Rude Awakening

It’s well documented that heart attacks kill more firefighters than fires, but I’ve been wondering  how many of those deaths are caused by pagers going off in the middle of the night.

You have never been jolted out of a deep sleep until you’ve been awakened by the Motorola pagers we use to tell us there’s an alarm. Maybe having an Australian Shepherd jump on your head is comparable , but that’s a story for another day. The video below gives you an idea of the sound you hear when there’s a call. Turn your speakers ALL THE WAY UP for the full effect:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b2TKmNG5ZQ]

That would get your sorry butt out of bed, wouldn’t it?

The good news: the second that pager beeps I am responding to a call. So if it goes off and I stand up and keel over dead or fall down the stairs or something it’s considered a line of duty death. In that case I’ll be entitled to the big fancy firefighter funeral —but unfortunately I’ll be way too dead to enjoy it.

3 thoughts on “Rude Awakening

  1. Rob,

    While I am impressed and inspired by your selfless dedication to the community.. I said it before and I’ll say it again..

    I don’t know if I’d get up at 3:30 am if my house was on fire

  2. The second that pager goes off your responding to the call, the call of someone in trouble and as a firefighter, volunteer or career you on some level,took an oath.

    That big fancy fire fighter funeral, it’s not so good when your the family on the receiving end.

  3. #2: Please don’t mistake my dark sense of humor for disrespect. Sometimes the only way to make sense of sad stuff is to laugh at it —and even then it doesn’t always help.

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