I Wish You Could See

Author Unknown

I wish you could see the sadness of a business man as his livelihood goes up in flames, or the family returning home, only to find their house and belongings damaged or lost for good.

I wish you could know what it is like to search a burning bedroom for trapped children, flames rolling above your head, your palms and knees burning as you crawl, the floor sagging under your weight as the kitchen below you burns.

I wish you could comprehend a wife’s horror at 3 am as I check her husband of 40 years for a pulse and find none. I start CPR anyway, hoping to bring him back, knowing intuitively it is too late, but wanting his wife and family to know everything possible was done to try to save his life.

I wish you knew the unique smell of burning insulation, the taste of soot-filled mucus, the feeling of intense heat through you turnout gear, the sound of flames crackling, the eeriness of being able to see absolutely nothing in dense smoke…sensations I’ve become all too familiar with.

I wish you could understand how it feels to go to work in the morning after having spent most of the night hot and soaking wet at a multiple alarm fire.

I wish you could read my mind as I respond to a building fire…”Is this a false alarm or a working fire? How is the building constructed? What hazards await me? Is anyone trapped?”

Or to a medical call, “What is wrong with the patient? Is it minor or life-threatening? Is the caller really in distress or is he waiting for us with a 2 X 4 or a gun?”

I wish you could be in an emergency room as a doctor pronounces dead the beautiful 5 year old girl I’ve been trying to save these last 25 minutes. Who will never go on her first date or say the words, “I love you Mommy” again.

I wish you could know the frustration I feel in the cab of the engine, my arm tugging again and again at the air horn chain, as you fail to yield the right-of-way at an intersection or in traffic.

When you need us, however, your first comment upon our arrival will be “It took you forever to get here!”

I wish you could know my thoughts as I extricate a girl of teenage years from the remains of her automobile. “What if this were my sister, my girlfriend or a friend? What will her parents’ reaction be when they open the front door to find a police officer with his hat in his hand?”

I wish you could know how it feels to walk in the back door and greet my parents and family, not having the heart to tell them that I nearly did not come back from the last call.

I wish you could feel the hurt as people verbally and sometimes physically, abuse us or belittle what we do, or as they express their attitudes of “It will never happen to me.”

I wish you could realize the physical, emotional and mental drain or missed meals, lost sleep and foregone social activities in addition to all the tragedy my eyes have seen.

I wish you could know the brotherhood and self-satisfaction of helping to save a life or preserving someone’s property, or being able to be there in time of crisis, or creating order from total chaos.

I wish you could understand what it feels like to have a little boy tugging at your arm and asking “Is Mommy OK?” Not even being able to look him in the eyes without tears of your own and not knowing what to say.

Or to have to hold back a long time friend who watches his buddy having rescue breathing done on him as they take him away in the ambulance. You know all along he didn’t have his seatbelt on.

Unless you have lived this kind of life, you will never truly understand who I am, we are, or what our job means to us.

I wish you could though.