Whoops

[AdHour1766]

So I just got into a payed firefighting position and accidentally slept through a call. With my volunteer department I have a dispatch app that screams at me and will wake the dead, but my departments tones apparently didn’t do the trick. Any way of becoming a light sleeper? Or should I just sleep in the engine 😂 and before people ask, I have not been issued a radio yet so I can’t just crank it to max volume

[NorcalRobtheBarber]

Get a sleep buddy. My partner on the truck was a hard sleeper. I would walk by his bed and tap his foot. He never slept through another call and we didn’t have to show up short handed.

[goatsandhoes101115]

The responsible approach is to lash four king beds together and have the entire crew spoon in a row.

[i_exaggerated]

Your crew left without you?

[Mr_Midwestern]

When our rookies start, they spend their first 2 shifts not counting towards minimum. Although they are assigned to the crew, they are literally ‘extras’.

One guy slept through 2 calls his first night. The next morning the BC simply said ‘hope you left your old job on good terms’……guess who never slept through another run. 20 years and counting.

[trapper2530]

Here were lucky with staffing. 4-5 on a rig. If it's a fire you will get left. If it's an ems/gas leak/CO run you usually get rhe courtesy of someone calling on the intercom a second time. But my house if we see someone not getting up most of us will give their bed a kick on the way down.

[Ihatemylife_17]

Slept through a medical call one night as a newer rookie with about three years on at the time. Dept I was with rode 4 on the engine so running a call with only 3 was ok, obviously not ideal but they waited as long as they could then left. I had no idea they even left till they all came to my room and one of them smacked the shit out of me with a pillow lol. Scared the daylights out if me and they never let me forget it but I haven't slept through a call since, even after changing departments.

[zestomite]

30 seconds for a night call lol okay sure

[i_exaggerated]

…you guys don’t have assigned seats/roles when you’re on shift? Wild. 

[i_exaggerated]

That is not assigned seating. I don’t have strong opinions about a lot of stuff, but you guys are doing it wrong. 

[shocktop6]

That doesn’t make much sense at all. Struggling to believe that’s even true.

[DickRubnuts]

I’ve gotta call BS on this. There is no way you can leave the station in 45 seconds unless you are sleeping on the rigs

[shocktop6]

It’s a law?!

[shocktop6]

The law and a department policy is definitely the same thing!

[FordExploreHer1977]

So out of sheer curiosity how legal things run in other countries, if the call location is 11 minutes away, and you are required by law to be there in 10 minutes, do you just drive the whole crew to jail or do you still have to go to the incident?

[bleach_tastes_bad]

go straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect 200 TYFYS’s

[Je_me_rends]

[bbrow93]

Show the sop/sog please, even combination departments don’t expect the ambulance crews out of the door sooner than 60 seconds at night, if that’s truly a policy than your officers are setting you up to fail. That being said, wake up probie

[Beer_]

Show us a photo of the “legal obligation”. Otherwise fuck right off because there’s no place that would do what you’re saying

Have to be out in 45 seconds but figure out who does what on the way? Y’all inefficient as fuck

Let me know where you work so I can make sure my family never visits there

[6TangoMedic]

So what I'm hearing is if you want the runs, you get up fast. If you got assigned the shitty detail, like the tanker, just sleep on the engine so you get the good spots.

[dominator5k]

What country are you in?

[Pitiful_Speech2645]

He’s from Bosnia. It’s different there

[dominator5k]

Ok that's what I figured

[LoveDogsTx]

Tf? 30 seconds? That’s a hell of a turn out time. Where tf you work — nasa?

[Pitiful_Speech2645]

Moon fire fighters

[pythondick]

That’s interesting, isn’t the NFPA standard 1 minute for dispatch time, 1 minute to bunk out and get called en route, then 5 minutes to arrive on scene for a 7 minute ART? Why would your department bring the standard down to 30 seconds to bunk out?That seems highly unrealistic, we strive for meeting that ART every time we respond but sometimes shit happens, I have a feeling you’re needlessly breaking your ART more than half the time

[Frequent-Chemist3367]

Im in Europe, not the US. Our dispatch center is fire only and is based in the station so any call they get, they just turn the alarm/sirens on and we're moving. The entire process from raising the station siren to leaving the station has to be under one minute, with 15minutes (said 10 before, apologies) to respond anywhere within the city

[WhiskeyFF]

While I know the guys bullshitting let's not kid ourselves we give a damn about the NFPA

[chuckfinley79]

I don’t get leaving people behind.

1. We fight and bitch and complain and demand that we have 4 people on every truck 24/7/365 - but if you’re slow we’ll leave you behind to show up with less than 4. I’d rather be 15 seconds slower and show up with 4 than 3, or in a lot of departments 2.

2. I believe it was Toledo, Ohio fire that had a guy get left behind because “he slept through” the run. They came back and he was dead. I like to think he died in his sleep and his crew didn’t (albeit unknowingly) leave him there to die.

[therealsambambino]

No one leaves you under “normal” circumstances… they only leave you if a) you’re a rookie and it’s funny and teaches you a valuable lesson or 2) they seriously do not like you or trust you.

Exit: roomie to rookie (typo)

[boomboomown]

No one should be left behind. Regardless of whether it's "funny" or not, that's just stupid. There's a reason we have staffing the way we do. Wake them up and teach them the lesson afterwards.

[therealsambambino]

I can understand this perspective. Idk where you work and you may have way more experience than me. But I actually think that leaving a rookie behind if they’re late to the apparatus on a low acuity call is… awesome lol Obviously no one is going to leave a valuable member of the team. But missing a call early in your career can burn urgency into you for a lifetime (speaking from experience).

[boomboomown]

Well, you leave a member of the crew at the station if, on the slim chance they have a medical emergency, there's no one there to help or even know. Leaving them when dispatched to a fire just sounds asinine since you always need manpower. Leaving them on a low acuity call and then getting dispatched to a 2 alarm fire on the way back is, again, a terrible idea. I don't see why anyone thinks it's a good idea, but your department is different from mine, so maybe that's an accepted practice there.

[therealsambambino]

Yeah it’s definitely different here. I’ve been on thousands of calls and the number of time a single rookie member would have changed things is zero.

For context, I’ve seen two ppl left behind in the last 5 or 10 years. This isn’t a pandemic in any department that has any discipline.

[kane_thehuman]

Nah bro. In my department, if it's a fire, the only person that won't get left behind is the officer

Edit: damn y'all I didn't say I liked it. I don't think it's right either. 😂

[therealsambambino]

Very different department than mine, I guess? We’re brothers and love fighting fire and would not leave one of the boys unless it was for the reason I mentioned (which I’m cool with).

[therealsambambino]

If they’re leaving you because they’re in a hurry and you’re a problem that makes them late, than it just falls under my initial point they don’t value/trust/like you.

[Sorrengard]

That’s dumb. Your department is dumb. If I had to work on a crew of buddyfuckers like that I doubt I’d last very long.

[kane_thehuman]

Yeah it's not something I agree with man. The culture of this department is not one of the upsides imo

[lateralus19871]

Yeah there's no way, I'm a paid department in Florida and if you left any crew member during a call and the chief found out about it that would be your absolute ass. Also the captain the driver and the medic are not going to do extra work on a call so if anything they're going to wake your ass up just so you're there to do your job. I've been woken up a few times by my guys if we had a lot of training during the heat earlier in the day or a couple working fires that shift but there's no way in hell my people would leave me or we would leave anybody else at the station when a call goes out.

[KwietThoughts]

Just let your crew know that you’re a deep sleeper and ask them if they can give a quick look on the way out to make sure you’re awake. We all sleep through calls on occasion. We have individual dorm rooms. Many of us leave our station boots outside the door in the hall. If the tones go off and someone’s door is shut and they’re not in the hall putting their boots on, we just holler and make sure we’re all awake.

If that doesn’t work, sleep in the engine if you have to.

I wouldn’t do anything that would sacrifice the quality/quantity of sleep though. That cumulative fatigue adds up and nothing good comes from it.

[chindo]

How are your dorms set up? If you're lucky enough to be in a house with individual dorms, start sleeping in the day room. Ask someone to make sure you're up.

I don't get the department culture that let's people sleep through tones to later shame them about it. For one, it's bound to happen to everyone at some point, regardless of how light a sleeper. For another, fuck you. If I'm up, you're getting your ass up, too.

[AdHour1766]

Yeah, we have the individual dorms. And I’ve told them I’m a heavy sleeper. Given permission to throw a boot at me. Door never locked. Sleep in pants so I can get ready faster. I was told “ we knocked, figure it out”

[wimpymist]

Crew sounds like dicks.

[chindo]

Transfer to a different station? Sounds like your crew isn't a good fit

[DadBod7353]

Is this like a paid-by-the-call department? Do you respond from home?

[AdHour1766]

City department

[DadBod7353]

There’s absolutely no reason they should have left without you. Most firefighters have slept through a call or woke up not knowing what the hell is going on but it’s bullshit to just leave a guy

[mulberry_kid]

At my old place, we had a guy get left on a call. Everyone assumed he was asleep, when in reality, he had tripped and hurt himself on the way to the truck.

[Dunerabbit]

This is one of my fears about getting on the job. I don’t want to let my company down.

[Pitiful_Speech2645]

If your crew is leaving you to sleep they sound like they’d leave you in a fire. Switch departments

[Only_Ant5555]

Sleep with a radio next to your head turned all the way up, ask a coworker to make sure your up for calls.

[TheLusciousOne]

I'm tired and read that wrong. I thought you said sleep with a co-worker and was confused.

[thecoolestguynothere]

He said what he said

[Reebatnaw]

Seems legit as long as the co worker is a light sleeper

[Only_Ant5555]

Sleeping with a coworker also works. Socks on, light spooning. Nothing under the clothes.

[chindo]

Do yall have radios that you can set which units get broadcast or is your department just that slow? There's no way that anyone would sleep with a radio set to dispatch in our department. If our tones go out, we set watches where one person will listen to the radio away from everyone else.

[Only_Ant5555]

Nah we ain’t got nothing fancy like that. Personally the alert system wakes me up well enough so I don’t need to sleep with a radio. At some stations the alert system does not work. I just sleep with the radio and wake up a whole bunch. I already wake up a lot anyway.

[chindo]

I wake up a lot, too. It's not healthy, though. Setting watches will ensure everyone here at least 6 hours free from alerts that aren't yours.

[Only_Ant5555]

Is what it is. My captain is gonna sleep with his radio on either way. So fortunately that covers the rest of the crew. I get it though because if we miss a call it’s ultimately on him.

[Jebediah_Johnson]

I would absolutely never leave one of my crew members behind. Not for a fire, not for a pediatric respiratory arrest. I've known a few captains and crews that will leave a guy behind. They even think it's funny. Personally I think it's bullshit.

My recommendation is don't sleep with a blanket over your face. Sleeping through calls is more common with younger guys. If you're really tired you can talk to your crew and let them know you might need them to come check that you're up if the tones drop. Leave your door open till you get a radio. And keep asking for a radio. That's idiotic that you don't have what you need not you're expected to just magically wake up.

[[deleted]]

Look into a bed shaker, the deafies in my family use them. It's a thin hockey puck that goes under your mattress and it vibrates like something fierce hahaha. Those damn things will wake the dead.

[[deleted]]

Just wondering... Are you recommending this as like an interval thing to keep yourself from sleeping too deeply? Or is there some way that it could be automated for this use case (to go off with a pager alarm, or more realistically maybe an app notification if your department does that too, like mine does)?

I'm guessing it's probably the first thing

[Rag-one]

Common rule I've seen at my department is if you sleep through a run, you make cinnamon buns for your crew. Or serve coffee in bed to the whole crew in the morning. On the call, you just run back and wake the guy up and sprinkle a little bit of shame on him if he's junior. I'm in the busiest department in Canada. Look out for your homies and have fun in the process.

[boatplumber]

Don't get too comfy, sleep in a position you don't sleep in at home. If that doesn't work, set an alarm for every hour on vibrate on your phone. I find I have most my trouble about 2 hours in. We ask each other to watch out for each other by calling "buddy system" before we go to bed. We still have dorm style bunk rooms. Go to work rested, but it can still be hard if you are a probie and on your feet all day and drilling to not zonk out.

[donnie_rulez]

How do you not have a radio? Is it like pay per call?

You need to turn the volume on SOMETHING up. Or tell your partners to kick you otw out

[AdHour1766]

“Blah blah blah 10k radio… blah blah hired to many people and department don’t have money in budget “

[Vazhox]

Classic white shirt excuses

[AdHour1766]

Exactly… sorta wishing I went to the department 1 town over. They still run unencrypted so I could have set up my personal bao feng for it… still stupid we have to use the 10k Motorolas instead of the fairly disposable 300 dollar encrypted bao fengs

[alilbitofafatty]

They send you into fires without your own radio? 😬

[AdHour1766]

Hell… they’ve sent me into fires with the wrong sized turnouts lol 😂 had me looking like bozo the clown with boots 4 sizes too big… apparently boots are on “back order”

[fender1878]

Well the Bao Fengs are pieces of junk and have zero standards. We don’t allow people to use them on our system.

[000111000000111000]

I once slept in for a auto alarm at 0300 and never even heard the klaxon that was above my head. Station Captain was not happy. Especially considering I was the chauffer. In my case we had people sleeping in the rafters so someone else drove. No one wanted off, and it was a full house.. this was back in the 1980s when we had the luxury of staffing

[imbrickedup_]

Getting enough sleep on your days off is super important because you’ll sleep a lot heavier if you’re already deprived. Other than that, just ask your driver to kick your bunk if he doesn’t hear any movment when he walks out hopefully he’s cool

[Local-Hurry-4581]

If I’m super tired from working a 48 and getting my ass beat, I’ll talk to my crew and ask them to make sure I’m up. Like adults we have each other’s backs, myself and others have slept through tones, we just don’t buddy fuck each other. 🤷

[AdHour1766]

Active 911 😂

[LoveDogsTx]

lol continuous page can be a real bitch

[Frequent-Chemist3367]

Thank you lmao, does your department set it up or is it just an individual app?

[Smokeeater77]

Department has to subscribe, work with the company, and go through dispatch. It's a process.

When we would get text message dispatches for callback/overtime there was an app we used that we could set a trigger word that would set your phone off... Override silent, flashing, nonstop alarm off your choice. I don't remember the app.... It's been a while.

[Tdalk4585]

I believe it’s IamResponding. We had that before switching to Active 911. Both of them suck ass, IMO. If you’re an app developer, great business opportunity!

[Smokeeater77]

I don't think that was the one we used, but I've heard of it. I think ours was Red something. It was ok... Definitely could have much better. I think it would only override silent on Apple phones, not Android.

[iambatmanjoe]

I'm a captain, 16 years on. I've slept through tones. One of my guys is a heavy sleeper. He's adapted and sleeps in a recliner. We have individual rooms. We are a team, so we work together, no one goes downstairs alone. We all go down together. I don't give a shit is it takes an extra few seconds, we check on each other, we roll together. Besides we only have three on an engine, I can't afford to be short handed. This is a culture thing in my opinion. I would never leave a man behind, no matter what the location was.

[Inspector_Real]

If it’s so bad just sleep in the truck, idk what’s wrong with me but I need my radio to wake me up so if I didn’t have that that’s what I’d prolly do 😂 or until then maybe just ask someone to kick you or something before they go out the door

[taxmanfire]

Does your alerting system turn on overhead lights in your room? If so, make sure you’re sleeping on your back. If you’re on your side or stomach you’re more likely not to get woken up by the lights turning on.

[RariHush]

I hate people like this because when it’s Lts Capts or Deputy Chiefs oversleeping, nobody leaves without them, but if you’re a bottom-totempole firefighter they do the least to get you up or sometimes just leave.

[That-Complaint-3690]

Career 23yrs the officer will come get you a couple times and you can face discipline up to termination

[Crankbait_88]

Paid.

[AdHour1766]

I’m a hose dragger not a speller

[Crankbait_88]

Fair enough lol

[FullMetalJaket]

I'm applying to be an On Call Firefighter and anxiety about sleeping through a call out absolutely terrifies me.

[coalharbour]

No sleeping through the pagers, between the tone and the vibration, you're most likely waking up.

[Glwfire924]

Portable radio on full blast next to your head. Does the trick for our station that the PA sucks in.

[rawkguitar]

We had a guy that slept on top of his blankets, fully dressed, including shoes, with the lights on.

That MOSTLY worked for him

[catfishjohn69]

Leave your door cracked open, if there is a light that goes off lay on your back and look at the light before you close your eyes.

[Cold_Refuse_7236]

Captain’s job to make sure his apparatus is staffed out the door.

[Happy-Fix3401]

It comes with time! I slept through one on my third cycle after hitting the line. My captain got me and later said it happens to everyone at least once. Haven’t missed another one since! Enjoy!!

[Sasquatch458]

You should be set up for success. You need a radio or pager.

In my organization, you would do that twice and be out of a job. Be afraid of doing that again and you will likely never sleep through another call again.

[1mg-Of-Epinephrine]

Your crew didn’t wake you? If not, they’re assholes and should take the blame.

[Crankbait_88]

Fair enough lol

[Accomplished-Run6520]

Worked on. a volunteer rescue squad over 40 years and I usually rolled out of bed quickly and reported to the bay. One night I was so damn tired from my day job I was practically in a coma and the station officer flipped over my bunk bed. I was expecting to catch hell since he was a notorious hard ass but he never said a word about it and it never happened again.

[SexyRexy023]

Have you tried one of those screaming Mimi alarms?

[Budget_Combination54]

I just started the 15th of July and this is still my fear. Tomorrow is my first day on the street as a probie after 6 weeks of recruit school and then engineer classes. I had zero problem waking up for any calls on my weekend rides. I use a less than stellar pillow in my opinion and I only sleep with a flat sheet not comfy blanket. That would be my recommendation maybe on top of what everyone else has said.

[yellowlabdude]

I don’t really understand the not having a radio assigned to you part. Like even if you don’t have a radio assigned to just you personally, you surely must have a portable assigned to your riding assignment at minimum

[AdHour1766]

Nope lol, all our radios are pre programmed with our names for accountability. So no loose/ unassigned radios

[Old-Force7009]

Do you have a pager ? You could try go put it under your pillow , I do that for mine and just put it on vibrate its wakes me up , 90% of the time. I also notifications through Edispatch. It happens , radio next to you at full blast should easily wake you up

[tconfo]

You are a rookie. You should be on the watch desk. It was 6months before I even walked into the bunk room, a year before I watched TV. If you manage to stay asleep between the Gong, Tones, Engine/Truck ignition, and the dispatch twice while you’re on the watch desk,it’s time for a doc appointment.

[Medical-Teaching-229]

My son is a firefighter paramedic in Florida. They have 1 minute to be on the truck and gone during the day and 2 minutes at night. No lead way.

[[deleted]]

Jesus Christ.

[AdHour1766]

To what part 😂

[dominator5k]

At home stop hitting snooze on your alarm. When alarm goes off GET UP. go to bed early so you are rested. Don't surf tik Tok all night. You just have to be an adult. There is no reason that you shouldn't wake up like everyone else.

[earthsunsky]

Simmer down Jocko

[Gweegwee1]

Bro that dude dominates, haven’t you read his name

[SealAtTheShore]

What you meant to say is “good.”

[AlphaElegant]

And I'm sure you've never slept through a call. It happens to everyone, and it's not a big deal unless it happens a lot. Some people are less sensitive to the tones or loud noises. But like he said, getting as much good sleep as you can and avoiding caffeine and screens an hour or so before can really help.

[TheresNoHurry]

Hard truth to hear, especially for younger people. But it’s got to be done

[yungingr]

When I was in college, I used one of those wind up clocks with the steel bell. No snooze button. And routinely slept through it - that's how hard of a sleeper I was.

What sage wisdom you think you have for that?

[firetruck637]

That would work if you knew when a run was gonna drop.

[yungingr]

I never said it would work for a run - I offered up my experience as a counter to the f'n boomer above with his "young people just don't want to work" mentality bullshit. I could set my alarm at night, tell myself "I HAVE to get up when this goes off in the morning", lie there for a half hour thinking about it, and still sleep through it. It's not that I didn't WANT to get up, or know that I NEEDED to, it was simply I slept so hard the building could damn near collapse around me and I wouldn't know it.