I believe that by talking about this story it will help me because it is something that has been on my heart for some time. I am a 28-year old black volunteer fire chief in Texas. I started my firefighting career as a junior firefighter when I was 13. I am both a paid and volunteer firefighter.

Here is my story. I was a volunteer fire lieutenant for this little town near Austin. As the Lieutenant of Co.2, I had a few responsibilities, but the one I loved the most was teaching fellow members about the craft we call firefighting. I had a volunteer firefighter who was not a very smart guy. He didn’t not make it out of high school and couldn’t read. His wife was always around to help him out. He and I became very close. They came to my classes, and I taught his wife as well. Later, when they went home she would go over it again with him. A lot of people in our dept turned their nose up at him, they thought they were better than him and his wife.
One day I left my house to go to the station. He was coming later so we could go over tactics. I lived on a winding road where we a lot of vehicle accidents. I had just reported to the station when my Captain came running out to inform me that we had been dispatched to an accident on my road. It had taken me about 10 min to get to the station from my house and the accident happened right in front of my driveway.
We followed the engine down the road. En route, the call was upgraded to a double “pin in” in a vehicle. We were 5 minutes out when my captain called me on the radio and told me he had reports that one of the vehicles involved was one of our men. When I got on scene I saw that it was a head on collision with major damage to both a truck and a car and the car was that of my firefighter friend.
I went to my friend’s side and checked on him. He was busted up really bad and pinned from the legs down. He was still alive. As I went over to his wife’s side, she looked up at me and said, “Lieutenant I love you, thank you for everything. Then she took her last breath. The cab of the truck was wrapped around her and there was no way to get her out quickly.
The helo landed and we got my friend out, As I ran with him to the bird, all I remember is him asking me about his wife. “Lieutenant, is she dead? Please tell me.” It turned out they were on their way to see me to tell me what a great Lieutenant and friend I was to them.
He made it and she didn’t.
I went to see my friend in the hospital once and did not make it to his wife’s funeral. I just couldn’t do it and that haunts me to this day. I really wish I had gone. I loved them like my family because as firefighters we are all family.
My friend left the department and got in some trouble with the wrong crowd. I felt so bad for him .. the only one who truly looked out for him and took care of him was his wife and he lost her That’s my story.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 6:09 pm and is filed under The Inside Scoop. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.