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The fire within EMS
Frustration, pain are all part of the job
(Published July 26, 2004)

Click here to read Part 1 in the Series

Second in a Series
By ROBERT ARKELL
Staff Writer

It’s quiet at 4:30 on a recent Thursday morning inside the Engine 15 firehouse.

Ambulance 12, Heavy Rescue Unit 3 (otherwise known as "the toolbox") and the fire engine all rest peacefully inside the garage. Red lockers line one side of the garage with nametags taped on the front. There are a few offices crowded with old fire department manuals and well-thumbed address books. The television lounge has a large TV and funny pictures of the firefighters based at the engine house. The Engine 15 insignia, "Hell’s Angels" – a flaming skull with a hard hat and two crossed fire axes - also decorates the lounge wall.

There’s a cramped room with a radio transmitter and a microphone used to receive emergency calls. A dull beeping noise, followed by a tired voice assigning emergencies to different engine companies throughout the city, echoes. "Engine 32, please respond to a man having trouble breathing. ...Engine 16, please respond to a call concerning smoke in a window. ...Engine 15, please respond...."

A siren goes off and the emergency lights begin to swirl. Firefighters assigned to the heavy-duty rescue squad rush out of the bunkroom and jump into their vehicle. They were sleeping just a few minutes ago. D.C. firefighters run two 24-hour shifts every week and have 72 hours off. Some of these firefighters balance other jobs with their shifts.

Many firefighters sign on thinking they will spend the majority of their time fighting fires. But the reality is that 70 percent of calls are medical. Last year, there were about 4,000 fires and 200,000 medical calls in the District.

This call is for an overturned car on the freeway on the other side of town. Engine 15 has a large area to cover. The rescue vehicle already is moving out of the station as squad members jump in the back.

Unlike Engine 10, which covers a small but lively area around Florida Avenue and H Street in Northeast Washington, Engine 15 runs from Anacostia into Northeast. For the firefighters working at Engine 15, the schedule is always unpredictable. Some nights are slow, other nights are chaotic. On slow days, firefighters watch TV shows in the lounge or smoke outside. When it’s busy, they will be out on call all night long.

This is a slow night, with an occasional medic or box call disturbing the calm. The firefighters blame the quiet on the presence of a reporter. A superstition shared by most firefighters within the District says that "ride-alongs" with reporters lead to dead nights. It’s as if there are some things that cannot be seen by anyone outside the brotherhood of sworn firefighters.

But the guys at Engine 15 are willing to share their stories. During the quiet times between runs, a small group walks outside to have a few smokes and joke about "the regulars." There are always derelicts, winos and addicts who abuse the 911 service on a daily basis. Firefighters at every engine house can predict when and where these "regulars" will make a medical call for help. Nothing much is going on tonight in Anacostia. Down the street, a group of kids shoot off bottle rockets and fire Roman candles at each other. A few cars blaring rap music peel off down the street.

A veteran who has been working since the late 1980s likes to talk about past runs. A few weeks ago, his medic squad had to persuade a naked crack addict to stop petting a tree in a local park. The man tried to bite the firefighters who tried to pull him away. They ended up dancing the addict onto the engine and taking him to the hospital.

A younger firefighter said that one of his first runs was a response to a 12-year-old who was killed in a drive-by shooting. He said he can still remember cleaning the boy’s brains off the sidewalk.

The veteran tried to describe what kept him coming back to the job. "No other feeling comes close to the one you have when you run into a burning building," he mused. "It’s the greatest rush in the world. It’s something that you can’t really put into words. You have to experience it for yourself." When asked if he would consider a different career, the veteran just shook his head. "I tried doing that once. Had to take the Metro with a million other people. There’s no other way to feel like an ant than to do that every day."

Outsiders who try to get a glimpse of what these firefighters experience are spared by some higher power. There will be an occasion when someone from outside will get to see a stabbed gang member, a crack addict howling at the moon, a house on fire. But it’s impossible for a reporter to write about what it feels like to be barraged by all of these experiences for 24 hours.

The firefighters also talk about the paramedics whose ambulance squad shares the engine house. Even though the fire department and emergency medical service claim to be one agency, firefighters and paramedics treat themselves as two different cultures. Relationships between firefighters and paramedics vary from firehouse to firehouse. Tensions flared when EMS paramedics at Engine 10 complained about having to use segregated bathroom stalls. But the firefighters at Engine 15 show EMS paramedics a great deal of respect. Firefighters and paramedics eat together for dinner and use the same facilities. But differences in training and promotion continue to divide the two organizations in almost every engine house. Firefighters praise the paramedics for their hard work, but criticize EMS as being disorganized and poorly run. Paramedics complain of being shortchanged by the fire department in terms of pay and equipment. Both paramedics and firefighters say they are doing the best they can to serve the best interests of the community.

The heavy duty rescue squad jumps into the back of the unit.

There’s a reason why firefighters call the rescue unit "the toolbox." Fire hoses, jackets, hard hats and other pieces of equipment jam the loading bay. The larger tools, like the "jaws of life" often used to extricate motorists from mangled vehicles, are stored in a compartment on the side of the truck. There is only enough space to sit down on the bench and hang on. Black lights cast the steel interior in an eerie, purplish light. The driver hits the siren as the truck booms out of the garage and speeds through the neighborhood.

The four firefighters on the rescue squad groggily strap on their equipment. Some of them try to catch a few more minutes of sleep. The back of the truck remains open as the driver speeds through Anacostia and pulls onto the freeway. Streetlights illuminate the road in a soft orange tint, and a few cars keep their distance behind the truck. It’s still dark, even though the sun will be coming up in two hours. The deafening noise of the siren suddenly cuts off, even though the rescue squad is less than a mile away from the accident. The driver just found out that another engine company has already responded to the scene. The swirling red lights of the fire engine and the dark shadow of the flipped car can be seen in the distance. False alarm. The firefighters peer out the back of the truck to catch a glimpse of the overturned car as the rescue unit begins to turn around and head back to the Engine 15.

"Some nights it’ll be this way," one of them mutters.

***

For the firefighters running Truck 16 and Engine 32, both located at Engine 32 on Irving Street SE, Monday has been a pretty slow day. The truck and the engine have taken a lot of minor medical calls throughout the day but haven’t had any serious fire calls. Firefighters are sitting in the TV lounge, watching "Scary Movie 3." There are a few firemen in the bunkroom, catching some sleep before the next call. One firefighter comes in late and says he’s assigned to Engine 12, but he is working overtime because Engine 32 needs another man for the night shift.

A lieutenant says that the engine has been out on medical calls throughout the day and mentions that Ambulance 32 has been "hammered" all day long. A few minutes later, an ambulance turns into the firehouse parking lot, but it isn’t 32. One of the paramedics gets out of the ambulance and makes her way to the EMS supply room, which is a closet near the entrance to the firehouse. She pulls out a few oxygen containers and complains to the lieutenant that the storeroom is filled with cobwebs. The lieutenant laughs it off. "Well, maybe it’s because you guys don’t use the oxygen regularly," he jokes. The EMS paramedic just shakes her head, grabs her containers and gets back in the ambulance. The ambulance backs out of the parking lot as the lieutenant walks into the firehouse.

The emergency siren goes off a few minutes later, as a call goes out for Truck 16. Someone left a microwave on for too long, and now there’s a small fire smoldering in an apartment. The firefighters hurry out of the lounge and jump on the truck. Everyone knows that it’s not a very serious fire, and some of the firefighters say that they’ll be back within the hour.

A few minutes after the truck heads out of the firehouse, Engine 32 gets a call. The nature of the call is unclear at first, and some firefighters think that there is a serious fire flaring up. A few of them race to the engine and begin to strap on yellow firesuits. The call repeats over the radio for reconfirmation. It’s a medical run. The firefighters grumble as they wriggle out of their firesuits.

The firefighters look a little disappointed. What they thought was a fire has turned into a response for an eye infection.

The engine speeds through Southeast Washington with sirens blaring. Most of the blocks look rundown. The firefighters know every street east of the Anacostia River. The city government does not provide any fire engine with maps, so the driver needs to remember every address, every street. They can't get lost, because there are no guides to fall back on.

The engine pulls up to an apartment complex near a line of houses. Small crowds of residents linger about on the street corners as the firefighters jump out of the engine and grab their medical gear. Some of the residents cheer the firefighters on, some of them shout insults.

They climb up two flights of stairs and enter a three-room apartment. There are about nine people inside. Three women lounge on the couch and watch TV. A baby snores quietly on the lap of one woman. Three older kids are playing video games with an older man in one of the bedrooms.

One of the women turns to reveal a bulge growing behind her right eye, which has swelled up and turned red. She complains that she can’t see and that her right arm is numb. She says that the swelling began when she leaned over on the couch. Her friends say that she has been having this problem for a few weeks, but she doesn’t say anything else about it. A few of the firefighters think that she could have been abused, but they can’t make a clear judgment yet. If she calls back on a regular basis with the same conditions, then they’ll try to do something about it. The lieutenant checks her pulse and blood pressure. The woman asks if she can go to the hospital, and the lieutenant sends out a radio call for an ambulance.

There are three ambulances responding to one call, and no other units are available in the vicinity. The lieutenant says they will have to wait for Ambulance 32, which is currently responding to a call on the other side of the District. The rest of the firefighters stand about in silence and wait for the ambulance to arrive. Twenty minutes later, the sound of Ambulance 32’s sirens can be heard in the distance.

The woman continues to complain that she has lost all vision in her right eye, but the firefighters reassure her that she’ll be treated when the ambulance arrives. The firefighters escort the woman to the ambulance, jump back into the engine and head for home.

Back at the firehouse, some firefighters sit out back and trade a few smokes. The quiet is broken by a 12-year-old playing with a rusted moped down the street. One firefighter, who calls himself "Scooter," shares a few stories. Scooter is an old hand. A few other firefighters join in and crack jokes about a few of the past chiefs. They laugh about Ronnie Few, making allegations about his tenure that were never publicly aired. Opinions on current Chief Adrian Thompson are varied. Some like him, some don’t. One firefighter jokes that Thompson used to be called "The Police" because he would do everything "by the book."

Some of the stories they tell sound outrageous. One guy got angry with his girlfriend and nearly sliced off his leg when he kicked it through a glass aquarium. A naked heroin addict stumbled up to the engine house and complained about having gangrene on his private parts. A drunk speeding past the firehouse had his arm hanging out of the car and nearly lost it when he slammed into the side of a passing truck.

Then they talk about the memories they can’t laugh off – people trapped in burning cars, victims of gangland shootings and everyone else who they couldn’t save.

One story is told over and over again. Every D.C. firefighter at Engine 32 can remember where they were and what they did on Sept. 11, 2001. Hundreds of D.C. and Virginia firefighters took part in the rescue operation after the attack on the Pentagon. Many of their memories of that day include a mixture of pain and frustration. Firefighters from Engine 32 said they traveled to Ground Zero in a caravan of pickup trucks because every other fire engine was occupied. D.C. firefighters couldn’t even communicate with the Virginia engine companies because they were using different radio frequencies. One firefighter remembers having to spend almost an hour searching for a ladder. Pieces of equipment were placed on the wrong fire trucks, so many firefighters had to scramble to find the correct pieces of equipment to conduct the rescue operation. Few people were saved from the rubble at the Pentagon. They said little about pulling out the debris from the airplane, or about the bodies.

"We found a magazine that one of the airplane passengers was reading," one firefighter says. "It was still readable and not all that burnt. It kind of blows your mind when that’s the only thing you find that’s still intact."

Scooter draws on his cigarette and shakes his head. "It was a goddamn fiasco," he mutters. When asked if the fire department is now better prepared for a citywide emergency, no one really speaks up. There are no snide remarks or cheap jokes. A profound sense of embarrassment hangs in the air.

Moments like this show that these firefighters care about the community they serve. They could just laugh it off, point to the department as the source of all their problems and just show up to punch a clock and get a check. But there is a quiet sadness that grips the firefighters and paramedics, who need to be prepared to deal with intense, life threatening situations on a daily basis. Clearly, they also have to put up with a bureaucracy that sometimes gets in the way of their job and occasionally stops them from saving a life they believe could have been saved.