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updated: 3/16/06 |
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A message from Chief Phill
Jolley |
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 Most
people have this impression of firefighters as sitting
around the firehouse playing cards or checkers. That
would be a natural thought with the way firefighters
are depicted by Hollywood, TV commercials and the media
in general.
The real picture of the guys I know and work
with every day is quite different. Firefighters are regular
guys, with families, dreams, hopes, frailties and faults,
just like anyone else. They are not heroes and don’t
really want to be. What they do, for the most part, want
to be is a person who can help in any number of troubling
situations. What they usually are is a caring personality
who places people ahead of money or frills.
Firefighters are willing to go into places that most
other people would run from. It is not, however, a blind
ambition to place themselves in dangers way. Firefighters
can run into those places for a very good reason; training.
Firefighters are trained to know when and how far we
can go into places that others are running out of. It
is not the Hollywood scene that we often see on the TV
and movies.
Do we still get hurt? Of course we do. And,
yes, even killed sometimes. But, those are the situations
when unforeseen things happen, the unexpected or unpredicted
takes place. Most situations can be controlled and the
risks taken are calculated. We live by the thought that
no life is worth risking for property, but all life is
worth taking a risk if someone can be saved. Each situation
we face is different and we daily face decisions where
that question has to be asked and answered in a matter
of seconds. The real risk is when we don’t have, aren’t
given or otherwise miss some of the information we need
in order to protect ourselves and the public from harm.
Firefighters
will always err on the side of protecting the people
we are tasked to protect. We can’t always
make it in time, or always make a positive difference
but we strive to do that each day with each response.
We can only intervene in a situation once we reach it;
there is no crystal ball that tells us where to be before
an incident occurs.
As far as the card playing, well I
won’t say that you would never see that in a fire station,
but if you do it will be late in the evening around a
late cup of coffee and only when the days work is completed.
Firefighters do a myriad of things to make sure that
they are completely ready at a seconds notice to go out
the door for whatever the next call requires. I’ll get
into the details of that in the next letter, but suffice
to say; it’s far more than a game of rummy.
 Charles
P. (Phill) Jolley - Chief
Pelham Batesville
Fire Department
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Posted - 11/07/2006
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