What It’s Really Like To Be A Firefighter
Why did you want to become a firefighter I wanted to become a firefighter because I saw these guys as superheroes I saw these guys it’s bigger than life and it wasn’t until I got to the job that I realized that we are just human I’ve seen more in one day than probably someone has seen in the whole life what kind of things do you see I see faces of death I see old people young people kids there are images that hard to erase that doesn’t hit me until I get home that I can’t fix someone’s death I can’t fix someone who is broken I can’t fix these things in my head that make me feel like that I’m crazy who talks about that the only time you see a firefighter crying is one of their co-workers died you okay can you tell me about one of those times when you weren’t able to save someone I went on a call where a young girl in her early 20s was partying on top of an apartment building and she fell and tumbled and hit the side of the walls and was killed but she still had signs of a little bit of life in her and I was a person doing compressions on her but I didn’t realize later on that this event was going to send me into a tailspin some of these calls just mess you up and this call messed me up I wanted to start drinking so I’d mask these feelings in these emotions and it didn’t help I would use prescription pills only because I just wanted to get numb you were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress injury pts I can you tell me about that I’m healing for my injuries I’m not gonna be completely healed because I just went on a call last week that messed me up but I get through them quicker cuz I’m not drinking I’m eatin cleaner and stair-climbing tell me how you go from using alcohol as a means of escape to climbing stairs a new ritual using drugs and alcohol you get high during stairs I get high I try to get in 10,000 steps a day and mentally it’s it’s a great escape because you’re able to really get out of yourself I began to realize that I’m trying to control things that I have no control over you’re trying to control death can’t control death so I focus on China I focus on just trying to get myself up the stairs and then I just focus on just being positive I started organizing my co-workers to join in and do this climb as a tribute to the guys that were killed in 9/11 so now we start wearing gear I start wearing our bunker pants and our firefighting boots and we wear our helmets get to a point where you just want to quit and I think about the people who cannot do this the people that aren’t here anymore the stairs are metaphor to life just one step at a time all that excitement energy sweat tears it’s contained until you get all the way up to the top where you just like explode and just feel like the sky open up it’s a feeling that everyone should experience and I think that a lot of people think that they can find that in a pill or at the bottom of glass you don’t have to go there and then when you’re able to really get that big breath of fresh air you’re breathing in life it’s amazing next on secret stories the ritual I developed while captive in North Korea click now to watch it was the scariest time of my life I was isolated in what is perhaps the most isolated country in the world but there was something that I began to do that helped me get through each day and it was a very simple act rituals is a part of seeker stories if you’d like to continue to see more stories from around the world we need you to subscribe
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