When the weakness of a firefighter is discovered, it is exploited by some for the entertainment of the rest. I was an exploiter. I worked with many unusual people myself counted in that statement.

Some had strange behaviors around the way they ate, slept, exercised, read, talked, you name it there was someone on the job with a different way of doing it, a way most would describe as not normal.

Here is another uniqueness…

Firefighters have to be cautious about how they show weakness in the fire house. I don’t mean physical weakness, although that will become self evident after awhile, I mean weakness of mind, body, or spirit.

Any weakness will be exploited by your co-workers as a tool for torment, entertainment, and sabotage. Firefighters will pry, dig, and investigate your defenses over and over until they find that “thing” that one little defect in your character…

“This is weird Tommy; the wound looks like it’s still fresh.”

Tommy joined me on the floor and gave it a look.

“You know what I think? I think the dog’s been licking this thing the whole time, you know trying to take care of his master.”

Made sense, I could just see the dog staying by his friend’s side and taking care of him.

“Makes sense to me Tommy. Look around the house and see if we can figure out what…

The guy must have been down for days, the report from dispatch asked us to check the welfare and that the reporting party hadn’t been able to get a hold of the patient for the past four days, and it looked like it had been a few days for sure.

There was a line of blood down every wall at almost the exact same height, around 2 to 2 ½ feet. I figured this was the height of the patient’s head when he was on his hands and…

We lined up like a SWAT team at the door; I was first in line and held a CO2 extinguisher like a gun. I thought if nothing else I could discharge the extinguisher and make a smoke screen effect to blind her.

Behind me was Tommy, and like me he had put on all his firefighting gear. We had on our big coats, gloves and helmets just in case she actually got a swing of the knife in, we might be protected a little. At the back of the stack was Pizza, and…