“Tell us your worst…”
Why do people do this to us? Okay, maybe that question is a tad rhetorical. We all understand that the job is cool. Everyone really wants to know what it is like, and what kind of cool stuff we get into. Hell, we certainly think it’s cool ourselves, RIGHT!? We tend to ask each other the same question. My very first shift captain, Captain Danny Ray, who lovingly referred to me as “the daughter he never wanted,” used to always say, “we have the coolest job in the world. We get to go inside people's homes without permission, and break a bunch of stuff and put holes in the walls! Even the cops have to have permission!” It’s funny because with other first responders, we REALLY dig into the nasty stuff. My Dad is retired from Austin PD, and let me tell you the banter we have back and forth! It’s like we compete to gross out whoever is sitting with us! HA! A family in the service is so fantastic however, we need to remember that we must pick and choose our story we tell, depending on the crowd. Even when we think it is a place people will be open and…… ready….. for what you have to say.
I never really thought of this as a loaded question, until it reared its ugly head at me. One night, I was sitting in the back yard with some friends and some friends of friends. Some I knew, some I didn’t and some I didn’t know well. They hit me with the question. “ Hey girl, what’s the worst thing you’ve seen.” I was very comfortable with these people and was vulnerable enough to not even think about filtering this upcoming description… So off went my mouth. Let me preface this by saying that suicides are the calls that make me angry, and I have reasons why. So since I didn’t that night, let me start here and alert you to the delicate topic ahead…
So, here is the meat and potatoes of what I said…'' you know what really makes me angry, and my least favorite? The suicides. That is the single most selfish thing on the planet. It is so hard for us to be the first walk in (after of course, our amazing law enforcement clear the scene for us. Shout out to my favorite folks on the planet!) and peel the hysterical spouse off the patient, in the most gentle way, only to find the patient’s skull half missing, yet unfortunately still breathing with an in-tact medulla oblongata. It’s the most selfish thing that these folks just chose to STOP their life by escaping, and leaving the world to pick up their pieces…” and then… suddenly the screech sound that I’ll take to the grave with me….. the sound of utter despair coming from a girl in the group who’s father had just committed suicide in a very very similar way only a few months prior.
I have never been able to but a label or description on the feeling I felt after that. I had absolutely no idea this had happened. I was angry at myself for letting my walls down, I was sad for her, I was pissed that NO ONE thought to stop me, when many in the group knew this happened, I felt like an absolute piece of shit for being so descriptive. But none of that matters. It’s our job to filter that. In the company I was in, I should have never exposed that side of our job.
Listen, we need to get things off our chest. We have to have an outlet for these types of feelings, but we must be careful where we lay our feelings out. This is good firehouse banter, or with your spouse if they are willing, or a therapist, which I highly recommend as a piece in your career. Lesson hard learned. Don’t make the same mistake I did.
“Life ain’t always beautiful, but it’s a beautiful ride.”