Latest / Live Byrnes / Ryan Cummings- Captain KCFD Rescue 1

Transcript

Ryan Cummings- Captain KCFD Rescue 1 · Live Byrnes

• 0:14
  SPEAKER_03: Real world tactics.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_03: No fluff.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_03: Mastering the fire ground.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_03: Let's get to work.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_04: Hey everybody, welcome to Live Burn.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_04: Today I'm with Ryan Cummings.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_04: Ryan, how you doing?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: Good.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_04: Doing real good.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_04: Ryan comes to us from Kansas City Fire Department, currently a captain on rescue one.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_04: Um several years in the fire service.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_04: How's it going?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: Good.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_04: Doing real good.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like we had a full day to uh come do this finally.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, that's true.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_04: Um little inside thing for you guys is uh obviously we're firemen, not uh not video producers, even though we're trying to get better at it.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_04: Uh this is take number three for us.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_04: We've tried to do this podcast with Ryan for three times now, and this is number three, and uh both times have been my fault.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_04: Uh actually, this is our fourth time because you had to cancel one day.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_04: Um so but that one it happens, but that one doesn't count.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_04: I have screwed up the video twice before.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_04: But anyway, I'm glad to have you today.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_04: I'm glad to be back.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh no, it happens.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: It does.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: I just can't wait to let you hear about this for the rest of your life.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, it's guaranteed to happen.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of what we do.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: A bit of your funeral and getting ready to hit play and be like, oh, I forgot to record all this.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's just the way it goes.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_04: Well, let's get uh let's get to talking about you.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um that's why I can why we're kind of here today and just your uh your history in the fire service.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but before that, I kind of really want to know uh more about your, you know, how you grew up, what kind of brought you into the fire service?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_04: So if you want to tell us about your family, about your childhood, sports, hunting, fishing, that kind of stuff, what kind of things did you do as a kid?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_04: Tell us about young Ryan.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I was uh not uh well, like a lot of us that are in this blue cloud blue-collar field, uh didn't have a lot of strong grades, uh, but went to we we grew up going to the lake, is what we did.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, every weekend, um uh on top of there's three of us, three boys, uh grew up down in Belton, uh Missouri.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: And uh uh I played professional or uh professional.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: No, I played competitive baseball, started out with a little league thing and then started but moving up before it was like the travel ball.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_04: There's a little bit of difference between professional and little league.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: But they all started there, you know.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just I I didn't finish it.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it uh it was before this travel ball thing, so it wasn't nearly like what it is now, but it was like the beginning of it.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: If you were on a a competitive ball team, it was a different level for sure.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: But um, it was fun.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: Did that and then uh soccer, baseball and soccer through high school, and and um yeah, and then at the lake all the time.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's what my brothers did too.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: They all did that.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: Youngest brother went the uh BMX route and he's a little Hellion, but uh but that yeah, it was a good time.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Spent a lot of time at the lake.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: That was and that's kind of what's rooted now.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we do.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm as much as I possibly can try to bring my family down there.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: So is that what got you into fishing?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_04: Mm-hmm.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I didn't never yeah, I never got into dad never took us hunting and fishing ever.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he never went.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think he owned like a shotgun or something like that, and I never saw him shoot it, um, or even go anywhere to shoot it.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: So that was just not something we went and did.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like we spent our time.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: The guy we hated the fishermen on the lake because they were messing up our skiing.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know, yeah, they were in our way.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but yeah, that it was so funny how things have kind of changed a little bit.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: But uh yeah, they just uh went down to the Ozarks, um, way down on the Ozarks, and then Stockton Lake were the two places we went to growing up on.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: Is that where you still go now?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh no, we go to Palm, Palm de Terra, which is like on the south end of like Truman Lake, but it's a smaller lake.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: I say smaller, it's a decent sized lake, it's just not as busy.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's not that Ozark party type thing, it's more hanging out.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_04: So you said when you're in high school, you're not not the best grades ever?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, no.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_04: I mean I passed, but yeah, like just an average student, C student.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, same thing.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Which was kind of funny now that we were teaching and we got to do some teaching at Belton High School.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I ran into one of my teachers, like, hey, you know, yeah, I instruct for MU, the university.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like, but anyway, have a good one.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, What?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it was pretty funny.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: You just gotta figure out what you like, I guess.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_04: Well, uh, tell tell us more about uh your mom and dad, and we'll get your siblings on that stuff.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so uh the me and my brothers are super close.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um mom went into nursing.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she was uh worked for the city of Raymore, which is right next door to Belton.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: And then uh back in the day, before I was in school, my dad was in the fire service for Raymore, which back then it was like Northwest Cass, it was a protection district thing.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so he was there, and that's what kind of you know, running around like every other kid, running around a fire station, you know, that's where that's where it all started, to be honest with you.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: And this little bitty I looking back at the pictures, man, like the fire trucks that were there were just absolute trash, you know.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: But I didn't care.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_04: Different times population wasn't near as big down there as it was either.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: I bet it was less than 5,000 back then.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's growing, it's booming 40, 50,000 or something like that now.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, it it wasn't anywhere close to that back then.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: It was a rural fire department in a sense in the middle of a town.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, running around there and um man, it was just fun.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: That was a good time.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: And then uh dad grew up doing that, and then he everybody had a second job, especially back in the 80s.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: Everything was expensive, and you think interest rates were bad or bad now, like back then they were in the teens if from the stories I hear, you know.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: So everybody had two or three jobs, and um dad did construction, and so he started out doing decks and then got into finish trim work.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so like your mantles and doors, windows, you know, stuff like that.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so then, of course, naturally you just mostly because child labor laws didn't really exist in the household.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: So uh yeah, you worked for the construction company whether you wanted to or not.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: So there was a lot of nights that you know you gotta go do that stuff and do finals and stuff on houses and hardwares, and uh so yeah, I grew up doing that stuff and and then uh from there uh when I turned about 13 at the time.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_04: Which that construction stuff, sorry to cut you off there, but that construction stuff pays off further on down your career, huge.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_04: Which we'll get into.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, when you yeah, in in the career and then just as an adult, like I can't get rid of those skills.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like I try to quit working uh on this stuff.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: I made a lot of money during COVID uh during that stuff, just because guys had plenty of money laying around and want to do these house projects, right?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: It was crazy.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's jobs I didn't want to do, and they're like, Yep, you're hired.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, ah, yeah, okay, go make a couple grand.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but uh yeah, so it's started trimming like uh as soon as I could, probably 12, 13 years old, start doing where I'm actually running saw and stuff like that.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: Which you look at look at your kids now, or my kid when she was I mean, I know it's a girl, but treat them a little bit different or raise them a little different.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: But what we were doing at that age, there's no way I would let my kid loose with a nail gun and a saw, and all right, I need this room trimmed out.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: Good luck, you know.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: But you survive, yeah.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: We're fine.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: I got all my fingers too, which is kind of rare.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but yeah, so uh 13, there was an explore post program through the Boy Scouts.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't know if they're even around or not, but it's kind of like a junior's deal.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so they had that in Grandview Fire Department, and Dad set me up with some guys that he knew, and so I went up there and did that.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: And um that was really cool of getting to do, you know, the the actual you're a part of the crew.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you're you can on the weekends you can stay the night and everything else, and so you're there and you do the chores and the checks and and you're expected there was things you had to do to even get to that point.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like you had to I remember being overwhelmed learning what every tool was and know where it was at on the rig, and you had to pass that to even get to write on it.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like that was pretty cool.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like I studied for that stuff, you know.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: And now it's like second nature, you know.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: When you come come to work, I can, you know, go I know where every new piece is or whatever, what it does, and I know it's my job now, but as a kid at 13 years old, that was just a huge milestone to a million other things you could be dealt doing at 13 years old, yeah.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, when everybody's having a great time partying or not partying, but playing around and being 13-year-old kids.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that was that was pretty cool.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: And those guys there I worked with or helped me get on at Kansas City too.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: And some of them are still extremely involved in the fire service um to this day.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: So that's pretty cool too.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: That you know, I worked around them when I was 13, and some of them heck, there's a uh my deputy chief today I've known since I was two.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: He worked for dad.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Ted Henry is his name.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if we I knew him as Hank forever.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, there's pictures of me and him in a pool, like me jumping off the diving board to him, and I'm like four, something like that.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's pretty cool.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of cool, yeah.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's pretty neat.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we'll get in.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I got to drive him uh one day uh doing I was uh the district safety officer in 102, and I got to drive him downtown Kansas City.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like this is this is cool, you know.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_04: So it'd be fair to say that your dad kind of got you into the fire service.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_04: Showed you the front door to it.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_04: You helped me along the way.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and you went all in on it after that.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's pretty cool.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was pretty it's pretty neat.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_04: And how about your mom?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, mom, uh, so um mom did she was like uh some at the city, and I want to say it was like an administrator assistant or something like that, but any new building that came through, Raymore, um, she approved it in a sense, and approved the plans, I guess, is actually what it was.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: And she worked for a um uh I don't even know how to uh I don't even know how to explain what it was, but I know there's a bunch of buildings in St.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: Louis and downtown that have them, but um, like the stonework that's all carved and stuff, she was the graphic designer that designed those things, um, like in new buildings and stuff.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_04: Oh wow, that's cool.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's for the longest time I had no idea like like a grah that's back when they drew them, you know, with a drafting board and all that stuff.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, my my wife's degree is actually in graphic arts.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: The graphic arts, that's yeah, and so she was a graphic designer or whatever, however.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: But she was down in the West Bottom, so that's where they built everything, and then they would ship it out across the country.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: But I know that there's some in Kansas City and St.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: Louis.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's cool.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: Because they built some building and then and she worked on uh the Kemper Arena when they built that.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: All right, that's a that's a flashback.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's pretty neat.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: But the uh yeah, she did that stuff, and then um, and then she uh after dad passed, that's when she got into nursing and she went into oncology, and then she just retired from that last November, yeah, almost a year ago.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, and just uh kind of get the full story and everything, your your dad passed at a young age, um, 37 is what I remember you saying before.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but what a just kind of leave it at that.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_04: What a cool influence he had to get you to lead you down your path.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, absolutely.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_04: Your mom involved with that, and you said she was working uh doing the graphic art thing and all that, and then did she stay with that?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: No, she um after dad passed away, she went into she got in St.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: Luke's nursing school.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: But in the meantime, dad at that time was uh pretty much full-time trimman, and the guy who was underneath him, um, who now owns the company, um, ran it while he was in the hospital and all that stuff.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: So then after dad passed, um, mom went to school full-time and then did the books and s and some of the scheduling for the construction company.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: So that was the income, was the construction company.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: Dad's money was still coming in, and then mom went to school while raising three boys, teenage boys at that.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: I was 15 and the youngest was seven.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: What a blessing.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, unbelievable.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: I don't it took quite a few.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: I uh I was probably 26, 27, and called mom one day and I just I said, thank you.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: I have no idea how she did that.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: I really don't.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: It was pretty cool.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well you know I have my thoughts on it.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: She had God on herself.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: But um yeah, so we uh got through that, that was pretty rough.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um trying to figure out like your path, I guess, in a sense, you know.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: So you did pretty well for yourself.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: I've tried.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: I have tried.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_04: Despite your best efforts, in spite of your best efforts, yeah.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: No, there was and trust me, there were some other paths I could have gone down.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um and even my brother, my middle brother, he was a hell you.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah, um So are you the oldest?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, okay.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um Yes, so get through that whole thing, and then I still stayed with um the the juniors deal, all while playing sports, and then I picked up a like a school job, you know, working at High V or whatever.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then moved around in that place until I found what was fun, you know, inside that.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah, no, it was it was good.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then you're still, like I said, still playing sports, still doing everything.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then um they had like awards with the Explore Post, and I won it one of the like my 18 when I was 18, 17 or 18, something like that.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: Chief's kid.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: Huh?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, my dad was a chief, actually.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: He was an assistant chief down there.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: But I uh I ended up winning the award and they paid for my EMT class.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so Oh, that's cool.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that's what I was going through there, and it was like a one-year deal, it was like a night class thing, but either way, it doesn't it didn't really matter.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: It was cool.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then they paid for my fire one and two, so I went to that, which was a votec deal through the school of Harrisonville, and so I went or Cass County Career Center or something like that.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember what it was, but um anyway, went and did that, and that was at night.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then when I turned 18, as soon as I turned 18, I went down to Peculiar Fire Department, which is just south of Belton Raymore there, and um uh was a volunteer there um up until until I got hired on Kansas City, to be honest with you.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: I stayed volunteer all the way up to the academy.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_04: So let's talk about your brothers.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_04: You you talked about your mom and dad.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_04: What what do your brothers do now?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so my middle brother, um, he does he builds I'm still kind of I don't quite understand it, but he builds components for um the commercial airline industry, pretty much like for the um for your uh the cockpits and stuff like that, and then also in the simulators.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: So he works with a company out of Lee Summit here that or not here, but down the road that um does all that.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: So he's a m some type of a manager of a department there.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: I don't quite know.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: I just know that he goes in at like six and he's home at like one.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's all I know.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um and he likes it, so it's kind of fun.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then the youngest brother, he went to uh Wiotech, which I think is gone now.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but he went to Wiotech for diesel um mechanic type stuff.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: He did that for quite a few years, and then now he's owns a uh uh company, he polishes aluminum pretty much like your wheels and your tanks, and and he is so busy doing that six days a week, you know, 10, 12 hour days.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: He's already there's yeah, there's a demand that high for that.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: I was shocked.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: I told him I was like, man, I don't know.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's something the first as soon as money gets tight, that's the first thing that goes, you know, maintenance on something like that to make it look pretty.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: And he is busier now than he was when he started it, which I mean that's how it grows, but I mean he's constantly right on.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: So it's pretty cool.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: He's one of the guys they call.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, God forbid we have a funeral or something we gotta do.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: They he comes to Kansas City and polishes up the funeral rig or the comp the rig that we're gonna use.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's I never knew that.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's interesting.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: I got him in on that deal.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_03: Huh.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like, oh, I got a guy for you.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's pretty cool.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, that's that's pretty neat, actually.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I had no clue.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: So he's kind of involved, technically.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_04: Well, and I think the cool thing is, like, uh as we go through the as I'm interviewing different people and doing this podcast, is uh man, how many of our our guys, their families are all into serving as well.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you know, your mom ended up nursing, your dad was a fireman.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, granted, they all had different jobs at some point, you know, and then even your youngest brother's trying to find ways to get back.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, um, that just it's just kind of cool.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_04: But as we progress, now we go into you meeting Kelly, you know, and she's what does she do now?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_04: Uh she's a nurse.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_04: There we go.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_04: That's my point, right?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so let's talk about first.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_04: We'll start with how you met her and when you met her, and were you in the fire service, all that good stuff.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I was at Peculiar at the time, and I was actually working a second job um at United Rental is actually what I was doing, and doing like little maintenance stuff for them, just something to heavy equipment maintenance.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: That side of it, or yeah, not heavy, heavy, but like you know, your your stuff that are common guy, right?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and I'm cleaning out, you know, paint sprayers that people you know didn't clean and stuff like that, just kind of doing the maintenance stuff, repacking bearings on trailers and just here that it was extra money and it was good money, right?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: And it uh shockingly, the manager there knew my dad from uh the shop that was in.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: We he used to rent stuff from there all the time.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: And the guy who owned it was a family friend of ours back in the day that turned into United Rental and all that crap.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: So when I put it in my app application or whatever, he's like, Are you Barry's son?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Yes, sir, yes, sir, I am.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, All right, how much you want to make?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: When can you start?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like that was the end of the interview, and so you just hold the name of your dad, you know, like that was I walked out of there like shocked, like, well, that was the easiest interview I've ever been in, you know.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: That was pretty sweet, you know.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, I was doing that, and I was uh 19 or 20 at the time, and uh it was St.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: Pat or Snake Saturday, and there was a guy there um uh that that I worked with.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: I was really, really close with him.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um he passed away about three years ago.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but anyway, he would um there was a a bar called the hook and ladder, and um yes, the legal age to drink was 21.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I was in there underage, and there was this gal that I wanted to go talk to, and so he went to the bathroom and he comes back and he was like, Hey, you better be talking to her by the time I get back, or I'm gonna punch you.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, Okay, and so I waited to the last second till that hinge was moving, then I went over and finally talked to her, and then what 20, probably 25 years later, we're still together.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, wow.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: It was pretty cool.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: You got two kids?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: Two kids, yep.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, got a 20-year-old almost 20 next month, and then um uh had a surprise kid uh 12 years later who is now seven.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: So kind of I like to I like to really appreciate the children separately, is kind of that's a that's an interesting approach.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I tell everybody.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like, oh, was that planned?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, that was planned, you idiots.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but yeah, uh that was quite the surprise.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: So uh yeah, they got one that's a just started her sophomore year at MU.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um go Tigers.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then uh the other one just started second grade.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: So Wow.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: How's how's college life going?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: Loving it.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: Cost me a lot of money.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's about the only time I talked to her.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's when she needs something.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_04: Hey, that's a good thing about the big task force deployments, though, right?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank God.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, hey dad, I need gas.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: She hit me up for gas money the other day, and Kelly asked me like two days later, she's like, Hey, what'd you send her$20 for?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, she needed gas.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: I just sent her gas money to go fill up her car.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: Is that the same night she was at the bar?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, probably.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's it's college.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, yeah, you're probably right.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, let her enjoy the stuff that we weren't smart enough to do.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, stop doing that.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, okay, yeah, you're right.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: But you're not going to.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: But you're done.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: No, I'll give her what I can when I can.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_04: What's she what what is she uh wanting to major in?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's I think she's changing to like a radiology tech-ish kind of uh situation or try to.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's where she's gonna go.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: She wants to, she's not really in on having kids, which is fine.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, everybody's got their own thing.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh she wants to see the country and and go other places.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: So she wanted to do the right now.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: There's a huge demand for radiology.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so she's really involved in sports.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: She did competitive cheer uh, I mean, since since she was a little kid, all the way up to where she was 18, did it in high school, all over the country, NCA champ.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: Anybody's cheer fans out there, but national championship for cheer.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she won that um bunch of runner-ups and a bunch of other tons of rings and all kinds of crap.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: So that's cool.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: She's really into the cheer stuff, or in sports in general more than I am, and she wants to be involved in that.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: So originally it was like sports um physical therapy, but that's almost a doctorate now, and she doesn't really know that that's the route she wants to go.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: So she's gonna I think it's kind of sounds like she's going radiology side, but attached to some type of a sports team somehow.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of how she's trying gonna try to do it.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_04: But you know, I think we were talking before that uh she's getting tied in somehow with like the the professional teams here in Kansas City.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, my Ant works for KU, which it's a fictitious animal that they cheer for.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: But um she works for KU, which does all the medical for the Kansas Royals, Kansas City Chiefs, the Kansas City Current, and and all of them.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_04: You said the Kansas City Royals, Kansas City Current.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_04: It's still Kansas City.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: The Kansas, Kansas City Chiefs.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's still Kansas City Chief.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, man.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: Low boil.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: It still hurts.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: It still hurts.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: The idiots voted that down.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, yeah, they're moving.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's so dumb.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: But whatever.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it is what it is.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_04: But regardless, that's that's really cool that she's gonna be able to work with those type of uh topics care.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_04: Let's face it.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, yeah, it's awesome.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: So hopefully that works out for her and she finds an avenue that direction.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: But um in the end, you could always just do the traveling thing and make a crap load of money doing that.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: And they're huge demand for them right now.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: So um it's really cool.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's kind of cool to see your kid grow up and all the things you taught them morally, you know, and see watch them make their own decisions on things.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's scared to death, but you gotta let it you gotta let it happen.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_04: Oh man, I'm going through the same stuff, man.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's weird.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_04: It's just another one of those phases of life.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_04: And they gotta figure it out.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, at the end of the day, yeah.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_04: We did.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, let me rephrase that.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_04: We do figured it out.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_04: You and I figured it out.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_04: So I know they'll be fine because I think our kids are much smarter than what we were.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, absolutely.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: I hope so.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: I hope so.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, so um, they're growing in like a weed and and then try to go do as much as I can with them, you know, in the process.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_04: Well, you've been doing going to quite a few of the MU games with her here lately.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: The football games.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, not a big sports guy, but all of a sudden I'm going to all the MU games with Jaren and remind you all the time.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you're gonna like them until I always liked MU, just not to this amount, I guess.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: But I guess when you're paying them, you kind of have to support them a little bit.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, there you go.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, and it'll be alumni stuff for the future.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it'll be great.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: It'll be cool.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: All right, let's talk about the little devil.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, that that one.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: I just thank God she's not a boy.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um she is Aunri.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she's a good kid.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, she is a good kid.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: She's uh that's you know, on deployment, she broke her arm, came, she has seasonal asthma now, but then while she has a broken arm, she's ripping around on a four-wheeler.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like you just can't slow her down.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: She's just a nutcase.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, she's a lot of she's a little ball of fire, to be honest with you.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: She's fun.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: She's in competitive cheer.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh followed her sister, wants to do the same thing.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: I try to get her into cool stuff, but it didn't work.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: So you're a cheer dad for life.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: I yeah.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just stuck.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: At least I get to recycle my shirts from Emily, so it's fine.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have to buy more stuff.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_04: Until the organization sells out.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_04: I hope not.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: I hope not.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it uh it's fun.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's still a good time.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's good.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: And you guys do a lot of traveling with that too.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's starting to she's got two this year, which the years prior she didn't have to.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I got one year off of her not having to travel and got to save some vacation time.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um but now we're yeah, we're back at it.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not too far this go-round.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: Right on.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_04: So let me uh I'm trying to remember from our interviews in the past because when you got in the fire service, I'm sorry, when you got full time, you went straight to Kansas City.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_04: You weren't married then, and then you started in the academy.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_04: So let's let's let's lead down that path.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_04: Let's kind of go down and talk about the academy and the experiences there.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: Whenever that's when I uh like officially moved out was you know, whenever that happened.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I uh to get residency.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: So uh yeah, you gotta have your residency to get in Kansas City.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, they can't fire me now, uh, but I didn't have it.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: And um everybody used to just use somebody else's address.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: And and I had gone and talked, there's a guy that I worked with at Grandview, which I looked up to uh for so long, especially after dad passed away, he was a good mentor, and um it just kind of sucks.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: He changes tune a little bit.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_02: One thing he always wanted to get on Kansas City and then for whatever reason didn't, and then he was also wished he'd always gone into like the military or the service at some point.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: So there was a big push for you know, you ought to go do this and at least go do that for four years.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: And and this is right, this is like 2000, like 99, 2000, right?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so um I'm really considering it.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: I went and talked to a recruiter for the army, didn't really know what I know I knew that I wanted to be a part of like helicopters or something.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: Always still to this day, I wish I could go do that.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but they um so I uh got a good friend of mine down the street who I just I still talk to to this day.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um we can get into that in a minute, but uh he was gonna join the Coast Guard, and so I went and talked to the Coast Guard recruiter, and it was super cool.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: Get to the what the picture, of course, that they show you, they don't show you Alaska, they show you Pensacola, Florida, they show you Hawaii, you know, all the cool stuff.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm like, hell yeah, I want to do that.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like that'd be awesome.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: What 20, 21-year-old kid wouldn't.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that'd be awesome.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I get to work on helicopters, that's awesome.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, Yeah, and I never actually tested to be a pilot.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: That wasn't like in my thought.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't think I was probably worthy or smart enough to get it.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'd always been told you had straight A's to fly airplanes.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, which strong vote guy.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you get to choose these five jobs.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: That was me, by the way.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: Me too.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: But the you always hear that you had to have like straight A's, you know, to fly airplanes and stuff.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, well, that ain't me, so I'm gonna go wrench it.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, at least I can, you know, be on the helicopter as a crew chief or something.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I had all my paperwork filled out for the most part, just had kind of to finalize it.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: But I was going through the process with Kansas City at the same time.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: So this guy's pushing me really hard, and and I just didn't feel right about it.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: And like it's something just unsettling, you know, like I just I don't know.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, I I feel like I'm being pulled.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: So kind of weird.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh grew up at going to church and stuff, and I went and talked to um a father at a Catholic church.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: Went and asked him, and it really shocked me.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: I grew up Lutheran, but really close to Catholic, you know, and um ended up being the he was the chaplain for Kansas City, which I didn't know at the time.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I go and talk to the guy, and I tell him kind of the deal, and I was like, I just don't feel comfortable with it.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like I like I'm it's not what I want to do.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: And he goes, Screw that guy.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's like who gives a shit what he wants?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: And he literally said it like that, and I'm like, Oh my god, you know, like you're you're cussing, you know, and he was like, Who cares what he wants?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like, do what you want to do.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I leave there, which is in Grandview, and you got to drive right past the recruiter's office.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I was supposed to stop there that day.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like I told the guy I was coming, and I drove home.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: And when I got home, nobody the boys were in school, mom's at work, you know, at uh Belton Research is actually where she was at that day.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: Hit the voicemail, and uh it said, Hey, you need to get a hold of this gal with Kans City Fire Department, and she's trying to get a hold of you.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I ended up making that phone call and she gave me a job offer right there.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like, hey, you've been selected, you're number 16 on the list for Kansas City Fire Department.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we're here to accept you or to offer you the position.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like dead silent on the other side, you know, where she's like, Hello, you there?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, Yes, I'll take it.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, oh my god, like I just got a job and the job that I wanted, you know, that whole bit.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so I ran over to my mom's place and or ran over to work and told her all about it.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that was kind of how that all started.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: It was pretty cool.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: And at the time I was dating Kelly, you know, and so then I, of course, I call her.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I just got hired.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my God.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't have, you know, I was working all those jobs and stuff, but you're a kid just blowing money on shit, right?
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't have hardly enough money to go buy the clothes to go do the interview.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: And Kelly took me shopping because I didn't know what to buy.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: She's like buying to this day, I still have the same khaki pants, you know, like it was pretty funny.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, so she was helping me like get all the clothes that I needed to do the interviews and all that stuff.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: It was pretty cool.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: That is cool, huh?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, so then that's yeah, that started there, and then uh that was right before I was in would have been like June-ish, June or July of um 01, and then we were set to start the um it was the weekend or the Monday after September 11th.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, none of us knew you know what was coming or you know, at that point.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I was actually at work um at Peculiar, and I was coming up like holding on the shift, you know, for the next guy.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: And as a volunteer, it's kind of weird, but I was holding for that person because they counted us as manpower down there.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: It was you had two full-time guys, and then you had two volunteers, and you like almost scheduled your volunteer days.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was kind of strange.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: It was so they guaranteed that there was four guys there at all times.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I was there waiting for the other guy to show up from wherever.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what he was doing, but they got woke up to hey, come here to the kitchen now.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so we run in there and you see, you know, September 11th happen, you know.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that was just a that was a while, you know, on the anniversary or close to the anniversary here.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: We just hit 25 years and remembering that day was oh yeah, insane.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like you'll never see I the one that really stood out that I passed along to my kids the other day was um looking up outside and seeing the contrails making a loop to head back to the airport.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like that was that was wild.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're right.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_04: I forgot.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: I just remember staring in the sky, like watching planes turn around, like that was crazy.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um but then we get a phone call saying, Hey, your class has been delayed two weeks.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and no explanation as to why, really, at that time.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: But I started calling the guys who were on the job, they were connected down there at the academy, and it was they changed our class from 25 people to 50, and so they just bumped our class up, which was the largest class since like the 70s.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that was that was wild too.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_04: It it was that in direct response to 911.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't know, and and at that time there was so much funding coming from everywhere.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like the federal government was just dumping money into everything at that time, which is where the regional rescues and all of them were happening.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you name it, everybody was getting money for anything.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: It didn't matter.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: States were just purging money to the fire departments and police departments, it was crazy.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um so yeah, we got held back just a little bit and then uh finally started, and I at that time I was just turned 20, I think, or I was 20 and a half.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: I guess I was 20 and a half.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh anyway, started that.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: I was one of the youngest ones in the class.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: There was, I think, one 19-year-old in the class, but I mean we were like children, you know, in the academy.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: It was pretty wild.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, which probably angered some of the older fellows.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: They we kept a lot of stuff quiet, like in the small discussions of how many times did you apply, and we just kind of it's pretty obvious that we applied once.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: They hadn't had an application barely shaving each other.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: Weighed like 148 pounds, you know, look like a child.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: All so the school bus is still dropping me off here, you know.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, it was pretty wild.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: There's guys who've done full careers somewhere else, you know, because they didn't have an age restriction at that time and this small little window.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so we had some guys that were like in their early 40s getting on the job.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it was it was pretty wild.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was fun.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_04: That is.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I I didn't even realize that they didn't have an age restriction then.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was like one one hiring process.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if it came from a lawsuit or something.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_02: I who knows.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: Who knows?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: So but that was uh yeah, it was like 16 weeks, and you come from small little town to here in the big city now, and that was kind of it was pretty wild.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_04: So you guys went you guys were 16 weeks um on just the academy.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_04: Has it always been 16 weeks?
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: No, I feel like it's kind of bounced around a little bit, but I'd say 16 to 18 has kind of been what the normal is.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: They do some fast classes now, but um they've even gone further than 18, which I think they kind of got slapped on.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like this is ridiculous.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what are you doing?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: So they've kind of backed it back down.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think we're close to 18 again.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_04: Which uh I know for New York, uh um we were talking about it before that uh I was just watching some of the interviews of their chiefs here recently, and that's one of the things that they've increased since 9-11.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_04: Like that was a reaction to 9-11.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, due to uh um you know, they lost a lot of knowledge and experience, so they knew they had to bring those guys up to the knowledge base that they needed to to run the streets of New York City, and so they changed it.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_04: I I don't want to don't quote me on this because I'm probably wrong and I'm sure everybody will let me know.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_04: It was it used to be like six to eight weeks or something like that.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_04: Now they've now they're like either 16 or 18, kind of like you guys are doing, and that was in direct response to 9-11.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they they changed a lot of stuff with ours too, where it was all an in-house situation prior to us, so like their physical agility and stuff was like something that they'd made up, you know, like balance on a ladder with a bundle of hose and then turn around and come back type thing, and um just laying flat on the ground, and there's a bunch of little things like that.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: And then my class was the first one of like adopting that C the national CPAT or CPAT.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we were the first class with that, and then we were like first class with like red shirts.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um that was so that way signify you know, sick signified us as being brand new kids, you know.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then um there was a couple other little of national registry, EMT, and fire one and two, they'd never done any of that.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: It was all in-house, you know, certification type stuff.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_04: I actually forgot about that even when we talked about it before, was that uh man, you guys had guys on the job for a long time through my career that never had fire one and two.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_04: Uh just because it just wasn't a thing.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, when I obviously before I got on in gosh, '95, even whenever I started in the fire service was uh um you had to have fire one and two.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_04: So some of these guys were old timers that you're talking about.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_04: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: And the guys there too, they you know, they're learning the new thing, the new system.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: So that was kind of all new to those guys.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_04: But which now your job is completely fire.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: You can get your medic, you can do whatever you whatever route you want to go, you can they'll facilitate it in some way.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: But um yeah, so they you know, we're going through that, and I had my fire one and two going into it, and I had quit my EMT at some point for like an idiot, but quit my EMT and then just got it through Kansas City.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: So it was kind of a refresher, just had to go test.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: I was kind of towards the end of my class for EMT anyways.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I went and I I'd already, like I said, already got my my fire one and two done, so that was good.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then um, and then finished out my EMT, and then it's like the first eight weeks was just make sure you don't get hurt for the CPAP because you you end up getting if you don't pass it, you're gone.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: And they escorted one of ours out of the class that she didn't pass and out the door she went, never to be seen again.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: I did see her at a fill the boot one time.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh she pulled up next to me and gave me it.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: I was early on, you know, when I first one of my first assignments, and I saw her, I'm like, oh yeah, what are you doing?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and uh I don't I don't remember what she was doing or something, but that was kind of sucks.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, very awkward.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_02: But um, but yeah, it uh did that, and then so you pass your CPAT and then you're on to learning like the Kansas City ways and of how to do stuff.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: So that was super fun doing that.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_02: There were uh some examples like the the the Kansas City way, oh just like how we ventilate roofs, you know.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um it's not the way you guys are you guys are a big uh vertical vent yeah department.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um they you know we are not doing it the if sta way, you know.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's so teaching that direction with an axe and um with saws and you know just uh different variations of things and um the the church raises and stuff with the ladder, which they don't do anymore, but that was super cool, like looking back that you've got to experience that stuff and and go through it.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_02: So that was fun.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um it was a good time.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: Learned a lot and grew up a lot there too, because I mean you gotta pull your weight because you're around a bunch of adults that'll call you out on it, you know.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: And shockingly, most of the guys, which it's with any academy class really, but still pretty close with most of the guys.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: I I probably have 75-80% of their phone numbers still and could call them and wing BS for hours, you know, that type of thing.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_02: But or work around them or whatever.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it's pretty cool.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that tends to happen a lot.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I could still name the guys on my job that are left from my class.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_04: My class was only 12.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_04: So I mean, yeah.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_04: And they're not all there, but yeah.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we've lost a few, but I bet we have over 40 still on the job.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, to be fair, we're not spring chickens anymore.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I now I hit 25 next week.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: So 25 years, it's already gone.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of wild.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I thought you were talking about your age.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, no, I don't want to pass that.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, it hit 25 years to retire next month or next week.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_02: So pretty wild.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that flies by.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: It does.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_04: And if you're young and watching this, man, enjoy it because it does.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_02: It drags, just trust me.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: The first 10 will drag after that, it's over.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's in high gear, man.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's pretty wild.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_04: Well, let's talk about those 25 years after the academy.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_04: Where'd you go?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_04: What'd you do?
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I went down to talk to some of my buddies and tried to figure out where I was gonna go.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: So there was uh you get to pick by your seniority in the class, and um in the class, uh, there were three pages of bid sheets.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: There'd been a kind of a hiring freeze in the in the at the time.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then on top of that, too, they had just we'd passed this uh sales tax thing where we're gonna put four guys on every bumper in the city.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: So there's those spots too that kind of came up.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: So looking at this at the the list, which is ridiculous uh to see a list that big, I went and you know, showed my friends that were on the job, like, what do you think?
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: Where's the best spot?
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: Because I don't want to be here forever, and I don't want to go get one of these really good spots, I'm gonna be gone.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're gonna take a bump out of there.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: And most of the guys in my class that did, that were further back than me, that took those better spots, they ended up way out in the boondocks, you know, in slow spots.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: And took a long time to get back into town.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I went to Quint 28, which was a 75-foot rear mount stick.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_02: It was like a 99 E1 or something like that.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: And uh didn't do much.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_02: It was pretty boring.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like you would go a couple shifts maybe without running a call at all, you know.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it was the furthest south pumper or a truck company, and um, it was fun.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: But a lot of guys who had gone there had worked their way into town like pretty quick because it is a truck company, small auto like automatic alarm district, and they just run um fires, really, is all they did.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because there was like a little mini rescue with them, so they ran all the extrication, all the EMS calls, they ran everything.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_04: Are they able to get uh into midtown easier just because of running the fires and stuff?
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_04: They get to meet people so it helps them get downtown.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was for the guys who were like just tired and close to the end of their career and they wanted to slow down, but then not run the EMS call type calls, I'm assuming.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: But uh whatever it worked.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I had multiple guys that ended up in great spots out of that spot, and they're like, definitely go there.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I did, and I I came out and like I think it was January 17th, and I was gone mid-April.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: I was already did a mutual trade into midtown, so it was super fast after that.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_04: But meanwhile, the guys at bid the busy spots that got bumped out at the same time were just getting mad at you too.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I the hate mail I got, man.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like they were messing with me left and right, they were all over me.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: I was probably the first one in my class to get a good spot, to be honest.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then it was probably a year or better before anybody made it back into town or got in a decent spot.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um anybody else in my class.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: It was pretty wild.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: It was pretty crazy.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but yeah, so from there that didn't really do much there.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't there very long.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um just kind of learned the rig and understand, you know, things around the station.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's really what you were learning there.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: So I traded to Rescue 11, uh, which is at 31st in Indiana at a station 18, it was a triple engine house.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_02: It was one of the busier stations, too.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh arguably probably one of the busiest stations in the city.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, just in Midtown, super busy, a lot of fire.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the calls are crazy, you know.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: Just so now it's a a small little country boy from Belton, right in the heart of the hood.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: Talk about some of the crazy calls out of there.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: What do you got?
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I mean, there the amount of shootings was just insane.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: Just uh that alone, and the never seeing anything like that.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_02: I remember uh one of the times there was uh gunshots, and I didn't know what that was.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't I didn't know what that sound was.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so guys are running, and I'm like, well, I guess we're going inside, you know.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then they're like, dude, those guys are shooting.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there was a drive-by shooting in front of the station one day, and all the kids from the school, school had just let out, and all the kids ran into the station and stuff.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so you're like, Okay, everybody, check for bullet holes, and there was one or two that had gotten hit in the you know, in the drive-by or whatever.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_02: So we're taking care of them, yeah.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um the the stories are there was a guy that right before I got there, I guess they it was a domestic violence or uh no, it wasn't domestic violence, it was two guys arguing, the guy starts chasing him with a shotgun, and he ran through the like they're all eating dinner, guy runs through the room out to the back, and then they're like, Oh, that was weird.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then here comes a dude with a gun, and they're like, Bah! They take off running, like just weird stuff.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: And the uh just weird car wrecks.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: There was uh a call where we got an EMS call.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't remember how it came out, to be honest with you, but it was at the gas station caddy corner from us.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: Walked over there, and this uh there's a guy standing there who I thought was hurt, wasn't go to the guy who's bleeding by the payphones and he He's bleeding a lot, and so I'm going to help him being the youngest guy on the crew.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, like that's just your job.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_02: You're EMS.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's you're the new the newest trained guy in this, you know.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so I go over there and go to try to help, and he didn't want help, he wants help in the car.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: And what had happened was somebody threw a log off of the Lister Bridge.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: It went through the windshield and clipped him, but it hit his sister and like a cousin, and it killed one of them at least in the deal.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: But he was pointing to the car, and you just walk around and see really what happened.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: And at that time, I wasn't paying attention to what was going on.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: I just was so focused on him.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: I walked right past the car that had the hole in the windshield.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_02: Never even noticed it, you know.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: It was just crazy.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: But again, I'm 21 years old and just doing as I'm told.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh like I said, tons of shootings.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, and the fire load was quite a bit there too.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we had a I remember being the amped up type thing too, and I don't think I've told you this one either, but um PD comes in, like the tag team, and just says, Hey, we have a fire down the street.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: We're like, Oh, okay, where at?
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, Oh, it's right there, and you look out the door, and sure enough, there's an apartment, three-story apartment complex, and there's heavy smoke coming out of it.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_02: So, what had happened is they'd done a raid, uh, you know, like a warrant, and they threw a flashbang in and it caught it on fire.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so they're like, one person is still in there, we can't find him.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: I go, Well, is it safe?
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and at this point I'm yelling at everybody, and then they all get in, we get on the rig, get up there, and all that stuff, and everything was good.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: They had the guy in in cuffs and all that stuff, but they were still assuming that there was somebody missing in there.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: But I was so amped up to get in there, I ran in, and it wasn't until later that I was like, oh man, I knocked my helmet off.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: No, it was in the rig.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I ran, it was so close to you know a block and a half from the station, you know, I forgot to put it on.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm running around the house without a you know, trying to do a search, what I thought a search was, you know, at the time, and I didn't have all my stuff on like an idiot.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_04: I think we're all guilty at some point, you know, doing something like that.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was funny, but yeah, just uh nothing that really really stands out on the rescue, to be honest with you, but it was it was really good.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like there was just a lot of learning and growing, you know, becoming, I guess, in a sense, an adult, you know, not being the child that just came on the fire department.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: So learning the ways, trying to figure out how things work on you, you know, on your gear and making you lightweight, but fat, you know, I don't know.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: Tools you need, but not all the bullshit, you know.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_04: Right, right.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_04: And then that changes depending on where you're at, too.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_04: You have to learn that as a trick itself.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_04: And then, okay, so rescue love, and then where'd you go after that?
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: So there was uh they were getting rid of uh it was like early 2000s, and all that money was coming in from FEMA and the government and all that stuff to do like actual rescues and do like uh strike teams or like the little I don't know how to explain it really, mini task force in a sense.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_02: The task force was already out, but then now they're gonna kind of spread it throughout the country with like department-wide type thing.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: So they were gonna take all of our multiple non-specialized rescues, consolidate that into three of them, and then up the hazmat guys too.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think they were getting like bumped up with crews.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so at that time there was a guy who didn't, he wanted to be on a rescue, some other reasons, um, but he asked me to, or I talked to him, I was like, why don't you why don't you come over to the rescue and I'll just take your spot.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I was going over to um Truck 5, which is a 99 tiller rig, which is just amazing to work on.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: But it, I mean, unbelievable.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: I was being, yeah, it's where I wanted to go, and I didn't want to leave the station.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: But on the other hand, like I wasn't necessarily looking like, oh, this is the best spot in the city at the time, or in my eyes, you know.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't doing it like in a selfish way.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: I really didn't want him to leave, you know, in a sense.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so anyway, uh, take my paperwork.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: We had it all filled out, it was all done, like in a five-minute conversation.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: Now he's like, Yep, let's do it.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like, okay.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it was kind of funny.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: So he had told me that this guy named Jesse, who was a friend of mine, um, and this will come in later in the thing, but Jesse was coming down from this other small spot to trade him.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, Well, don't do that, don't leave the station, like, like just stay here in the station and I'll take care of it and get me done right now, you know.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so he'd rather do that anyways, because it's puts him where he wants to be.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, I take the paperwork, go into my captain at the time, and uh, I tell him about it, and he was like, uh, bye.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like, don't come back unless there's paperwork for me to sign.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like, best decision you will ever make on your career, you know.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so, anyway, I went into that and then went to Five Truck.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then I spent, I think it was 14 years on Five Truck.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_02: So that was just right across the floor.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_02: Never had a leave.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_04: Which is a busy truck company.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, at the time it was probably like if you look at the fire load and not all the automatic alarm, it's like three truck always gets he's they're number one, but they're downtown and they get they have all that call, you know, of all the automatic alarms and all that stuff.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: So they always they run a lot of fire too, but not like at the time that Five Truck was running by any means.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so we were running sometimes two a day for like a year.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_02: It was insane.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um that was a lot of fun.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_02: And did that got the tiller?
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um tillering's fun.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh it's not for everybody, not everybody can do it.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but I bet everybody watching that hasn't been on one wants to be on.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, yeah, absolutely.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_02: I got stuck in the world.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: Including me.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's fun.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's pretty cool too.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like we have the telestaff now when you can go look up, you know, if you were on it, I could look at you and see what all your certifications are.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_02: And there's not a whole lot that says tiller trained on there, you know.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's pretty cool.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's pretty funny too.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: But um it comes up every once in a while.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like, who can who can work overtime that's broken?
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's more of them now, but there for a while, there wasn't a whole lot of guys.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_04: So, how many tillers you guys have currently?
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: We have three now.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_02: It was five, got broke down to um three for a little while.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I I I don't know if they're going back to a couple more or not.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't heard.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_02: I know there was talk about it, but I don't know.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't quite I'm out of that truck loop now.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_02: So was that your favorite spot?
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_02: Was the to be the tillerman?
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_02: That was uh no, I mean I loved being on that truck for sure.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we talked about it, you know, before that I and really got to enjoy driving the front end probably more than the rear.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um just more, I guess you could say complicated.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_02: There's more I mean there's obviously there's more responsibility up there, but now you gotta figure out how to make it all work instead of just getting the ass into the truck over there, then you're you're good, you know.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean there's more to it than that, but like you have to get that whole 53 foot long rig around the corners and and get it set up or think of where to come in from and all that crap.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_02: So that's there's a lot more that goes into the front, I think, and I just enjoyed that a lot more to be honest with you.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_04: Which that's uh I've told you before that to me that's just interesting because I bet you most guys that are watching this are like, oh, there's no way, man.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_04: That that back would be so much fun.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: It oh, it's a blast.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's yeah, man, you get to sit back there with if you don't have the headset and you can turn that speaker off, uh, you get to and just rely on the buttons, you know, the the beeps.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's the solitude back there is just insane.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like just all you hear is the ladders clanking, you know, and then maybe some road noise every once in a while, but it's just so quiet back there by yourself and doing your own thing.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's pretty cool.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_04: That'd be fun.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_04: So any any uh like major calls, anything that on five truck?
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_02: There was some, you know, uh bigger fires.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh there's some, you know, like double homicide type stuff where they set the place on fire.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, again, we're still in the hood, so there were some of those.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um not a lot of car wrecks, which is shocking.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, very little, to be honest with you.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, which I don't know, I guess the streets or whatever, you know, that's kind of the main reason.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_02: But um a lot of fire, um warehouse type stuff, and then just I I I can't even pinpoint like the the residential stuff.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like you got so there's so many of them and so many times that it was just like one after another repetition type thing.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_02: Where guys talk about um complacency, like that's a hundred percent where you can get complacent and doing the exact same thing all the time, you know.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, at least you're working jobs.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's true.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_02: More than a kitchen.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's true.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_04: That is very true.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that I it's just hard to pinpoint one out of you know, out of all of them that we did.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_02: But there's a lot of like those three three-story 1920s like apartments that we were running, and then those two and a half story, you know, residentials, lath and plaster, old, you know, true-dimensional lumber, like just an awesome house, you know, pre-1933, you know, construction type stuff.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_04: So a lot of void spaces, yeah, looking and searching for fire fire, and yeah.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was pretty.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_02: We did have a new captain um that came there, and uh, we were chasing fire, and smoke's still pushing really, really hard.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, anybody been to the third floor and check for knee walls?
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so I went up there and we were carrying those roof hooks.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they were new at the time.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I had gotten the roof hook and I turned it around to the just this pointy end, and I poked a hole in the drywall, and it's bright orange on the other side of it.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so I went back to the landing on the stairs and said, Hey, we need a hand line up here.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_02: That new captain comes up, and he's like, What do you got?
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, All these knee walls are rocking right now.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so I get up there with him, and it's it's warm, like it's pretty good.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then uh he uh he gets over there and he hits it with his hook, and it was like a 12-foot sheet of sheetrock that all went at once, and that whole thing comes down and just lights the room up.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm laughing, like, you gotta be kidding me.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why did you hit that?
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I had the hole in it for a reason, you know, and I come right, it just hadn't worked in that area or hadn't worked around a lot of that stuff at all, maybe.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, and then so I had a way of kind of mitigating it, and then he did not.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_02: And he opened the hole up, fell down the stairs and all kinds of stuff, trying to run away from it.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_04: But we found the fire, yeah.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: We found it, we found it all right.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, a lot of just a lot of learning, you know, of how building I mean, I know how buildings are built, right?
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_02: But understanding how everything flows, yeah, especially things to look at when it's on fire.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: Makes a little difference.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_04: And so after truck five, how long were you there?
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was like five, I want to say it was like 14 years.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's quite a long time.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_04: On a truck company, especially a busy truck company, so a lot of experience there.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_04: Um where'd you go then?
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_04: Is that when you got promoted to driver?
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, from there I got promoted to driver to rescue one, um, which the you know, the rescue side is always super cool, like all the stuff that they got to do, and I miss that window of going over there, and not that I missed the window, I just wasn't there in the initial push of it of the new rescues.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but going in as a driver, like it's a total, like it was it was a lot of fun.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot that is handed to you.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_02: I came in would have been in April is when I got designated and went to rescue one with Donnie Steinberg, which used to be an instructor with us.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, very intense dude and very uh knowledgeable too.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's not of uh the every he'll break everything down to like the smallest thing.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, why do we use this nail and this nail pattern?
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_02: And who will tell you the you know the pressure per square inch of what it'll hold?
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like he knows exactly why we're doing everything, you know, the way we are.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was super cool to learn from him.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I've I've taught with him, and you're not joking at all.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_04: I mean he's and I mean in a good way.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, oh yeah.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_04: Like it was his attention to.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_02: When he started up his when he for instance, when he started up his concrete business, he didn't know how to pour stairs.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_02: He poured multiple stairs in his yard and tore them apart on his own dime just so he knew how to do it.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_02: Before he even bid a staircase.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_04: I remember doing a trench class with him that we were teaching, and and he wanted to try something.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_04: I don't remember what it was.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_04: It was something pretty technical, like well beyond just the normal trench class.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_04: And uh, we spent, I think, two days mastering that, and he came back with like graphs and everything of how it was gonna work.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, like almost like a propeller head.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, oh, he knows 100%.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_04: And again, I mean that with the utmost respect because I mean he knows stuff.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_02: He's he knows what he's doing.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_02: And if he doesn't, he'll find out by the end of the day.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's pretty cool.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I went with him and then started the disciplines of all the rescues.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so that can it, you know the deal.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_02: It can be anywhere from I mean, in some cases, three years, you know, to get broke in or to pass all the classes.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_02: And and that was I jump in and like right away, hey, you're going to ropes.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like ropes starts next week.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_02: Good luck, you know.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_02: And here's we'll try to get you up to speed, but we really don't have the time.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so we kind of went over some knots and then you just jump right into it.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, that was the start of that.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_02: I got super lucky.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_02: They were changing when they did the swim test and when they did um remember the SCT and trench used to be in the spring, and then they switched over to the fall.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_02: It was that same year.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I went in and did like the trench part, I want to say, and then um I was done like in a year of just by the way that the classes landed and them changing.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's that's luck.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_02: That was super cool.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_04: That that doesn't happen often, but super busy too.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're just balls to the wall, really, of getting kind of caught up on everything, right?
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_02: And that's just giving you the basics, like that doesn't teach you really how to operate any of that shit, you know.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_04: Well, and we don't I mean, what was there?
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_04: I'm trying to remember it's what five disciplines classes we do.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I used to I taught all of them except for Swiftwater and boat um for years.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um but for you, what was your hardest one?
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_04: What what what class gave you the most challenge?
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_02: I would say the Swiftwater, like that was the one that really had me puckering.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like and and not just the fear part of it, like there were that unless you've been in that number one that scenario, or you're in that discipline, nobody's ever thrown a dry suit on and floated down the fury of the Nile or rapids.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like nobody's ever just done that, you know, for fun.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's crazy enough to do that.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_02: You're right.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so that, and then on top of the 300-meter swim, like, oh yeah, I could swim.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'm good at swimming.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I grew up doing, swimming across the you know, the cove and all kinds of stuff, and then now go do it in a pool.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I thought I was Michael Phelps.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, I thought I was great, and then I was showing that I not even close.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I passed.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's what happened, you know.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, I went to the every day.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_02: I got up at four in the morning before every shift and went and swam for an hour and a half, two hours, took a shower, and then went into work every morning.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what I did for all the way up to the swim test.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then I've done it since then.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I found that doing it early in the morning is better than the afternoon because they don't have the blue hairs that make you look terrible.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_02: Those guys they can swim for hours without stopping.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's what they do.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, it's impressive.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_02: So uh yeah, I practiced that a lot and then I got through that, but it was uh just don't die scenario and pass all your stuff, and then you'll learn the stuff later.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_02: And Mark Cato told me that, and and so I'm like, okay.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I just focused on the dislike the the skills in the class, and then once I was done, then it was like, okay, let's go take a fun ride, you know, and it kind of feeling better about it.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then the next year is when I came back and I think two, maybe three passes, I came out and was like, holy cow, I kind of know what I'm doing.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: And he kind of laughed and he was like, I told you, idiot.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like this is when you're gonna learn it.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was way more fun the second year, but you don't have that holding over your head.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_02: If so, with the risk on ours, anyways, if you fail two disciplines, you're out, like, and you're up in the wind, like you're citywide, so like you have to pass it.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_02: They're not just gonna keep you around and dump it.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and you don't get to pick where you're going if you get knocked out, right?
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_04: You just go to an open spot.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, the next open spot.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_04: That'd be well, that's you know, that's kind of good because it's motivating.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_04: It is, you know, yeah.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_04: If you just got into the city and you don't want to get bumped out, you're gonna put a little effort into it, yeah.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_02: Better hurry up, better pay attention.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta want to be there.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_02: At least that's how I see it.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I I think that motivates some guys who are who do show up there.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_02: There has been some guys who didn't quite know where that there was training involved, which I thought was shocked.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_02: They thought we just, I guess, sleep in a room with a bunch of the books and you learn everything through osmosis or something.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they were shocked when they found out we had classes to go to every day.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_02: I and I'm like, how are you this dumb?
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_02: So, but whatever.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_04: And that's the thing, like people don't realize, like with you guys, um well any of us, is you're not just doing that class once to pass, you have to go back every year and be a part.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, it depends, you know, like with you teaching stuff, it's different, but which we'll get into.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_04: But usually, you know, when you guys have guys in class, you guys have staffed rescues.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_04: So you guys attend those classes with your guys if it's your rescue's turn to go do it, or if your captain's teaching it, you're gonna be there all day.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_04: So you're I mean you're learning that stuff.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it could be a 40-hour class to a I don't know, instructural classes, what, six weeks now or eight weeks?
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_04: I can't remember what it is.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh STT is 80 hours, so it's 80 hours.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's just how this year we're breaking it up to a 40-hour work week.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_02: So we're actually on a 40 five days a week and getting it knocked out.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, and I stopped teaching years ago, but I know you're still fresh into it.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, that's gonna be fun.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_02: I can't wait for that, to be honest with you.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_04: But so you guys are constantly getting the opportunities to to do that and stay proficient.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that's that is helpful, but it is an ongoing thing.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_02: There's you know, winter time is really our da downtime, but I say downtime, we're still doing ice risky stuff.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're doing it or fire, we're still trying to drill in-house, you know, in between we do that morning or afternoon, however we want to lay it out, and just kind of see how the day, you know, progresses.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it was it was a lot of fun.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I went there and got through all those disciplines, worked at Rescue One for probably about two, two and a half years, something like that.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then um wanted, I was just missing out on the fires.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like, really is how it went.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_02: At the time, Rescue One, downtown Kansas City and that area, just they weren't utilizing them, I guess.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if it was dispatch or just a mentality out of that area.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, for whatever reason, we weren't going to work, and it sucked.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and they wanted us as writ to just stand in the front yard instead of being progressive or proactive as we are now um and have been for quite a few years, just not there, I guess.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_02: Where I don't know why.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_02: But either way, I was wanted to get busier, so I bit down to rescue nine.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where Chad was the captain, and that was and I it's kind of funny story.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_02: Chad Daly.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Chad Daly.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um the the Chad Daly.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_02: He used to be number one, uh Missouri's number one fireman, but he was told he was not.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but anyway, they That's an inside joke for everybody.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I had asked to bid it, and he told me um it and at that time they didn't just place people there like they normally do now.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_02: They'll just go down the list.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, do you want this spot and can you pass?
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_02: And then they will put somebody in there.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_02: Back then it would just stay on the bid sheet for months.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so knowing that Chad trains a lot, a lot of guys wouldn't bid it.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't want to do that.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it had been on the bid sheet for a couple months, and finally I called, and I'm like, hey Chad, um asking for a favor, but I would really like to come down and work with you.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_02: And he was he I get knowing what I know now, he was apprehensive.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_02: And it was because when I was on Five Truck, we made fun of the rescue so much that they took that as that I really hated the rescue, and it so he put it on all of his firefighters to make the decision, and they said no.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was kind of that was a blow.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like, that sucks, you know.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like they didn't I thought I'd prove myself enough.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, apparently my joking humor and hammering they took that serious and they didn't like it.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_02: So you do hurt people.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, just saying, I don't know, get tougher skin, I guess.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_04: I'm trying, I'm trying.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, you're getting there.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, okay, whatever.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_02: So then they place a guy there, or a guy goes there and he takes it, and then that did not work out.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_02: It didn't even make it a year, and he actually got administratively transferred out of there.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so I call again and they were still apprehensive about it.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_02: Or no, no, I take that back.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't call, and I was building holsters at the time.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's when I was like really deep into making the gun holsters and stuff.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so Chad comes over to get this tool pouch thing made for like a leather man and something else.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember what it is.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, he gets that thing made, and then John Young comes over, who was um Chad's other driver at the time.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_02: He comes over.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, at one point they got me cornered, and I like turn and look at them, and I'm like, no, no, no, I know what this is about.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_02: It was a teamed event, and they were coming to ask me to come bid the spot.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, No, you guys don't want me.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, here's the story, and they tell me the whole story about it and all that crap.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm like, Yeah, you you lost it.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm staying at rescue one, you know, and they kind of laughed and like, all right, come on, like seriously though, will you come to the rescue nine and drive us now?
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_02: Or, you know, be the other driver.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I'll think about it.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I made them sweat for two months while that thing was on the bid sheet, like just away, I still wouldn't bid it.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_02: Still wouldn't bid it, and they'd call me and give me a hard time.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_02: It was so funny though.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh then eventually I bit it and I went down there and worked with him.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that was uh I mean, that was a not saying that I didn't learn anything at once because I learned so much stuff there.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_02: Well you had Donnie.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: Just a different type of uh work really.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_02: As better uh without a better way of explaining it.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_02: The workload there and the emphasis on certain things to be good at is different there than it is at nines.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_02: Or it's different than at the airport or at you know what I mean?
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_02: So going down to nines that was a huge growth.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think from driver, you know, those two driving spots that I had, it was just insane the amount of knowledge that came out of that.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_02: So it was pretty cool.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_04: Then you got down there to not I say down there because down by the plaza, but uh so you got down to rescue nine and you started there working with Chad.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_04: Great crew.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I've known all those guys for years.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_04: Um you guys got down there.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_04: What were some of the uh strengths and weaknesses that you maybe ran across that that you noticed in yourself and or the crew?
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_02: I was definitely behind the curve on like the forcible entry stuff and the forcible entry, searching, drags and carries, stuff like that.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like the stuff that so the way Chad kind of broke it up was I'm not teaching you guys rescue, like the disciplines.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's not what I'm here for.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm teaching you how to be a really good fireman.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_02: But it was on the two drivers to teach all the new kids and every I say new kids, the guys who maybe had just gotten place there or bid that spot or whatever, that it might be going through those classes if we had that, or any of the other those disciplines for the everybody else on the crew, whether it's ropes, trench, search or uh SET, you know, all that stuff, like that was on the drivers.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_02: So morning or afternoon, we would go and do whatever Chad wanted to go do on whatever you know drill he had concocted the night before.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_02: And we all know some of them are over the top, you know, and uh, but like within an hour, like everybody's in on it, you know, and then like the back half of the day or the whatever, the opposite of whatever we did, we would go work on ropes or we would go work on something, you know, rescue style, or you know, the disciplines.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_02: And in those, that was one of those where I'm way behind on this, but then we did um we were doing a uh we get brush creek floods, like if it sprinkles, right?
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so the cars will be down there or whatever.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the other options, we have this monopod set up where we can click into the side of the rig and throw up a monopod.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it was always set up for like a 1016.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we figured out that the 1016 is a little short, and they always wanted to do a four-to-one, like a pre-rigged four-to-one.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so I remember talking to Chad, I'm like, why are you guys picking this?
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like, whenever you lift on a such a small pole, you've lost like two feet of lift, and then now you still have to manhandle this person up over the, you know, now a victim and a rescuer up over the side, and it's so it was well, because it's fast and easy.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Well, so is this?
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so you throw together a five to one or a piggyback flat five to one or you know, whatever, right?
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_02: And just explaining how much lift you got out of it.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so I found out really fast that I was uh because of rescue one, I was way ahead on ropes than those guys had messed with.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_02: So then I kind of got handed that.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like, well, now you're teaching ropes to everybody and what you know.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_02: So that was kind of cool.
• 1:09:16
  SPEAKER_02: At least I brought something to the you know, to the crew when I felt so far behind, you know, yeah, which helped you embed yourself with them.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and yeah, I knew some things too, you know.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, but that was really good.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_02: And the fact that I'd worked in that area for you know 14 years prior, you know, or 14 years, you know, before I be made driver.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I knew the district, I knew the the houses, I knew everything around it, so that wasn't a big deal, but but yeah, that happened learning, you know, like that's where the drag strap came from was from the from just learning drags and carries and how that's yeah, and for those who don't know right now he's talking about the toxic suppression victim drag strap, which was invented by four four or five of you guys?
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, five of us are involved, yeah.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_02: Five from the uh school from rescue nine, yeah.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but that all came down to you know him with Chad figuring out a way that you know our biggest problem is is carrying actual victims, you know, from places.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_02: And and we talk about it when we teach the class and stuff, but um everybody even that was watching this, both of you people watching this, uh, that are gonna realize like whenever you go, let's go drill on searches and drag somebody out.
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_02: The first thing firemen are gonna do, and I'm guilty of it too, is put all my gear on.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was one of the big things.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_02: And even when we were drilling with this, and we're the guys involved would go and put all their gear on before we went and did it.
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like we need to stop doing that.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_02: Go in shorts and a t-shirt or a tank top.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_02: Now make it happen.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_02: It sucks as the victim because you're gonna get pinched, and yeah, it's gonna suck, but um, that's the biggest thing.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_02: But it's worth it because of the lessons you learn.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you gotta there's ways to do it without hurting each other.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there are.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you gotta have your safe words, right?
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, right.
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_02: But the uh I've I've never found a victim dressed in fire gear sitting in their bed, you know, or laying in their bed.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_02: So learning that, and it's it's been a big success, and actual it actually works.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's the thing too.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_02: It just gets rid of the grip strength, and you know, and that's what we realized was the main problem with it.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so like that that came from it, you know, uh the just the training and being so persistent of finding a problem, no knowing that we failed at it, and that hey, we need to work better at this, and then yeah, and and pull out the drag strap or the dirty four to one that we came up with to get somebody out of a basement or second floor window or whatever, like all that stuff came from rescue nine, you know, of just being so proactive at which definitely in this area, yeah um you can definitely tell that uh it's out there.
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that crew from Rescue 9 back in the day, um the OGs.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_04: That's Code A.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the core is what Code A calls it.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, um, but definitely a lot of innovation and ideas came out of there.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, and I'm not gonna say like because you guys are so humble about it, is I'm not gonna say that the the the drag trip idea was yours, but like all this stuff that you guys came up with uh or it was just passed down knowledge for the most sense, and you guys just practiced it.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_04: And yeah, and then through Brotherhood, which is originally where a burn came from, brotherhood instructors out in the the guys out of New York, which great guys, um, but we just practiced that stuff and it just it just spread like crazy.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_04: And then you guys were able to come up with this stuff and it just took off, and now you guys have literally deals with uh vendors and stuff where it's going out, and then uh who knows, maybe that uh rapid four to one or maybe that'll take off as well.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_04: I mean it's going job wide for you guys.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's we start that I don't know in like three, four weeks, something like that.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_02: The job wide training for it.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_02: All the trucks and rescues are getting them and like a pre-made rigged up deal.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um super cool, you know.
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_04: And I don't mean that as a plu uh a shameless plug for you guys.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_04: I mean that like that's the the mentality of that crew.
• 1:13:01
  SPEAKER_04: There's always learning from failures.
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_04: Right, yeah.
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_02: Understanding that hey, we sucked at this, we need to be better at it, and didn't have a problem with admitting it by any stretch of the means, or failing in front of everybody else.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like maybe this will work, maybe it won't.
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_02: I don't uh we've we trained on it, but you know, um, yeah, it's that's it was huge.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_02: And and being able to to be out there and uh you know, out and just understand that this is what your weaknesses are and and um wanting to be better at it.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_02: And everybody on that crew did like they understood it.
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_02: They weren't trying to hide anything, which was super cool.
• 1:13:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_04: That is cool.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_04: What about uh what about calls?
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_04: What about uh any significant calls, anything that stands out?
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh because I know you guys had a ton of ton of car wrecks, ton of grabs, you know, the the car wrecks alone um that we went and did, like I've never ran so many bad car wrecks in my life.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, you're in an inner city, but yet there's a couple past like faster roads, I guess.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they took them fast, but uh major roads that kind of ran through there, and they would just ball that stuff up left and right and really complex extrications, which you know, Chad would always another thing he would do is if there was a fate if we went to a fatality wreck and then the coroner has to come and they got to do their investigations and stuff, didn't matter what time of night, he would call, you know, like volunteer us to come do that.
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_02: So then we would go cut that person completely out of the corner.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you can't do that anywhere else, you know.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_02: At least not that I'm aware of.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_04: No, you can't go to a salvage yard and get a car into a tree that you have to separate from the tree.
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I don't think even Disaster City in Georgia will offer that package.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, that that was that was pretty wild.
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_02: Some of those, I mean, there was plenty of those that we went and did.
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_02: There was uh uh we had um Chuck McCormick down a peculiar that passed away.
• 1:14:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um kind of a wild, wild day.
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_02: But um back where I used to work, um we dispatched four uh multiple departments around the city.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_02: And uh one of them's quite a ways south of us.
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's Grandview.
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_02: I say quite a ways, it's the town right next to us, but um, but it's quite a ways south of of 35 station 35 there.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, the uh call came out and Paul had came and grabbed me and goes, Hey, you know this address, don't you?
• 1:15:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I looked at it and I'm like, Yeah, I do.
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's like well, Grandview's going there on a fire.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, well, that's weird.
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I made a phone call to a buddy of mine, he was a Grandview fireman, um, but was off that day, but lives right on the right around the corner.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, Yeah, there's a bunch of sirens and stuff, but I haven't seen anything.
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_02: And and then about that time we get toned out for it, and it was for a full radio alarm or box alarm or however you guys want to, you know, it's a normal fire for us, but they added a rescue to it.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_02: An extra rescue, an extra rescue.
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_02: Because the original alarm has a rescue as well.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, so we start heading that way, and in the notes, it starts popping up what's going on in all the companies.
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember Chad talking about the amount of companies on the screen, you know, and then he's reading trying to decipher the notes, and and then we found out that a fireman had fallen through the floor in a modular home, as we ended up what it was what it was.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, we just knew that there was a fireman trap somewhere.
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so on the way down there, I'm fully against like don't be on your phone, don't do anything like that.
• 1:16:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I uh I asked to be on my phone to double check the the address so that I knew for sure how to get in this place.
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we were like on the tail end of this whole regular alarm because everybody from the Southland went, so we're heading over that way, and uh I peel off and 31s knew that a buddy of mine he knew that I worked down there, so he peels off with me, which is not the route that they told us to go.
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_02: And we came in the back way and pretty much parked in front of the house is kind of how it went.
• 1:16:44
  SPEAKER_02: When everybody else is a mile down the road, you know, we're right there.
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um but walking around the building and and um going and and getting Chuck out of there for his family and stuff, that was uh it's something I don't ever want to go do again, but I'm glad that they called us and we were we were the crew that you know, those two crews that were there that actually went down and took care of him, they were very dialed in guys.
• 1:17:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, Chuck McCormick, he was uh a firefighter that worked down there, uh like Ryan said, fell to the floor and and and then he died.
• 1:17:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:17:18
  SPEAKER_04: Um and then you guys got there and you guys actually pulled him out.
• 1:17:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 1:17:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um talk about uh after that.
• 1:17:29
  SPEAKER_04: What uh anything that you can think of afterwards?
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it w and it took a while to kind of figure that out, but um everybody's taught like your 360s and stuff, right?
• 1:17:40
  SPEAKER_02: And um and it's exactly what we did.
• 1:17:42
  SPEAKER_02: I showed up and as I'm walking up there, of course, everybody had one of the guys there told me later that he said it felt like it was he called for Kansas City, and five minutes later, there's like they it we were the only ones with black gear, so it felt like the entire area was just full of black bunker gear.
• 1:17:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like we just took over, not in a bad way, but like all of a sudden there's just more people I've ever seen, you know.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, because their normal response is yeah, gosh, well, probably less than twelve guys.
• 1:18:07
  SPEAKER_02: And they had a ton of departments around.
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think Lee Summit was even there at one point or at that point.
• 1:18:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but you know, the amount of people we show up with just one call, this is what we came with.
• 1:18:18
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, eight six guys rolling off of a rescue, you know, um, just a bunch of people walking up.
• 1:18:23
  SPEAKER_02: But I as I was doing my 360, um I noticed of or I knew kind of where everybody was saying, you know, we gotta go, he's in the basement, yada yada yada.
• 1:18:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um Paul was kind of behind me, he wasn't my partner, um, but he had a saw, and so I had him start doing window cut downs as I'm trying to remove debris on the area that he's at to kind of get a visual of what we're dealing with.
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um what I had missed was that there was a set of stairs on the corner that I walked up that took us straight to the basement.
• 1:18:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that was it's one of those like you need to slow down a little bit, you know, and really take it all in because that would have made it a lot easier from the very beginning.
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, unfortunately, it wouldn't have changed the outcome of it.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_04: And to be fair, you guys have the stats of how long it was to get them out when you got there.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_02: It was 18 minutes from the time I pulled the air brake to the time he was out of the basement.
• 1:19:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know how long they'd worked prior to that, but which is irrelevant.
• 1:19:20
  SPEAKER_02: 18 minutes is pretty fast, considering how entrapped he was and entangled and um but but in the conditions just down there.
• 1:19:27
  SPEAKER_02: It had been burning for quite a while in a in a basement with one opening, in a sense, it was an outside entry um uh basement all concrete and about three foot of water in it.
• 1:19:38
  SPEAKER_02: That was the hottest thing I've ever stepped in.
• 1:19:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I remember when we came out, we started stripping bunker gear off, and we looked like lobsters from mid-thigh down.
• 1:19:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like we were just roasted.
• 1:19:48
  SPEAKER_02: And this is middle of February, and we're in shorts and a t-shirt and just steaming, standing outside with snow on the ground, you know.
• 1:19:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah, he was he was entangled pretty good underneath a table workbench thing over in the corner and and then wrapped up in chairs and stuff like that.
• 1:20:05
  SPEAKER_02: So there was a lot of work to be done, but a lot of guys who had who have drilled on that so much that it was just insane.
• 1:20:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um one of the things too, and we've we've talked about it in class, um, and and off of you know, off the job and stuff, just in conversation, but one of the biggest things that I remembered was the pass devices that are constantly going off.
• 1:20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody's so used to hearing that.
• 1:20:32
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I remember being in the basement and turn telling myself to like listen for a pass device, and I was like, oh, he's right over there.
• 1:20:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's where that sounds coming from.
• 1:20:42
  SPEAKER_02: But I was so used to listening to that that you know it's just it's a it's just that white noise in a background, in a sense.
• 1:20:50
  SPEAKER_02: You're so you just disregard it so much.
• 1:20:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that actually uh this morning I was t I was telling you about it, but I think it's something good to share here.
• 1:20:58
  SPEAKER_04: It's something I picked up on this morning off of the social medias, which I'm not a big social media guy, other than just posting this stuff.
• 1:21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:21:04
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but it's something I picked up was a um a guy had a video on their helmet cam of a captain going into a second story apartment building.
• 1:21:15
  SPEAKER_04: Went in, he was in the in the in the uh apartment for about 45 seconds, grabbed a kid, he could hear the kids yelling and all that stuff, and so he went in, grabbed one of the kids, went back out, gave the kid to another firefighter, went back in to go get a couple more.
• 1:21:29
  SPEAKER_04: And um, the point of it was not necessarily the the grab, it was the fact that when he was in there, he was so focused once he heard the kids that he missed five there were five radio transmissions when he was inside, and he didn't hear any of them.
• 1:21:44
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, three of them were for him that were important information to where that he could have.
• 1:21:48
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not I'm not armchair quarterback, but the point of the lesson was that um he probably could have got more companies to assist with their original rescues instead of going all the way down back to the first floor, dropping the kid off an apartment and going back in.
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_04: Um but the thing is that the instructor was pointing out, which I thought was gold in my opinion, was that when we get into those situations, we get so narrow-minded, even as the company officer, not narrow-minded, but so tunnel visioned, I guess, is I can't remember the terminology used, that um um he didn't pick up on the radio traffic, but then he didn't tell you that at the beginning.
• 1:22:24
  SPEAKER_04: Because at the end of the video, and he asked you, he's like, Did you pick up on it?
• 1:22:28
  SPEAKER_04: Sure enough, no.
• 1:22:29
  SPEAKER_04: No, I missed it.
• 1:22:30
  SPEAKER_04: I'm the guy watching the video, I'm not even in the situation.
• 1:22:33
  SPEAKER_04: And I bet you most viewers out there, otherwise they wouldn't have posted it.
• 1:22:36
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 1:22:36
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, were the same thing as like how much you know?
• 1:22:40
  SPEAKER_04: You're hyper-focused and you just missed important steps to the to the mission because mundane things like the the stairs go into the basement.
• 1:22:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you know, like absolutely, or the past device, you know, like uh like how long did it take you to realize that, you know, like the past to let tone in on his.
• 1:22:58
  SPEAKER_02: I was a good I was a few feet in, uh quite a few feet in before I stopped.
• 1:23:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh wait a second, that's why we wear these things.
• 1:23:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you know, it was so weird that we talk about that in the in the in the tick class.
• 1:23:08
  SPEAKER_04: I've had that situation on on a fire, you know, where I'm so like when I was younger using the ticks and all that stuff, um being so tunnel vision on the tick trying to find the fire because you know the typical signals and stuff weren't there.
• 1:23:20
  SPEAKER_04: It was just you know almost almost white out on the tick, if you will.
• 1:23:23
  SPEAKER_04: You know, everything was saturated, same temp.
• 1:23:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but when I finally put the tick down, same thing.
• 1:23:29
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, well, hold on a second.
• 1:23:31
  SPEAKER_04: I can hear it, I can feel it, it must be over here.
• 1:23:34
  SPEAKER_04: I'm an idiot.
• 1:23:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I'm an idiot, you know, type deal.
• 1:23:37
  SPEAKER_04: And then sure enough, as soon as we did that, it was right around the corner of a you know, we're on the knee wall there.
• 1:23:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:23:42
  SPEAKER_04: Same thing.
• 1:23:43
  SPEAKER_04: But it's just uh crazy, especially as a the short staff companies.
• 1:23:46
  SPEAKER_04: You have the luxury of having a six men on your truck where you can actually tend back and listen to the radio and do your job as a captain.
• 1:23:52
  SPEAKER_04: Man, when you're on those short staff engine companies or whatever company it is, I'll tell you firsthand experience, you know, because we run with three at minimum, but we try to run with four, but three minimum, it's hard to do that.
• 1:24:03
  SPEAKER_04: It's hard to manage that as a company officer.
• 1:24:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:24:05
  SPEAKER_04: The radio, and you're still working, you're a working boss at that point.
• 1:24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:24:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think that is kind of the some of the benefits too.
• 1:24:11
  SPEAKER_02: When we did go to the fourth man on our side, you see a lot more company officers being company officers instead of always hands-on.
• 1:24:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, they're still gonna work.
• 1:24:19
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, your engine company's still gonna work because you're gonna still need a doorman.
• 1:24:22
  SPEAKER_04: You know, somebody's gonna hump the hose.
• 1:24:24
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
• 1:24:24
  SPEAKER_04: It's still got to work, but it still takes a little bit of that load off you because as a company officer, you're doorman, company officer, firefighter, you know, on the nozzle.
• 1:24:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, searching.
• 1:24:33
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 1:24:35
  SPEAKER_02: It is kind of nice having people, but but that it definitely, like, if you get too hyper-focused on something, you can miss a lot of very important things.
• 1:24:43
  SPEAKER_02: And that taught me a lot to kind of slow down a second, not necessarily like slow down my movements, just move with a purpose, but paying attention to I almost like take snapshots of every part of the building as I'm moving around and kind of putting it all together, you know.
• 1:24:58
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, have you have you come up with like a process to do that now?
• 1:25:01
  SPEAKER_02: Or is it just I just start if if I'm walking up to the front of the house, I'm looking at you know, let's say it's just a two-story, you know, whatever like we have in our district, two-story, I'm looking at first floor first, and then I move up to the top, and then try to where's the smoke coming from in that one, or what uh where are my obstacles?
• 1:25:16
  SPEAKER_02: What do I have?
• 1:25:17
  SPEAKER_02: And then if I can make it down the side, our buildings are really stacked next to each other most times.
• 1:25:22
  SPEAKER_02: So if I can make it down through the side, then try to get as much as I can of that, kind of breaking it apart first floor, second floor, seeing what I'm looking at, just compartmentalize things a little bit better.
• 1:25:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's it it's helped me.
• 1:25:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm also not all there, so obviously.
• 1:25:38
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I mean, yeah.
• 1:25:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, all joking aside though, I mean that's but that's what a valuable lesson you learned on the McCormick call.
• 1:25:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that that keeps me still moving, but now I have a process of how I'm gonna learn each piece of this and put it all together in the end.
• 1:25:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, is really what it is.
• 1:25:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's a a little stop for me to slow myself down in a s in a sense, really.
• 1:26:03
  SPEAKER_04: That's honestly that's when we work best, is when we slow down.
• 1:26:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:26:06
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's like Andrew Fredericks used to say like you know, a trash man doesn't turn in the corner and see a trash can and get all amped up and can't focus on his job.
• 1:26:14
  SPEAKER_04: Well that's really how we should be on the fire ground, you know.
• 1:26:17
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 1:26:18
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 1:26:19
  SPEAKER_02: But that was I would say that's the biggest one that came out of Rescue Nine that we learned from.
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_02: That was pretty, pretty wild and a learning experience but very proud, hope and never have to do it again.
• 1:26:28
  SPEAKER_02: But we were called to come do a job and we showed up and did it.
• 1:26:32
  SPEAKER_02: We executed absolutely to our very best abilities, and we had drilled on that stuff, and so yeah, you know, that you bring up something that's uh that's something I think we we miss a lot of stuff.
• 1:26:44
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not saying everybody does, but I think at least in my personal experience, something we miss on a lot is uh when we are training, even on on writ stuff, is we go in, grab the firefighter, and drag them out.
• 1:26:54
  SPEAKER_04: But how often do we actually drag or do we perform the drill and actually have complications when we get to them?
• 1:27:01
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 1:27:01
  SPEAKER_04: And that's something I hit on.
• 1:27:03
  SPEAKER_04: I actually got it from I can't remember the name of the book, and I apologize to everybody, uh book about rescue two.
• 1:27:08
  SPEAKER_04: About that's one of the things they start with was a collapse, the collapse to kill the firefighter, and they had to get airbags to free them and all that stuff.
• 1:27:16
  SPEAKER_04: So I actually did that drill with my company.
• 1:27:19
  SPEAKER_04: We did it as a last scenario, but in last, like when we teach a lot of times, we just go in there, grab them, drag them, do the drill, come back out.
• 1:27:26
  SPEAKER_04: Well, this one I had put a collapse on and made them actually set up airbags and stuff blinded.
• 1:27:31
  SPEAKER_04: And we get so many lessons we learned from that.
• 1:27:34
  SPEAKER_04: Like when you go in, if you're going in that situation, you gotta get detailed enough to where you're thinking, okay, the high pressure if you're running multiple bags, high pressure bags.
• 1:27:41
  SPEAKER_04: What's the button?
• 1:27:42
  SPEAKER_04: You know, yeah.
• 1:27:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, this is gonna be the blue hose, it's gonna be the bottom bag, it's gonna be the bigger bag, you know, the other one's gonna go.
• 1:27:48
  SPEAKER_04: You had to think about that stuff, and those were just lessons we learned from.
• 1:27:50
  SPEAKER_02: But that's because they don't reach very far.
• 1:27:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but that's the thing that I think we miss when we when we train in search and and writ it's just.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_04: It just those okay, it's not gonna be bread and butter training drill when you get inside there.
• 1:28:05
  SPEAKER_04: Not all the time anyway.
• 1:28:06
  SPEAKER_02: But I think we should complicate things up, and that's what Chad did that.
• 1:28:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like on nines, like, okay, great, you guys did this, but now let's do it this way.
• 1:28:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, or now we're gonna now let's put the Chad factor in it.
• 1:28:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:28:17
  SPEAKER_02: The midnight, the night before where you got crazy.
• 1:28:20
  SPEAKER_02: But that I mean it helps for sure.
• 1:28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:28:23
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 1:28:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then they did that too, you know, getting to that point where that's where it all came together, you know, down there too, where got short of uh what the you know uh finding the stairs, you know, that I get the other people had already found them, so it wasn't that it was just a mess up on my end, but I was getting stuff ready on the top end if that's the route we decided to go, you know.
• 1:28:45
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah.
• 1:28:47
  SPEAKER_02: It was interesting though.
• 1:28:48
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, again, valuable lessons learned and all that stuff.
• 1:28:52
  SPEAKER_04: Um okay, so rescue nine, you were there uh not not as long as most of the crew was, but you had a definitely a big influence on that um with that crew and came out of there in a pretty good spot.
• 1:29:04
  SPEAKER_04: Um let's talk about uh what got you out of rescue nine.
• 1:29:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so we um chief came to us and uh a chief was dropping some paperwork off and kind of gotten me and the other driver, Matt Tutor's rear end about not studying for the test.
• 1:29:19
  SPEAKER_02: So then we're like, oh, okay, yeah, sure, we'll go study.
• 1:29:22
  SPEAKER_02: And and then we kind of got really chewed on it that we need to be actually paying attention and actually trying.
• 1:29:28
  SPEAKER_02: So then we uh as a station, anybody who could get promoted, we're all out there studying together in the training room there.
• 1:29:35
  SPEAKER_04: Which I want to stop you right there because I think that's a lot something that a lot of guys don't realize is when you have a chief officer or most of the time any officer, um, and they come to you directly telling you you need to test, you need to look at that as the the the highest compliment they can give you.
• 1:29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:29:52
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I mean I don't I don't think most guys are gonna do that and blow smoke.
• 1:29:56
  SPEAKER_04: Uh they're not even gonna uh they're probably not gonna engage that conversation with you if they don't think that you have something to offer.
• 1:30:01
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:30:02
  SPEAKER_02: That yeah, and and the answer I gave them too is like, well, I'm I'm having fun here.
• 1:30:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm I'm feel like I'm still kind of learning this job, you know.
• 1:30:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we you've learned it enough.
• 1:30:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's time for you to move on.
• 1:30:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's pretty much how we put it, you know.
• 1:30:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so anyway, we started studying, and and they at that station there was quite a few guys that the the way we do our promotions, it's um the chief and captains are at the same time, and then at that time we didn't have a driver's, but then now we have the drivers in the off-year, and it's a two-year list.
• 1:30:31
  SPEAKER_02: So we had multiple, what, three guys testing for battalion chief, and then four or five testing for captain or something like that at the time, four probably.
• 1:30:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we all studied together, and then um guys would come up with the scenarios from what they can remember from prior tests and stuff like that, or just real life scenarios that have happened, you know, in the district, whether it's personnel or you know, fire type stuff, um, or emergency call, I should say.
• 1:31:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they would make those scenarios every night after dinner, and you didn't have to be there, nobody pressured you to do it.
• 1:31:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's a whether you wanted to or not, but we would stay there till you know dinner got over at 6 30, 6 45 by the time you're done cleaning, and we wouldn't get out of there until 9, 10 o'clock at night, you know, and that was all on our own time.
• 1:31:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um me and Tudor studied really hard, and then we worked kind of on our days off um a little bit with ideas and running through scenarios together.
• 1:31:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um when that was all said and done and the test came out.
• 1:31:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um Matt Black, which is uh one of the original owners of O'Burn and um Chad's brother, he came out like number two or three.
• 1:31:40
  SPEAKER_02: I th I want to say it was three on the list for the battalion chief.
• 1:31:43
  SPEAKER_02: So he was gone.
• 1:31:44
  SPEAKER_02: The pumper captain came out high, so he was gone really quick.
• 1:31:48
  SPEAKER_02: Chad was on the list, and then he um he was gonna be gone too.
• 1:31:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um I came out number six, I think it was number six on the list for Captain Tudor was like twelve, and Paul was on there, and the driver, uh, the pumper driver was number five, so one ahead of me.
• 1:32:07
  SPEAKER_02: So, like really quick, everybody at that station on that shift was wiped out.
• 1:32:12
  SPEAKER_02: And that was there was a lot of experience that just walked out the door, you know.
• 1:32:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not saying that was me by any stretch of the means, but everybody else who was there and they left, like it was oh crap, like they just wiped out a whole station, you know.
• 1:32:24
  SPEAKER_04: And I respect your humility, but uh a lot of experience when you just got done talking about the experience you had.
• 1:32:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, but I mean that the the experience in the station, I guess is how I would put it.
• 1:32:35
  SPEAKER_02: Those guys were there for quite a while, and yeah, and those guys were gone, you know.
• 1:32:38
  SPEAKER_02: And luckily I was on the front end of that, and I was one of the first ones to go.
• 1:32:42
  SPEAKER_02: It was obviously I think Matt went first and then the driver on the pumper, and then I left.
• 1:32:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then so everybody else, I didn't have to leave all my buddies, or I didn't have to stay in there while all my buddies left, which was I laugh about it to those guys.
• 1:32:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you should have done better, I guess.
• 1:32:54
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 1:32:55
  SPEAKER_02: Sucks for you, you know.
• 1:32:57
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, but that worked out.
• 1:32:58
  SPEAKER_02: So from there, then I went to uh I floated uh 102, which is uh battalion downtown, and um spent a lot of time in the Chiefs buggy, which was different.
• 1:33:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh never worked in that thing before, and then all of a sudden they're like, Oh, congratulations, good work.
• 1:33:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was pretty cool.
• 1:33:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's a safety, right?
• 1:33:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:33:18
  SPEAKER_02: DSO's what you're doing safety officer, yeah.
• 1:33:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um the battalion chief's eyes, pretty much, is what it is, which is totally different down there, how they operate versus like how 105 or 104 operates.
• 1:33:29
  SPEAKER_02: Those guys go into the buildings and stuff where 102's DSO stays with the chief and he's the note taker and then runs another radio and you know, staging or whatever, you know, it's stuff like that.
• 1:33:39
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a totally different element.
• 1:33:41
  SPEAKER_02: They have a lot of higher eyes there, though.
• 1:33:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 1:33:44
  SPEAKER_02: So it's pretty cool, like just learning a whole new job, you know, down there.
• 1:33:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then I did that for about nine months and then um and then got my permanent spot, which was way up north at 44s, and you take a bump.
• 1:33:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I was there for like a pay period, and then went down to Pumper Six, which uh just north of the river, so just outside of all the bad stuff, and they didn't do much, but you're right there in case it did.
• 1:34:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I always told myself.
• 1:34:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but it never three calls was a busy day.
• 1:34:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but you got a lot of training in.
• 1:34:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that was cool.
• 1:34:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'd never worked on a pumper.
• 1:34:17
  SPEAKER_04: I was gonna say, we just talked about how you you the all that experience that you had, none of it was on a pumper.
• 1:34:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but yeah, you were still a big part of changing a lot of things with with TCFD.
• 1:34:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:34:29
  SPEAKER_02: Whether people like it.
• 1:34:30
  SPEAKER_02: You were a part of it, whether people like it or not, yeah.
• 1:34:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, I never worked on a pumper, so like, hey, I can show you how to do all the truck and rescue stuff, but can this two-year guy show me how to you know what you know about the pumper?
• 1:34:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm learning from scratch.
• 1:34:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a new kid in a sense.
• 1:34:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I went and took some classes and stuff, and it really uh we got that everybody loves target solutions.
• 1:34:51
  SPEAKER_04: A lot of phone calls, a lot of phone calls.
• 1:34:53
  SPEAKER_02: Me and you talked a lot during that time, man.
• 1:34:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but and getting in with some of the guys that by just by happenstance, that was crazy too.
• 1:35:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but learning uh taking classes and learning actual pumper work.
• 1:35:05
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know it, you know.
• 1:35:07
  SPEAKER_02: And well, one of my pet peeves too was like you could walk up to, and this came back to when I was on a truck, too.
• 1:35:12
  SPEAKER_02: You got a heavily, heavily involved large building or you know, whatever, large house, whatever it is, and then guys would pull like inch or three quarters off.
• 1:35:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like, well, there's bigger water, there's another option, you know.
• 1:35:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was my big takeaway.
• 1:35:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like, let's figure out let's make this work for all of us.
• 1:35:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I got a bunch of young guys, was so fortunate that the driver who was there had like 27 years on, but there was no quit in that guy.
• 1:35:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like, he would drill all day long if that's what I wanted to go do, and he'd be happy to do it.
• 1:35:42
  SPEAKER_02: It was so cool to have him around.
• 1:35:44
  SPEAKER_02: So get into learning like why water flow and what to use and this and that, and so ruffled some feathers there, and I was running a smooth bore, a rescue.
• 1:35:55
  SPEAKER_02: Why do all these rescue guys and truck guys want to run smooth bores on pumpers?
• 1:35:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, well, the data shows that it works.
• 1:36:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't know.
• 1:36:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that sounds like a great Witch One Wednesday.
• 1:36:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I'm sure we'll get some feedback on that.
• 1:36:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, I can't wait for that.
• 1:36:11
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, but I got into target solutions and started watching UL studies and stuff.
• 1:36:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, well, this just makes sense, you know, and then looking at how the pump works.
• 1:36:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I went in and took the did you know that you can get on there and go look at the Waterus website and it has a four-hour like video on how it all works.
• 1:36:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like that.
• 1:36:28
  SPEAKER_02: I watched all that stuff.
• 1:36:29
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was pretty cool.
• 1:36:31
  SPEAKER_04: We actually have a dissect, well, we had uh, I don't know if we still don't know a dissected pump that was basically cut in half.
• 1:36:36
  SPEAKER_04: They were making it really went and go through it yeah, it was pretty cool.
• 1:36:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was it was neat.
• 1:36:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that was fun uh going through that.
• 1:36:43
  SPEAKER_02: So and I wasn't there for very long, but um we had a uh believe it or not, we had quite a bit of fire while I was there, like first in fire, and so it was pretty cool.
• 1:36:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:36:52
  SPEAKER_04: So you've you finally got to learn how to be a fireman.
• 1:36:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:36:57
  SPEAKER_02: Since yes, yeah, yeah.
• 1:36:59
  SPEAKER_02: It was I will say that it was fun being on the handline though.
• 1:37:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was a good time.
• 1:37:03
  SPEAKER_02: But doing uh that's when we figured out that the hose that we had wasn't very good and and kind of going down that rabbit hole.
• 1:37:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, the good getting first in fire with your with what you're learning and getting to to put it into use when in a spot that that doesn't normally happen at.
• 1:37:19
  SPEAKER_02: That was I was extremely fortunate with that.
• 1:37:22
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, and the weird thing about it is is now like a lot of the I mean the evidence is proof is in the pudding to my eyes, like now it's kind of come into a almost a mix between the the automatic and and smooth board when you look at the hen.
• 1:37:36
  SPEAKER_04: It's just a matter of making a fan blade.
• 1:37:38
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that thing's showing good results.
• 1:37:39
  SPEAKER_04: I mean it's pretty cool, it's it is cool, but yeah, we'll leave that for uh Witch One Wednesday.
• 1:37:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, yeah, I'll have to grab that.
• 1:37:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:37:49
  SPEAKER_04: Alright, so after that, after bumper six.
• 1:37:53
  SPEAKER_02: So I got a well during that is when uh I started complaining about the hose.
• 1:37:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that's right.
• 1:38:00
  SPEAKER_02: So we used uh, and there's nothing wrong with it, but uh it was key Big Ten.
• 1:38:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I just I remember calling you, I'm like, man, this stuff just sucks.
• 1:38:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's kinking real bad.
• 1:38:12
  SPEAKER_02: It kind of it's weird, you know, how it's at Reactant and stuff.
• 1:38:14
  SPEAKER_02: And we're on um, I'm on tech support, which it picks out all the equipment at Kansas City.
• 1:38:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then for everybody at Kansas City, I did not make the decision.
• 1:38:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I just too told them what I was doing.
• 1:38:25
  SPEAKER_02: I I was complaining about it, and and it Matt Tudor, who's the chair of that, kind of dropped at my lap and was like, well, then go start a study with it.
• 1:38:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so I started calling around a bunch of a bunch of very knowledgeable pumper guys and was like, hey, what do you think?
• 1:38:38
  SPEAKER_02: You want to help do this?
• 1:38:40
  SPEAKER_02: And and there was um guys that uh were all in, and then there's guys that uh, yeah, I'll help, and then would show up sometimes, and then there was guys that never heard from again, you know, and that's that's fine, like whatever.
• 1:38:53
  SPEAKER_02: Any job, yeah, yeah, a hundred percent.
• 1:38:56
  SPEAKER_02: So um anyway, started that whole thing.
• 1:38:59
  SPEAKER_02: It was like a two and a half year process, and we bought a couple pieces of hose and um yeah, and and uh nozzles, and kind of completely changed everything that Kansas City has on the rigs and the end result.
• 1:39:11
  SPEAKER_04: So not bad for a guy on a pumper for less than a cup of coffee.
• 1:39:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:39:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying it was all you, I'm just gonna go.
• 1:39:18
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, it wasn't me.
• 1:39:19
  SPEAKER_02: I was just the guy facilitating the whole process.
• 1:39:22
  SPEAKER_02: But in that process, you know, became friends with uh uh Dennis Legier and uh stuff like that, like it's just the amount of people I learned.
• 1:39:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Ray McCormick, like I can I called him about the hen stuff, and he brought me to a couple things um uh down in Oklahoma and and did live burns with it and stuff, and that was pretty cool.
• 1:39:42
  SPEAKER_02: We run the hen nozzle on all the booster lines now.
• 1:39:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's some love-hate with it, but then there's guys who really have you know kind of adapted to it and know what it can do and love it, and then there's the guys that just cannot stand it because it's something new.
• 1:39:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's change.
• 1:39:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's a hundred percent.
• 1:39:57
  SPEAKER_02: What's the same?
• 1:39:58
  SPEAKER_02: A hundred percent, you know.
• 1:39:59
  SPEAKER_02: But like you were saying, too, between the combination and smooth bore, you start looking at some of the videos or pictures, and you'll see you see a lot more of them coming off the rig now.
• 1:40:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I was uh the smooth bores.
• 1:40:10
  SPEAKER_04: It was brand new when it came out, yeah.
• 1:40:11
  SPEAKER_04: It was brand new when the hen came out, and you sent me that video when you went to Oklahoma, and I was like, holy cow, you know.
• 1:40:18
  SPEAKER_02: Just to be on the line doing it was just insane.
• 1:40:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:40:21
  SPEAKER_02: But like on our job, we're uh smooth boars are bad, and like you look at the pictures now, and there's there's more of them coming off like anymore, so it's kind of it's funny to me.
• 1:40:34
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, I stayed there for about six months and then uh there was a spot coming open on rescue one C shift, and so I'd never worked on C shift before, so uh whatever.
• 1:40:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'd love to get back to the rescue.
• 1:40:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I bid that and uh ended up getting it, shockingly.
• 1:40:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh had hardly any time as a uh as a captain and then be able to land rescue one.
• 1:40:56
  SPEAKER_02: So that was pretty cool.
• 1:40:58
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but but but to be fair, I mean you rode out as a captain a lot on rescue nine.
• 1:41:04
  SPEAKER_04: You were on the rescues for at this point several years.
• 1:41:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, probably every bit of six, yeah, which it was kind of my guess.
• 1:41:11
  SPEAKER_04: So it's not like you were a brand new captain that never been in the rescue division and came in and took the spot.
• 1:41:16
  SPEAKER_04: So you you you definitely had a a foot ahead of a lot of people in that regard.
• 1:41:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think there were some guys who did me a favor and didn't bid it that might have wanted it, you know, and kind of let me come back.
• 1:41:28
  SPEAKER_02: And um at the way it is now, if you're gone for two years, there was no certified eligibles like there are now.
• 1:41:34
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're gone for two years, you've got to take everything again.
• 1:41:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I'd even said, like, if I don't make it in that two years, I don't know that I want to go through all of it again.
• 1:41:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'll just it is what it is, and I'll write up my career somewhere else, you know.
• 1:41:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but it it landed, it worked out, and I ended up going back there and uh yeah, that'd be like three years now.
• 1:41:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think I've been there.
• 1:41:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and you've you've had some pretty good calls since you've been down there.
• 1:41:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um quite a few actually.
• 1:41:58
  SPEAKER_04: The window washer one was a good one, if you want to talk about that for a minute.
• 1:42:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:42:02
  SPEAKER_02: The I was breaking in uh well, we had a it was the first day for one of my guys.
• 1:42:07
  SPEAKER_02: He just just got the spot, and I was doing my expectations introduction, you know, to the crew whenever uh call dropped for uh window washer stuck on the side of uh one Kansas City Place, which is uh the tallest building in the city.
• 1:42:21
  SPEAKER_02: And stuck between like the what they thought was like the 28th floor or something like that.
• 1:42:25
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember exactly the deal, but we turned on to Main Street and look, and it's like, yeah, there's a couple guys hanging there.
• 1:42:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so we got there and um and the guy was something had happened to his rope, and he was he couldn't reach his um uh descending device, is pretty much what it was.
• 1:42:40
  SPEAKER_02: So he was just stuck where he was at.
• 1:42:42
  SPEAKER_02: And um he was on a safety line, and I don't know if it was broke off of that.
• 1:42:46
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember.
• 1:42:47
  SPEAKER_02: He either way, he couldn't he couldn't rescue himself.
• 1:42:50
  SPEAKER_02: So get on scene and you know, set up everything, and only one other rescue was coming with us.
• 1:42:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think there was a training going on or something, so some guys were hung up doing something else.
• 1:43:00
  SPEAKER_02: But so went in and went to talk to figure out what was going on, and the security guard actually could get his partner, the window washer's partner on the phone, who's sitting right next to him on the side of the building.
• 1:43:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I call him and uh sure enough he answers and he's like, Yeah, we're stuck.
• 1:43:14
  SPEAKER_02: We need to come get need to get rescued, you know.
• 1:43:17
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, All right, just sit tight and we'll be there shortly, you know.
• 1:43:21
  SPEAKER_02: So the first thing I could think of was trying to get because of working down there with Donnie and doing ropes so much, like I kind of like the anchors are gonna be a problem, so get the guys started.
• 1:43:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I sent security and my crew up to go find some anchors and get their way down to him and at least secure him in some way.
• 1:43:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh meanwhile, 31s came in.
• 1:43:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Chad happens to walk in at the same time, who's uh the safety for the entire city on that shift.
• 1:43:46
  SPEAKER_02: So he comes in, I give him kind of the rundown of what's going on.
• 1:43:49
  SPEAKER_02: He said, I'm gonna go ahead and shut everything else down outside, and then I'll take care of what's going on outside.
• 1:43:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'll be your you know, liaison type thing.
• 1:43:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so we start working through everything, and at some point I see um Santa Fe Glass guys walking past me in the lobby, and I snagged him.
• 1:44:04
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, hey, you guys aren't like Santa Fe glass, right?
• 1:44:08
  SPEAKER_02: Just the Santa Fe on the on the shirt.
• 1:44:10
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, Yeah, like can you pull a piece of glass for me?
• 1:44:13
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, Yeah, we're at what do you need?
• 1:44:15
  SPEAKER_02: Let me go grab my stuff.
• 1:44:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, come back here and meet me and we'll talk.
• 1:44:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so they go out and grab their stuff, and I'll Chad comes walking in at that point.
• 1:44:23
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, You're not gonna believe this shit.
• 1:44:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like, Santa Fe glass is here, they're gonna pull some glass, we'll just pull them through the window.
• 1:44:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so they went up with security with 31s, and then they ended up pulling the glass there, a floor above, so he was on 20, it was between 24 and 25, and so they pulled the 25th floor and then pulled him up out of that.
• 1:44:41
  SPEAKER_04: Did they have to hook up and everything?
• 1:44:43
  SPEAKER_04: The transfer line turns.
• 1:44:44
  SPEAKER_02: They pulled the glass, it's on drone footage and everything.
• 1:44:48
  SPEAKER_02: As they pulled the glass, um, the carabiner drops right to the guy from my guys on the roof.
• 1:44:53
  SPEAKER_02: So they were securing him at that point.
• 1:44:55
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
• 1:44:55
  SPEAKER_02: So it was super cool.
• 1:44:56
  SPEAKER_02: So it was like a tie, you know, of what was gonna happen.
• 1:44:59
  SPEAKER_02: But at least they had him secured up there, everything was good.
• 1:45:01
  SPEAKER_02: And luckily, it's a rope guy.
• 1:45:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the window washer is a rope dude, so he knows what he's doing.
• 1:45:06
  SPEAKER_02: He clipped himself on and the whole bit, and he was good to go.
• 1:45:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was super cool.
• 1:45:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then uh yeah, they pulled him through the window, and that was that was that.
• 1:45:15
  SPEAKER_02: He was good to go.
• 1:45:16
  SPEAKER_02: And you you guys uh there was multiple like company awards out of that, right?
• 1:45:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we got which is cool.
• 1:45:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like a prestigious uh uh company excellence award, pretty much.
• 1:45:30
  SPEAKER_02: It was uh a big award for the company, so it's just kind of a blanket deal.
• 1:45:34
  SPEAKER_02: In that year, too.
• 1:45:35
  SPEAKER_02: They uh there was like two or three rescues that we had made out of working house fires that year.
• 1:45:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean the the laundry list of stuff that got put in that year, they're just like just take this one.
• 1:45:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, it's kind of how it went down.
• 1:45:47
  SPEAKER_02: So um that was a big call.
• 1:45:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then we back it up the following year um with uh the confined space rescue.
• 1:45:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that was the uh uh a gal had watched a movie and climbed 590 feet into a tunnel underneath a Mayor Star casino, and then one of my guys crawled in and and got her out.
• 1:46:08
  SPEAKER_02: So that one will be the next award, I'm sure, that'll come out of that one.
• 1:46:12
  SPEAKER_02: But it it's just for him, thank goodness.
• 1:46:14
  SPEAKER_02: But well, I'll be there to support him.
• 1:46:17
  SPEAKER_04: So you talked about the the confined space cold.
• 1:46:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:46:20
  SPEAKER_04: Got her out.
• 1:46:21
  SPEAKER_04: She's way up in there.
• 1:46:23
  SPEAKER_02: Was it method or something?
• 1:46:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there was something.
• 1:46:25
  SPEAKER_02: She'd gotten trespassed off the build off the property or something.
• 1:46:28
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what it was.
• 1:46:29
  SPEAKER_02: But we've just had a bunch of uh we've had a bunch of the um bunch of vacant buildings and just been super busy firewise in that aspect of it, you know.
• 1:46:38
  SPEAKER_02: So getting every and and we've had some turnover too.
• 1:46:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um and not it's just guys got promoted and and then left and it just it is what it is, or moved on to a different rescue or something.
• 1:46:49
  SPEAKER_02: So then getting those guys kind of trained up too.
• 1:46:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I've been busy, you know, getting all that put together and getting everybody back to a cohesive group, which we definitely are for sure now.
• 1:46:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean not that we weren't before, but it's all coming together, which is really nice.
• 1:47:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, which I think that's common for any uh captain moving in a new spot, and you're gonna have some fluctuation, whether it's your fault or not.
• 1:47:11
  SPEAKER_04: Right, yeah.
• 1:47:11
  SPEAKER_04: Um just things happen.
• 1:47:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:47:15
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah, so you you're still gonna you're still at rescue nine, you're gonna test for BC?
• 1:47:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm at rescue one now.
• 1:47:20
  SPEAKER_02: Or I'm sorry.
• 1:47:21
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 1:47:22
  SPEAKER_02: I do have my paperwork in for it.
• 1:47:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um I've been studying like all the rules and regs and uh gags and gogs and getting that stuff.
• 1:47:30
  SPEAKER_02: I ordered some of the books.
• 1:47:31
  SPEAKER_02: Don't know how serious I'm gonna get with it, but uh I am studying.
• 1:47:35
  SPEAKER_04: So you need to get real serious with it.
• 1:47:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:47:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, well, we'll see.
• 1:47:41
  SPEAKER_04: Some advice, I guess, from from some friends.
• 1:47:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:47:44
  SPEAKER_04: Um okay, so the other thing we haven't really hit on was uh your kind of new got on with uh Missouri Task Force One.
• 1:47:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you've been busy with that since you got on.
• 1:47:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, there was the you know the training aspect of it, and and then there was a lull, you know, for quite a while, and then yeah, just recently it's it picked up.
• 1:48:03
  SPEAKER_02: We've had some deployments, so we got to go out the door.
• 1:48:06
  SPEAKER_02: But um, it's new.
• 1:48:08
  SPEAKER_02: Learning how to get all that stuff going.
• 1:48:09
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I did get asked to go teach some like intro to tech, and they were just trying to try me out for teaching.
• 1:48:16
  SPEAKER_02: And luckily we teach it here in Kansas City, so that was it was pretty easy.
• 1:48:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm teaching it with another KCK guy who I teach with.
• 1:48:23
  SPEAKER_02: So getting kind of tied into that, and um, it's been a learning experience there that it's not the fire department, it's full-on search and rescue, so it's just a different mentality of how they do things.
• 1:48:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and a lot of people that may not know, I don't know.
• 1:48:37
  SPEAKER_04: I'd assume most people know, but the difference between like uh FEMA versus like SEMA teams is Task Force One is a FEMA team, so the response is international.
• 1:48:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it could be could be, yeah.
• 1:48:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, some of our guys have like they'll do the mission ready packages of like the dogs or the search group or a search element or whatever, and they'll send them to you know the Philippines or whatever.
• 1:48:59
  SPEAKER_04: They've got like the FEMA teams or the regional teams, correct, which like CJC, Kansas City, KCK, Olatha are all part of a regional package.
• 1:49:08
  SPEAKER_04: They kind of run maybe the by-state area of yeah, really honestly, mostly just Missouri.
• 1:49:13
  SPEAKER_04: Uh yeah.
• 1:49:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we did go down to Houston.
• 1:49:15
  SPEAKER_02: That was oh, that's right, yeah.
• 1:49:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but that's that's kind of I think that's kind of rarity.
• 1:49:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's gonna take a lot to make that.
• 1:49:22
  SPEAKER_04: We've done the Clinton class, we've done the the uh Joplin Tornadoes, stuff like that.
• 1:49:26
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah, it's more of a but now you're on the the big boy stage.
• 1:49:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, kinda, yeah.
• 1:49:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's been different.
• 1:49:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's super cool to be a part of it and definitely learning my way through that and uh we'll see how it goes.
• 1:49:40
  SPEAKER_02: I went down to Texas, uh well, went to Southeast Missouri for the floods, um beginning of July.
• 1:49:48
  SPEAKER_02: Pretty much the month of July, I wasn't at work.
• 1:49:51
  SPEAKER_02: I was off doing that stuff.
• 1:49:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then went down and spent uh ten, twelve days, ten to fourteen days down in uh um way south Texas.
• 1:49:59
  SPEAKER_02: So That was super cool.
• 1:50:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like getting to deploy and see how it all comes together.
• 1:50:04
  SPEAKER_02: That was pretty neat.
• 1:50:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:50:06
  SPEAKER_04: I mean all the stuff we talk about for years and getting to see how it all works.
• 1:50:09
  SPEAKER_02: The big picture, the thing that you can do some work.
• 1:50:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like that was a lot of time.
• 1:50:14
  SPEAKER_02: You hear the horror stories where you just sit around for these days, you know.
• 1:50:17
  SPEAKER_02: But I actually got to do something.
• 1:50:18
  SPEAKER_02: That was pretty cool.
• 1:50:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:50:20
  SPEAKER_02: So see what works, what doesn't work in your in your bag of tricks that you have to carry with you.
• 1:50:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like, well, that was stupid.
• 1:50:26
  SPEAKER_02: I don't need that stuff in my bag.
• 1:50:27
  SPEAKER_02: It just added weight, and you know, I I cleaned a lot of stuff out.
• 1:50:32
  SPEAKER_02: So but yeah, that was pretty fun.
• 1:50:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's uh only been like two and a half years or something like that now.
• 1:50:37
  SPEAKER_02: So or a year and a half, something I can't remember.
• 1:50:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah.
• 1:50:42
  SPEAKER_04: Right on.
• 1:50:43
  SPEAKER_04: Um anything else you want to hit on?
• 1:50:46
  SPEAKER_01: Not that I can think of, really.
• 1:50:48
  SPEAKER_01: Not a whole lot.
• 1:50:50
  SPEAKER_01: We hit a lot.
• 1:50:51
  SPEAKER_04: We did, we did, we pretty much.
• 1:50:52
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, there's plenty of things that you and I talk about all the time, but maybe we'll save for another day.
• 1:50:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um what's one piece of advice or a tip that you give to anyone in the fire service?
• 1:51:09
  SPEAKER_02: I would there's gonna be people uh in my that I have found anyways.
• 1:51:13
  SPEAKER_02: There's there's haters out there, right?
• 1:51:15
  SPEAKER_02: And everything they hate.
• 1:51:16
  SPEAKER_02: If you try something new, you're an idiot.
• 1:51:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, why are you doing it this way or whatever?
• 1:51:20
  SPEAKER_02: Do what works for you.
• 1:51:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like this.
• 1:51:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 1:51:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh do what works for you.
• 1:51:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that i if the there might be a tactic or a make sure that it goes with your department rules and stuff like that.
• 1:51:32
  SPEAKER_02: Don't break any rules there.
• 1:51:33
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, if it comes down to what you're carrying on your what axe you're carrying or what hook you're using or what type of gear you're working with or or whatever, like make your own path.
• 1:51:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's okay.
• 1:51:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, learn learn at your pace and learn what you know how to optimize your abilities and be the best you can be, in my opinion.
• 1:51:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's there's always gonna be haters everywhere you go.
• 1:51:53
  SPEAKER_02: I've had plenty of them.
• 1:51:55
  SPEAKER_02: Probably I know I still do.
• 1:51:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that's fine.
• 1:51:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like that it it took a long time for me to realize that I don't care what those people think per se, that doesn't make who I am.
• 1:52:04
  SPEAKER_02: So they have their own vision of you, and that's fine.
• 1:52:09
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever.
• 1:52:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's fine.
• 1:52:10
  SPEAKER_02: Just do your own thing.
• 1:52:10
  SPEAKER_04: You just gotta know in your own heart and mind that you're doing it for the right reasons.
• 1:52:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:52:17
  SPEAKER_04: And I would I would venture to say most haters and we say haters, um I think most of us have the same goal.
• 1:52:27
  SPEAKER_04: We just have different approaches to getting there, and some people can't realize that.
• 1:52:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they don't like your approach too.
• 1:52:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's that's kind of what I've seen too.
• 1:52:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um i it you know, I I've got a a bunch of like little pet peeves, I'm sure, but just be engaged in your job.
• 1:52:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's what I wish I could anybody even new getting into it.
• 1:52:49
  SPEAKER_02: If you're it's okay if this isn't for you, just to be man enough to m admit it.
• 1:52:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's not for me, you know, I'll go find something else, but don't waste people's time.
• 1:52:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like go do be involved in it.
• 1:53:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, every other profession, you are expected to be involved in something.
• 1:53:03
  SPEAKER_04: Go be you.
• 1:53:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:53:05
  SPEAKER_02: Go be you and get it done.
• 1:53:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like be the best you can be at that job or that field or whatever it is.
• 1:53:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:53:11
  SPEAKER_04: So well, Brian, we've uh we've been at it for quite a while now, especially since the since you screwed up the first round of the interview.
• 1:53:20
  SPEAKER_04: I just want to thank you for coming out today, last time, and the attempted time before that.
• 1:53:27
  SPEAKER_04: Uh but no, all jokes aside, man, I appreciate you being here and opening up and talking about some things that uh I know personally affected you and your life and all that stuff, but I just want you to know that all that stuff man of all good cause.
• 1:53:41
  SPEAKER_04: You're you're a good man, you've done wonderful things you're careering with your family and stuff like that.
• 1:53:47
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks for coming out.
• 1:53:48
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 1:53:48
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you for having me.
• 1:53:50
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 1:53:51
  SPEAKER_04: And to the viewers, I just want to say uh thanks for watching.
• 1:53:55
  SPEAKER_04: Uh Roman is a lifeburm, um by Fireground Training, you can find us on all social media outlets, uh podcast outlets, uh, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, uh you name it will be on there.
• 1:54:08
  SPEAKER_04: Look forward to seeing in the future, and be sure to give us some comments, subscribe, let us know if you have any questions or is there anything else that you'd like to see in the just the tip Tuesdays, which one Wednesdays, whatever you may have, we'll try to get her in there.
• 1:54:20
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks.