Firefighters Lifestyle > THE JOB > A Typical day as a Firefighter
A Typical day as a Firefighter
I know it’s been a while but I finally have another installment of a typical day as a firefighter. The layout will still be the same as all the others so it’s easy to follow.
This post will be is a timeline of my day working as a firefighter so you can see what we actually do throughout the day.
My post will be my shift on March 1st 2016 (Tuesday). The times were recorded at the best of my ability. HERE is the link for my previous post if you would like to read that.
Like I say in every post, my content will be as honest as I can but without giving too much information about the people we respond to so I don’t break any HIPAA violations.
In my department, we usually work 48 hr. shifts but I only worked one 24 shift this tour. The station I was working at runs with an ambulance crew (which I’m on) and a fire engine with 2 personal on each vehicle. The district I work in is small with only 4 stations and we run about 2000 calls per year.
A Typical day as a Firefighter
0708: I get to my fire station. Our shift starts at 8 but I get there an hour early so I have enough time to check out my gear and get a pass down from the crew getting off.
0714: Before I can do anything we get a call. I tell one of the medics that I will take his spot so he doesn’t have to get off late. I rush to changes my clothes and get all my gear into the ambulance. The call was a “sick person” and the dispatch said it was for “a male not feeling good”.
0718: We arrive on scene to find a gentleman that was having some sort of heart problems. His heart rate was over 220 beats per minute. We gave him some medications and drove code 3 (lights and sirens) to the hospital.
0751: Arrive at the hospital. The patients heart rate went way down to a little over 100 bpm. We give our report to the hospital and drop the patient off.
0810: Head back to the fire station. I drive as my partner charts. A chart is a paperwork (done on a computer) that is done for every medical call we go on. They usually take about 30-50 minutes depending on what happened on the call. They are a summary of what we saw and what happened during the call being as objective as we can be.
0829: Arrive back to the station.
0832: I hurry and finish checking out my gear. Once I’m done I go to my room to get dressed into my badge shirt because we have a class that started at 8:30. The class is called CQI (continuing quality improvement) and it’s for the medics and EMTs to review medical charts and make sure we’re doing our job correctly ad helping our patients in the best possible way. They usually like around 3 hours long.
Medical chart example
1005: Another call comes in. This time, it’s a psychiatric call. The patient ended up being fine as it looked like a miscommunication, We ended up not taking the patient to the hospital per their request. We head back to the station as I write the chart for this call.
1041: Get back to the station and go back into class.
1141: Right before class ends another call comes in. This one was one of our “usual” ski accident calls. The ski resort is around 10-15 min. from our station depending on traffic. When we arrive and wait for a couple minutes for ski patrol to bring the patient down from the mountain. They bring us a 21-year-old female that broke her Tib-Fib (The bones where your shin is) skiing down the mountain. I’ll just say that she was in A LOT of pain, as she should be. The medic gave her some pain medications and we took her to the hospital.
1257: At the hospital. The ski resort is 10-15 min. in the opposite direction of the hospital so it takes us that much more time to get there, even longer when there’s traffic in town. By the time we stable the patient and finally arrive at the station quite an amount of time passes.
1304: Leave the hospital and chart on the way back to the station.
1326: We arrive back to the station and wash the ambulance quickly because of all the snow on the ground.
A picture from the station
1334: Lunch time! The 2 guys on the fire engine went to the store to buy food while we were on the call. They bought sandwiches (turkey, bacon, avocado) and soup, what we usually eat when it’s a late lunch.
1407: After lunch, we clean up the mess then head out to one of the schools to do some training.
1423: The training we did was some hose pulling, where we pretend we have a fire in a house a simulate what we would do in that certain situation. We also simulated getting a fire hydrant for the fire engine. We just hired some new guys and wanted to make sure our skills were up to date.
1543: Put all the gear and tools away and head back to the station.
1603: Arrive back to the station and take down the flags for the day and start to work out as we didn’t get one in the morning.
1712: Dinner time. We start to cook dinner which doesn’t take long at all. Turkey burgers with tater tots were on the menu tonight. Not the healthiest of meals, but delicious nevertheless.
1753: Dinner finished and clean up time.
1804: I was taking some college class for my fire science degree at this time and had some homework to do. I start doing some homework and do a little studying for an upcoming test.
1958: A call comes in, a “sick female”. This was a little weird call because there was this woman who was quite old and sitting in a random, middle of nowhere, part of the hotel. She ended up being fine and we didn’t take her to the hospital. She wasn’t the happiest of people.
2028: Arrive back to the station. We clean the ambulance again.
2032: I start to write the chart for the call.
2154: I finish the chart (this one took me a while because I was messing with my phone while I charted). I decide to finish the homework I started earlier.
2225: I don’t finish my homework but I was feeling pretty tired at this time so I decide to go to sleep. I start the dishwasher, get the coffee ready for the morning, and brush my teeth.
2247: Lay down to sleep.
0009: The lights turn on and the dispatcher states there’s a call. This patient had breathing problems. We went to the house and the patient was and an older fella who was just having a little difficulty breathing when he was sleeping and wanted to go to the hospital. I remember they had a very nice car in the garage… “one day” I told myself. We loaded him up and went to the hospital.
0055: Arrive at the hospital and drop the patient off.
0112: We leave the hospital to go back to our station. My partner writes the chart for the call.
0125: Arrive back to the station. I go straight to sleep.
0630: Time to get up. I start the coffee, put up the flags and start to put the dishes away.
0655: Another call. This is another psychiatric patient. This person was in harm of themselves so we needed to take them to the hospital. This person wasn’t quite cooperative at first but then after some time didn’t give us too much trouble. We drove to the hospital.
0747: Arrive at the hospital and drop the patient off to their room.
0810: Leave the hospital. My partner took the patient because he knew I was supposed to be off work at 8am this morning. He writes another chart.
0826: Finally get to the station and I get my things off the rig and head home.
So there you have it, just a normal shift as a firefighter. I hope you can see that there’s never really a dull moment (maybe the homework part) in the fire station. I try to add as much as I can to these posts but I do leave out some of the joking around and pranks we play on each other.
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