The older guys tell stories of events that become continuous parts of their careers. There was a fire in the middle of the day. A mother was severely burned after multiple attempts to get to her eight-year-old son who was trapped on the third floor. Her hair was burnt off and she had second and third degree burns to her feet and hands from those attempts. She had to be restrained from entering the house again. While the rescue guys were tending to her injuries, a call went out over the radios that the child had been found. She left the rescue and saw her son rushed to another truck and then off to the trauma center. He did not survive. Understandably, the distraught mother was suffering. The loss was something she just could not process. She went into a spiral of depression and psychotic breaks that had the police and fire department at her residence sometimes on a weekly basis. She was placed on powerful medicines that took a toll on her daily existence. She had two younger children that, because of their mother's continuing struggle, were permanently taken from her and placed in the custody of the state.
On an afternoon earlier.this week, she approached our station. She can no longer drive, and so walked the four blocks to ask for help. Mentally, she was not in a good way and wanted to go the hospital. On the way, she told us her daughter had turned eighteen the day before. The two of them had lunch, and the mother told us how proud she was. But the next day everything came crashing back. At the hospital, it was busy and patients were stacking up on beds in the hallway. She sat in a chair at the ER and watched the activity while waiting to be treated. She told anyone who would listen about her daughter's upcoming transition to college. .
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AuthorTom Trabulsi was born in the Midwest, attended high school in Rhode Island, and graduated from Boston University with a degree in American History. He was a bike courier in Boston and New York City, worked construction in the mountain west and east coast, and is currently a firefighter in a northeast city. Archives
August 2022
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