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Trying to start over is not very easy though and trying to make new friends in the process isn't very easy either.
Good luck in your search. We are rooting for you.
JJ
I retired last year after I tore my left knee up fighting an industrial fire and became an author. It’s a lot more mellow and safe. I have four novels published and am working on two more
You may have discussed this before, but I’m the new guy and would like to get to know all of you better. What do, or did you do for a living? I’ll start.
I was a firefighter/paramedic for over 24 years. I started out as a volunteer on a rural fire department. Rural volunteers are often looked down on by the “professionals” but we wore all of the hats. Fire departments are comprised of engine companies, ladder companies and apparatus engineers. Engine companies or “truckies” deploy the hoses and fight the fire. Ladder companies do the search and rescue for trapped victims and Apparatus engineers pump the water through all of the different hoses maintaining the volume and pressure needed. Friction loss builds up as more hose is deployed and they go up different stories.
It is very difficult for the ladder crew to tell the pumper what they need, you are wearing three layers of clothes and very thick gloves. Your mike is clipped to your collar, but you have a mask on supplying fresh air. You fumble for the mike, try to find the button, depress it and say, “This is hose team two, I need more pressure!” Meanwhile, you are crawling through pitch black. It is nothing like the movies. Visibility is zero, temperatures at the ceiling are around 1,800 degrees.
On the floor, where you are crawling blind looking for victims, it is around 300 degrees. You go by feel alone and your ears. At some point, all of the substances in the room are giving off flammable vapors and the entire room will ignite at once in what as known as a flashover. Right before this happens, your ears start burning through your Nomex hood and ear flaps. You follow the hose back out. If you are more than ten feet into the room, you aren’t going to make it.
Meanwhile, I was a paramedic making calls on gunshots, stabbings, car wrecks, child births, heart attack and other assorted calls. I retired last year after I tore my left knee up fighting an industrial fire and became an author. It’s a lot more mellow and safe. I have four novels published and am working on two more.
So, what do you do for a living?