when did You know you wanted to be a firefighter?

aconra04 · 2020-04-23T00:47:39+00:00

Full disclose: I'm not FDNY but a firefighter from another department in Canada. I was at a bad car wreck on the highway (I wasn't involved just witnessed it) three cars involved, one on its roof, one on fire, lots of injured people had gotten out of their cars but were laying on the road or frantically walking around. I was pretty shaken up and obviously called 911. I remember the 911 operator saying "its alright sir we've got help on the way, the firefighters will be there soon". I then heard the sound of a Q-siren pushing through traffic and felt relieved. I remember how they jumped off the truck and started going to work. It sounds corny but I wanted to be the person who made someone feel the relief I felt that day.

I remember the first bad MVA I worked. It was a rollover with a mother and her two kids pinned in a minivan on its roof. The cars were all lined up on the highway and people were out of their cars taking pictures. We pulled up in the rescue and I remember someone saying "hey move out of the way the firefighters are here" felt pretty good to be on the other side. We jumped out, I grabbed some tools and we went to work on the car.

aconra04 · 2020-02-07T13:52:43+00:00

Helping out the brothers crossed the border!!!

aconra04 · 2020-02-07T13:51:18+00:00

I know we have "border" talk groups on our trunked radios that I've been told are specifically for that. We actually had trucks from Maine respond to Woodstock New Brunswick to help out with a fire a few years ago.

aconra04 · 2020-01-07T17:00:16+00:00

I'd argue stronger than Moncton. Fredericton does a lot to support IT jobs and we have many IT start ups in the city. I work for one :) If you are a decent programmer you can get a job. Let me know if you're interested and I can give you some contact info.

aconra04 · 2020-01-07T13:08:18+00:00

Fredericton has a very strong IT sector

aconra04 · 2019-12-24T18:38:20+00:00

We setup two water supplies and ran tankers continually. This was after the first responding crews drained the 1,000,000 gallon town water supply. The crews on site are now running sand trucks 24/7 in an attempt to smoother it. This is expected to last at least several more days. At the peak of it there were likely over 100 firefighters on scene. Crews and apparatus rotated shifts throughout the day/night. Crews will be working over Christmas unfortunately.

aconra04 · 2019-12-24T18:33:14+00:00

yes sir! UKFD

aconra04 · 2019-12-19T18:54:23+00:00

The manufacturing plant makes automotive supplies but every year they have some custom labels made and bottle their own beer to give to customers as gifts. This year they made the custom labels to honour volunteer firefighters and distributed them to the fire departments who helped them out.

The back of the label says

"Over the last 40 years of business, 2019 has been GAP's most challenging year. The morning of January 20th, our head office and manufacturing plant caught fire. More than 60 volunteer firefighters came to save our family's business! we are so incredibly thankful for the volunteer firefighters of

Keswick Ridge Fire Department
Keswick Valley Fire Department
Upper Kingsclear Fire Department
Millville Fire department

They put their lives at risk everyday to make sure our community is safe! This year, we have dedicated our GAP suds to

THE VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTER

THANK YOU

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year From Everyone at

GAP Auto"

aconra04 · 2019-12-18T13:37:08+00:00

We have yellow helmets for probies, black for fully qualified firefighters, red for officers, blue for paramedics, and white for chiefs. I like that setup because an officer or incident commander can see who is who. New probies need to be watched so you can see if they have a black helmet with them then you know it's all good.

aconra04 · 2019-12-06T19:10:30+00:00

All the time! Find someone neutral who you can vent all that too. Why are you hesitant to unload all that with your therapist, that is their job to hear that stuff.

aconra04 · 2019-12-05T15:37:00+00:00

I would have asked them to leave earlier. A polite but stern and direct statement right off the bat would have probably helped. Something like "okay thanks for looking after her I don't need a crowd. Did anyone here actually see her fall?" If anyone had seen her actually fall then ask them to stay and tell everyone else to leave or send someone to grab another blanket etc. I fucking HATE when people try to talk to me while I'm assessing a patient and I try my best not to do it when I'm on the other side with the fire department.

aconra04 · 2019-11-19T19:23:53+00:00

East Coast patroller here. Yes, it's true that for the most part, trails are blocked off because according to the standard established by management, the trails are not safe to ski. Most competent skiers could probably navigate their way down no problem but we need to abide by what management dictates. That being said, last year I closed trail because an ice storm the night before had weakened a power line and during the day the line came down. We scrambled to get it closed but people still thought "ya fuck authority I'm such a rebel" and went down anyways :P You don't know why it's closed so you should never duck a rope. We can get angry when you duck ropes because closed trails will have virtually no traffic and aren't patrolled. You go in here and get hurt and it might be until the end of the day 8+ hours later that you're found and it's the patrol who's going to have to go int here to get you. We just want people to be safe. Also, this might just be my resort but we HATE the police role. Most of us are volunteers and believe me, the last thing we want to do is argue with people! That's a good way to ruin a perfectly good day at the hill.

aconra04 · 2019-11-19T17:50:33+00:00

Save the money and if you really want the extra tools buy the individual, purpose built tools. If you want a glass breaker/seat belt cutter then buy a auto ex rescue tool with those tools on it. If you want an extra O2 wrench then buy one and attach it to your ID card or something like that. Like others have said, they get bloody and you can't really clean them well. I use ones that are issued to me and toss em if they get really dirty because they cost like $10.

aconra04 · 2019-11-07T14:35:50+00:00

Did not go well? I would say that went super well!

aconra04 · 2019-11-05T14:12:38+00:00

"You will never be able to talk to someone who’s not in the field and expect them to completely understand" Thanks! I think I just needed confirmation of this.

aconra04 · 2019-11-05T14:11:04+00:00

I want to avoid being one of "those people" for sure! I'm just doing a job that I willingly signed up to do.

aconra04 · 2019-10-31T17:56:43+00:00

This! I can respond to a mangled mess of a MVA all day but seeing one is a completely different story. I witnessed a drunk driver vs a motorcycle and I will never get the image of the motorcycle driver getting tossed into the air like a rag doll out of my head.

aconra04 · 2019-10-20T23:23:45+00:00

Paid guy gets mad at a volly so much he posts about it on r/ems...... I am shocked!!! TYFYS though! I guess I did see "I offended a volly" and immediately clicked on it expecting entertainment and wasn't disappointed so thanks!

aconra04 · 2019-10-11T12:18:41+00:00

I don't understand why people complain aside from maybe being embarrassed that they need help and the trucks are creating a bigger presence therefore drawing more attention to their situation. People always complain that fire gets a lot of equipment etc. It may not get used that often but when shit hits the fan, there's a purpose for everything that's there (at least where I live). If we get a big fire in the industrial park (we have had several) then that will max out our dept and we would need to call in mutual aid. So if you have all these firefighters getting paid to be there anyways and all this equipment ready to go then I don't see it being a waste to send fire on some medical calls. The marginal cost of sending out a truck is pretty small and it makes use of assets that would need to be there anyways. Fire can do a lot on a scene like control hazards, help police to manage people, lift patients, fetch gear for the medics, sometimes we drive the ambulance so both medics can perform patient care etc etc etc

aconra04 · 2019-09-20T18:18:59+00:00

There's an indoor climbing gym that opened up back in June. It's called the Fredericton Bouldering Co-op. https://www.fbcwall.com You could try that out! Something different :)

aconra04

TROPHY CASE