It is very dependent on what we are doing. I will have to admit, that when I am not on a call my stress level does not seem very high. I also do not envy being on the road for an entire 8 or 12 hour shift having to approach grumpy and possibly violent folks on a regular basis. Sure, we do our share of stressful stuff, but pulling over cars and not know who or what is inside waiting for your approach does not seem like a pleasant thing to deal with. In addition, take the violent OBS call. Before we go in to evaluate the pt. the cops go in to see what the hell is going and to secure the scene, right.
My answer, I guess, depends on the situations. Is that a cop out?
First I want to say both have stress
Why, firemen have the most Stress because a paid man is a sleep and the alarm goes off in the middle of the night they have to come up to 100 percent almost as fast as they get on there rig.
For a firemen, I really don't know how they can avoid it at night, but other times talk about what happen at
the scene don't hide it inside, talk
The reason that I posed the question was because as I was looking at some statistical data, I noticed that FIREFIGHTERS die of heart attacks from stress/over-exertion more than a 2 - 1 rate as cops.
And personally, I would have picked the cops until I saw the data.
Yes; both have stress, both exert physical tasks in the performance of their duties; yet, firefighters die from heart attacks at a higher rate.
That is why I asked "why".
TCSS.
Art
Firefighters...we can't shoot the SOB that pisses us off......LOL...I saw a definiton os stress that I really like...goes something like this...."STRESS...the uncontrollable urge to choke the living shit out of someone that desperately deserves it."
To the extent that there's any stress at all, it's stressful when we're NOT running calls. Sitting in the firehouse waiting for the dinner bells - hoping against hope my steak isn't being cooked to death - to ring. Absolutely nerve-racking!
I once had to eat a salad with no friggin bleu cheese dressing!