Bullets
Forum Knucklehead
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Or the classic response...."Your Mom"
"What's the worst thing you've ever seen?" and your responses
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Or the classic response...."Your Mom"
WuLabsWuTecH
Forum Deputy Chief
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For most people, I do some variation of this:
Well, it was almost quittin' time and I was getting ready to change into street clothes when the tones dropped. I looked around and my replacement wasn't here yet, so I zipped up my boots and hopped back in the truck. The dispatch was for an industrial accident, so I went through my mental checklist of what I needed to do. It wouldn't have mattered anyways, there was nothing that I could have done to prepare myself for what was to come. As we get halfway there, dispatch calls us back and informs us that bystanders are now informing of a second building in the area that had collapsed with unknown entrapments. They completely forgot to tell us when the first one collapsed. Once again, I knew it was going to be bad, but never did I think it would have been this bad.
The nearest fire department was still about 15 minutes further out than we were, so we were going to be first on scene. I went ahead and called for an incident commander and set up a radio channel for fireground ops. I would later learn it was all an exercise in futility. None of it mattered.
We got on scene and my partner and I's jaws both just dropped! What was before our eyes was something no man should ever have to see again. We both just sat there staring at the scene and for the first time in our lives, our training didn't kick in and we didn't just jump into action. Though my partner would never admit it, I think he shed a tear. We were too late, and it was over. I called off all of the other units except for an engine to come in and write up the report.
The scene had been leveled. Where two structures used to stand, there was now nothing except for the outline of one and then nothing but fields for miles. Surrounding the skeleton of the structure was about a foot deep worth of brown liquid that was foamy. Still to this day, we are not sure of what happened. Maybe some shoddy engineering? Maybe just a freak earthquake that hit at exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time. But all we knew was that where two 250,000 gallon tanks used to stand, there was just now one massive puddle of spilled beer.
Of course if someone "in the industry" asks, they usually preface it with, "I know this might be hard, and you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but what was the most action you've seen?" Never do they phrase it as "worst call." They might ask about, "bad trauma" or "worse chain reaction of events," but in my experience they are most likely to ask about "best saves" than "worst calls."
Well, it was almost quittin' time and I was getting ready to change into street clothes when the tones dropped. I looked around and my replacement wasn't here yet, so I zipped up my boots and hopped back in the truck. The dispatch was for an industrial accident, so I went through my mental checklist of what I needed to do. It wouldn't have mattered anyways, there was nothing that I could have done to prepare myself for what was to come. As we get halfway there, dispatch calls us back and informs us that bystanders are now informing of a second building in the area that had collapsed with unknown entrapments. They completely forgot to tell us when the first one collapsed. Once again, I knew it was going to be bad, but never did I think it would have been this bad.
The nearest fire department was still about 15 minutes further out than we were, so we were going to be first on scene. I went ahead and called for an incident commander and set up a radio channel for fireground ops. I would later learn it was all an exercise in futility. None of it mattered.
We got on scene and my partner and I's jaws both just dropped! What was before our eyes was something no man should ever have to see again. We both just sat there staring at the scene and for the first time in our lives, our training didn't kick in and we didn't just jump into action. Though my partner would never admit it, I think he shed a tear. We were too late, and it was over. I called off all of the other units except for an engine to come in and write up the report.
The scene had been leveled. Where two structures used to stand, there was now nothing except for the outline of one and then nothing but fields for miles. Surrounding the skeleton of the structure was about a foot deep worth of brown liquid that was foamy. Still to this day, we are not sure of what happened. Maybe some shoddy engineering? Maybe just a freak earthquake that hit at exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time. But all we knew was that where two 250,000 gallon tanks used to stand, there was just now one massive puddle of spilled beer.
Of course if someone "in the industry" asks, they usually preface it with, "I know this might be hard, and you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but what was the most action you've seen?" Never do they phrase it as "worst call." They might ask about, "bad trauma" or "worse chain reaction of events," but in my experience they are most likely to ask about "best saves" than "worst calls."
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I'll either joke with them and pick something funny or if they're serious they get the "it's a toss up between dad backing over his 16 month old boy's head in his truck or the 22 month old girl who was sexually abused by her mother's boyfriend multiple times."
Generally stops the conversation dead in its tracks.
Generally stops the conversation dead in its tracks.