with our community Risk Reduction specialists so they occupy this side of the of the building and run all their classes and stuff out of that over here so for rehabbing tools or we need to fix something or feel something that paints something this is where we keep all of that equipment so we can do our in-house station projects this is going to be our cascade system so that this patient here we have the ability to fill bottles if they've been breathing down because of a fire having this response or training so we can use our cascade system here to fulfill our bottles to that 5500 capacity one of the things that's my responsibility as a firefighter is to make sure that our bottles are full and that we don't have in excess of empty bottles so we only have one empty bottle so I'm not going to worry about filling there right now we want to make sure that we have a Ready Reserve for any aggrieved and use bottles to be far away to the other side this is one of our trainers props that we have to the station it's just a steel door we use this for in-house training on forcible entry we can close it and put some wood in the back side and they go right in this these slots here so we can make it more difficult the more the more thick with thicker wood makes this prop more difficult to open so we can do an inside swinging door or an outside swinging door depending on what the scenario is and we can practice that here in the house we have the air truck a rapid oil rescue Patrol is responsible for this truck they run it to the scene if we have a fire and we need more air it has a cascade system on it and it has a ton of spare bottles so that we can continue to work on scene if it's if it's for an extended period of time so one of the daily duties for a firefighter making sure that our laundry is taken care of these are all the truck towels that we use throughout the shift that we use just to clean the rigs or clean anything up outside in the bay this is gonna be our bunker closet I suppose so this is where we store all our bunker gear we try to keep it up side of the general bay area just because of all the diesel exhaust and everything all the particles that can settle on it so we try to keep it as a as possible just ensure that if it's clean gear it's actually clean gear and not getting contaminated slowly over time that's one of the cool things about South Metro here's were really held conscientious and make sure that we're trying to do our best to prevent cancer or any other diseases that may come from firefighting that we receive from exposure or anything like that this is gonna be the B C's office this is where the big man in charge sits sees in his natural habitat on the computer typing away looking at telegrams but anyway this before the VC is he's got his own bedroom and bathroom back there but his office so he has a nice quiet space in order to do the work that he needs to get them over here this is gonna be the firefighter office we have engineer Schultz in here apparently watching some fire videos getting studied up so you can be the best of the best so this is where the firefighters and the station officer or the paramedics will come to do the reports study do training anything that needs to be done on the computer this is where we do it VR honorary guest paramedic Brandon Howard as a pirate somebody had bought this pirate they brought it to the station and just use it as a mascot so it sits here I can't lie to you that scares me every time I come down stairs and through the door in the dark gets me every time we'll go upstairs [Music] this up here this is gonna be where the bunk rooms are laundry so I got some towels here like I said this is another responsibility of firefighter somebody's got their clothes in there right now so I'm just gonna put it in the laundry basket then when we swap out we'll clean it up I've got some more towels here just make sure we're cleaning it up doing our daily chores this is gonna be on a typical bedroom or bunk room looks like here at South Metro just basically a place for me to study if I need to in quiet and sleep view where we hang out watch TV just kind of rest up that way that we rest recovered ready to run calls so there's gonna be our living room here kitchen table is where we spend a lot of time this is this is the heart of the firehouse right here this is where everybody gathers we talk about things we solve the world problems at the kitchen table this is where it all takes place this is where we do our physical training our PT making sure that we're fit and ready to run the job run any call or do any jobs that we have for the day so we spend probably about an hour a day in this room not everybody all at once it just depends sometimes I'm gonna come here later on get a quick workout in make sure that I'm physically fit for duty so that I'm not anything : Wednesdays from 6 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. okay and it's behind the scenes to ER South metros fire recipes for what turns into a select group of 18 to 20 people yeah medic 12 and became with his nose injury [Music] sir one fault complaining of Oregon heard arm they won't play [Music] okay one minute stickers we chill seeing the fire truck go by and I get to ride it every day a lot of people look at the fire truck and they're like oh man all these guys do is fight fire and it's not necessarily true there's a lot of things that we do so water leaks car accidents medicals is the majority of our calls and fires do happen but they don't happen just super often right I think that there's just a lot of newer construction a lot of people that are well virtually because we have a great prevention program so I think that there's a lot of Education that goes into it and prevention and that's part of our job [Music] and we're heading back to the station now again let's call so they're still weak the medics have been crying about their food that's been sitting in our truck so we'll get them fed so the nice dinner time I was gonna cause some sometimes you're in dinner so usually we're leaving some food somewhere we may be in the middle of eating and get a call and then come back and try to finish all right so one of the things that we're gonna do there's a firefighter the work is not all glamorous we gotta clean the toilets make sure that our station is really presented all for the next crew yeah that's the whole whole I think what the majority of anything that you touch the goal is to leave it better than you found it and making sure that it's presentable ready to go for the next crew that's not a men's room everybody tries to take a part in it I'll be representing honest with you we look for The probe's to take initiative and at least start the process but we're all looking to do work we don't just expend the Probie to do everything so it looks good out here but half if you start cleaning but the crews will always go help you finish so that's kind of how we work in here and that just leaves your reputation in a good standing reputations are really really hard to build and then take seconds to break so that's why it's important to make sure you put your best foot forward and try and take care of your crew because they'll take care of you too so as you can see riding along with me today in the day of life of a firefighter there's a lot that we do there's a lot of training there's a lot of knowledge that you need to know but the best part about going and applying for South Metro now that the job postings open is that you only have to be 18 and you don't have to have your VMT certification to get in the door all that stuff will be taken care of when you get your your job the perfect candidate that we're looking for in my opinion they need to have three traits that's going to be good character a great attitude and work ethic none of those take any talent whatsoever there's no talent involved in this so if you have those three traits we can teach you everything else that's going to be the key basically it comes down to showing up at the right place the right time and the right uniform as long as you can do that we can get you where you need to go it's going to be a hard process it's going to be a long process but we have the skills and the knowledge to teach our younger newark candidates how to be a great firefighter no day is ever the same keep that nice and straight for me okay so my favorite part about being a firefighter is the controlled chaos that we have throughout the day so you never know what you're going to run on you could it could be a medical something like we're just picking somebody up which we call lift assist to read in a car fire - you're running the next five medicals in there in our mind like they're benign right there they're not life-threatening but they do need help - just something outlandish right like I mean you think about the crazy scenario you can think of and we've probably done it at some point maybe not me myself but people have so that's my favorite part is just the controlled chaos and never knowing what's gonna come next never know on what's gonna get interrupted where you're gonna be where you're gonna go yeah I mean like that I guess like the worst part of the job would be that we're working in the community and it's it's a community of people that you enjoy that you want to see succeed and and what people are hurt that that sucks right like it's it's hard especially whether it's life-altering I've had a couple calls where people have lost limbs and it's like that's that's hard he wrote a note because he couldn't talk in a trach and he basically said that we saved his life and that was that was a tough one it frees tears of my eyes every time and I mean that was his life will never be the same the best way that I can explain it to the public to people that don't run 911 calls at night would be set your alarm randomly throughout the night probably at minimum with three times and then as men have to as many times as you want and when that alarm goes off get out of bed get your clothes on get in your car go drive to a random place come back park your car and then try to go back to bed that's that's what it's like and you've got 90 seconds to get out the door and that's that's even put in your bunker gear on like if we're running a car accident we have to have our buck agir on and our safety vest and we're out the door so you got to wake up and be ready to go [Music] [Music] we were able to sleep all night pretty fortunate the medic got up once and ended up being canceled right away anyway but yeah we were able to sleep all last night which was different than the first night we were up in red and call so it's nice now we'll wait for that other crew to come in one of them Dave he's already here and then we'll do our crew swap and go I just hope you guys enjoyed following following me around in the daily life of a firefighter and hopefully none of the stuff scares you too much can apply come work with us we'd love to have you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: South Metro Fire Rescue Centennial, Colorado

Views: 2,788,968

Keywords: Firefighter, ride along, a day in the life, SMFR, South Metro Fire Rescue, Littleton, Denver, Centennial, Aurora, Highlands Ranch, Parker, Colorado, Fire Truck, Ladder 12, Justin LaBorde, Recruitment, code 3, siren, EMT, Medical, Emergency, Paramedic, EMS, ambulance, fire engine, tour, fire station

Id: pEIFG7-cmzY

Length: 24min 38sec (1478 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 16 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ReasonOverwatch]

Wow... I didn't realize just how much I love firefighters. I knew they were good people but wow. I think I want to be a firefighter. I know I might get cancer or burns or PTSD or something but fuck it, it's worth it. I want to be like these guys.