Fireman’s Christmas goes off-track

It was Christmas Day, a few years into being a firefighter.

I had some seniority at the station, so I wasn’t scheduled to work that day. But, I had a co-worker who was scheduled ON.

After talking with her, I learned she had two young kids, that she was divorced (an issue for a lot of first responders), and that Christmas morning was really the only time she had to “do Christmas” with her children.

“I’ll work that morning,” I said. “Let them wake up, have a good Christmas, and then come in later on after you’re done.”

“You sure?”

“Yep. I’m going to my girlfriend’s family reunion that afternoon— and will meet everyone in her extended family there for the first time. I can work for you until lunch. Otherwise, I’ll probably just sleep in, anyway”

Just before it was time to change-over— for her to arrive and me to leave— a call came in. The primary call was to another station— we were the secondary. That meant the emergency overwhelmed their capacity.

The details came through—

•  Car wreck
•  One elderly woman DOA (turned out to be the grandmother)
•  One injured adult female (the mom)
•  Five young children ejected from the car (none of them injured any more than a scrape or bruise)

As I arrived on the scene I noticed a “firefighter” tag on the vehicle. That always hits a little different, and you start wondering if you recognize the vehicle and might know the driver or the family.

Turns out, we didn’t know any of the victims. The mom / driver was on the way to another family function, and that the vehicle was her soon-to-be ex-husband’s.

(Like I said earlier, divorce is an epidemic among first responders.)

There were a lot of guys working the scene.

•  One group placed the grandmother in a bodybag.
•  Another group tended to the mother.
•  A few of us helped the kids.

That was the hard part. The kids.

They were all OK physically, but we couldn’t give them any information. We couldn’t tell them their grandmother was dead, we couldn’t give them accurate info about their mother (other than telling them she was going to be OK— even though she had some serious injuries), and we couldn’t even keep them all together. We had the 5 of them spread out in groups of 2 and 3 in different ambulances.

It was a lot.

All that said, I was late getting back to the station. My girlfriend (now my wife of a few years) picked me up there with a change of clothes rather than me driving home to shower and then getting her like originally planned.

I remember meeting her family less than an hour later and just being “empty” and “hollow” the entire time.

I wasn’t rude— I don’t think— but I wasn’t as fully engaged as I would like to be, either. I knew I wasn’t myself.

That’s one of the hardest parts of the job. We’re expected to shift gears fast.

•  One moment you’re on the scene of an accident; the next you’re at a Little League game.
•  One moment you’re rushing fighting a fire; the next you’re sitting in a PTA meeting.
•  One moment you’re navigating people through a Christmas catastrophe; the next you’re celebrating with your family.

Shifts like that often feel abrupt and disorienting. You don’t get to fully process something, disengage, and then reengage with the next thing…

My wife and I still talk about it— and about how she had to let everyone know, “He’s not really like this. He had an extremely sensitive call just before coming…”

Thankfully, you do sometimes get a second chance to make a better first impression.