Real Fire Stories From Engine 7

By Charles Erlandson

This book is a series of incidents recalled at random from my twenty-seven-year career as a city of Austin's professional firefighter. I worked at many fire stations with many different crews. I started out at Station 8, and in less than three months I was transferred to Station 1, the Central Station, or headquarters. I worked there for seven years. While at Central Station, I worked relief at every station in the city. After serving seven years at Central Station, I was transferred to Station 7. For fifteen years I was there, it was the busiest station in the city. Most of the incidents come from seven's territory. I spent the remainder of my career at crash fire rescue, protecting lives and aircraft. Every day firefighters put their lives on the line. These stories are incidents that all firefighters experience all around the world. The stories are real and true; I lived them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644927564

Book preview

Preface

My fascination with firefighting began early in my life. I was in grade school, when on my way to school one day, a fire truck passed by. I ran as fast as I could behind the truck to see what was going on. When I got to the scene of the fire, the firemen had already made entry. They had broken a window and were passing a young victim out of the window. I watched with fascination the teamwork that they exhibited. From then on, I would follow the fire truck whenever I could.

When I reached the seventh grade, I got interested in gymnastics. The study of gymnastics gave me a lot of confidence that I could do anything that I set my mind to do. Since I could use my muscles to make my body do flips and twists, I had supreme confidence that I could play any sport or accomplish anything I set my mind to. This attitude later in life helped me survive both in Vietnam and later in the fire service. I believe in the old saying that to accomplish anything takes 90 percent inspiration and 10 percent perspiration. I always tried to work smarter, instead of harder.

I had a great childhood because of my family. Both my parents were not only handsome, but also very intelligent and hardworking people. If I could be half the man that my father was, I would say that my life had been a success. My mother was a nurse, with great compassion and skill. They were also a very religious pair. My mom played the piano in church, and my dad sang in the choir and also was the treasurer for the church since he was a trust investment banker. I have two sisters that are great ladies, with families. My little sister, Mary, for years was a missionary to Ecuador. My older sister, Nancy, is disabled and in a wheelchair. They both have great compassion and heart.

After I retired from the fire service I was telling my older sister fire stories, some of the incidents that I was involved in, just for her entertainment, because she doesn’t get out much. She remarked, You ought to write a book. This statement got me to thinking about the kind of book that I might write. I was in the fire service for twenty-seven years. I started out at Central Fire Station in Downtown Austin. Central was a great challenge because we had a lot of high-rise buildings, older buildings, about a thousand hydrants, and probably five hundred or so fire systems to learn.

Everyone thinks that fire is bright, but it isn’t. When you go into a burning building, it’s like being in a hot black pocket, and you have to do a lot by feel. It really helps to have inspected the building that is involved so that you can maneuver and find the fire-fighting systems, the fire escapes, and then locate the seat of the fire so that you can extinguish it. I spent seven years at central, and then I was transferred to Station 7, where I spent fifteen years. At that time, Station 7 was the busiest fire station in the city. We average over 1,500 runs, or incidents, every year. We laid more hose, fought more fire, and made more medical calls than any other station in town. This experience helped me to not only survive, but to thrive. Although every incident is different, experience is absolutely the best teacher when it comes to firefighting.

Also, while writing the book, I had a lot of different incidents to choose from to include in the book. I not only wanted to entertain, but also to inform, and maybe even inspire. Literally thousands and thousands of firefighters go to work every day and put their lives on the line for, not only just strangers, but also for their property as well. The professional as well as the volunteer firemen are all heroes in my estimation. I was just a guy who went to work and tried to make a living for my family and to do some good for my fellow man.

I was inspired by the then chief of the Phoenix Fire Department, Chief Alan Brunacini, who came up with a mission statement of five words: prevent harm, survive, be nice. I believe that brevity is the soul of wit. The chief was brilliant because he took something that was very complicated and boiled it down to five words. I tried very hard to work my career by those five words. I was fortunate to have served at Station 7 with one of the best crews in the country. We had a great lieutenant who never let his ego get in the way of making good decisions. We had an engineer that you could count on every time that we needed him. And some of the most dedicated selfless wonderful individuals that you ever want to meet.

I started to get old, and I didn’t want to be the weak link on the team. I started to study for promotion in earnest. It took me two years, but I finally got promoted and was able to get an assignment at aircraft fire rescue. This was an adventure, because aircraft firefighting is a whole different skill set. Aircraft are like a high rise in an aluminum tube with thousands of gallons of flammable fuel, high-pressure flammable hydraulic lines, and several miles of electrical wiring. Life safety is always foremost on any firefighter’s agenda. However, the aircraft is very expensive, so knowledge and expertise along with experience can mitigate situations and save lives and property.

The stories in my book are real and true. I chose these particular stories from the hundreds of incidents that we responded to every year. Every firefighter in the country makes similar incidents every single day. Your disaster is our business, and we try very hard to help every person we come in contact with. The powers that be wanted us to treat everyone as a customer. But I tried to deal with each individual person that I came in contact with, like they were my kin. Our promise to the people is that we will show up when you’re having a bad day and try to make it better for you.

I was inspired to write this book not only by my sister Nancy, but her friend and mine, a brilliant lady named Elizabeth Allen, who has been published three times. Others have helped me as well. My son, Chuck; my daughter, Lisa; my best friend in the world, Tel Croston; a friend named Ben Morton; also a wonderful Christian lady named Flo, who has been praying for me since she found out I was writing this book. I hope that you will read this book and enjoy the stories, as much as I enjoyed living them.

Fire Stories

Every shift that I worked was an adventure. We handled all types of disasters and crises. We worked twenty-four hours on and forty-eight hours off. We started at noon and got off at noon the next day. Sometimes you needed those forty-eight hours to rest up. It wasn’t unusual to have six incidents in a shift, and occasionally we wouldn’t have any.

Our mission statement was Preservation of life and property is the central mission of the Fire Department. Life, safety, incident stabilization, and property conservation, along with evidence preservation. I rather like the mission statement from the Phoenix Fire Department which was five words: Prevent harm, survive, and be nice. I tried to work my career by those words.

Our department handled shootings, stabbings, heart attacks, car wrecks, fires, floods, and electrocutions, And, yes, we did mundane things like sweeping water and rescuing kitty cats out of trees.

I’m going to tell the stories as I remember them, not necessarily in chronological order, or at what station the incident occurred. Early on in my career, I traveled. In other words, I’d report to my station, and they’d say, We need a tailboard man at another station. So, then I’d have to pack all my gear and go to that station and work with a bunch of guys I didn’t know. But quite often, I worked at my own station. Station 7 had one of the best crews in the country. With the best officer, a great driver, and three tailboard men who were dedicated to public service and helping people, we put our lives on the line every shift that we went to work.

Response Time

Response time is critical. Our response time averaged no more than three minutes from the time the call was received until we were on the scene. Daytime, nighttime didn’t matter. What you were doing didn’t matter. You could be eating dinner or taking a shower. When the alarm tone sounded, and it was in your territory, you went, and in a hurry.

Our Response

In the fire department, we had box alarms which we used to call regular alarms when you would get three engines, a truck company, a squad car, and district chief. We had still alarms to which we would send just one engine. We had investigations which you would send just one engine without the red lights and siren. We also had what was called rescue alarms. In a rescue alarm, we had one engine, a truck company, and a squad car. The squad car and the truck company carried the jaws of life, Hurst tool. Any time it was a bad enough car wreck or where there was human life involved, which there nearly always was, they would call a rescue alarm.

Best We Can

In the fire service, our promise to the people is that we will show up when they are having a bad day and call us for help. Based on that reality, being a fire fighter involves making a promise to the people that we will respond to their call and do our very best. That requires quick, effective, skillful, safe, caring, managed help for whatever situation they are in.

In my career, I have had quite a lot of different situations where we had to use common sense, our intense training, and varied experience to mitigate an incident.

Memorial Day Flood

On Memorial Day, in about 1983, I was working a trade with a fireman named Jim on the C shift—I was on the A shift—and we had a pretty quiet day, not too much action. I knew the fireman on the C shift, so we got along very well. After dinner, we went out front of the station, and in the distance to the east we saw lightning. I turned to the lieutenant and said, It’s probably just heat lightning.

Well in about a half hour, it started to rain cats and dogs. Alarms started coming in all over the city. We got called to a small house fire, lighting strike, not too much to it. Before we could get back to the station, we got another run. As it turns out, every engine in the city was running. We got called to an address north of 15th Street, close to Shoal Creek. It was an apartment building. Shoal Creek is about six feet across, but now it was like two football fields. This apartment building was right in the middle. We were charged with rescuing the people of the apartment.

When we got out there, the water was chest deep. The people in the apartment building where having a flood party. They had moved their party to the second floor. There was about fifteen people that needed rescue. The water was moving rapidly and rising. Some did not want to leave, but we convinced them. We were afraid the foundation was being undermined. Some of the men said they would wade across to shore, but we ended up having to carry the women, as they were afraid. The whole operation took about three hours, and then we went back in to service. Almost immediately, we received another call. This one was north of 35th Street. Mostly we worked on the east side, but since all the engines were out, we were the only available one.

While going down one flooded street, a line on our brakes came loose. Since we had positive pressure air brakes, the engine stopped dead. The lieutenant told me to take a hand light way back behind the engine and try to stop traffic. He got some tools from our toolbox and got under the engine and fixed the airline. We proceeded to the address of the alarm, and when we got there, we found a lady sitting on her kitchen table, with about eight inches of water in her house. She was afraid because the electrical plugs were sparking. The first thing we did was go to the breaker box and shut off all the electricity. We got her to higher ground. There wasn’t much more we could do for her since the water was still coming. We went back into service and immediately received another call.

This time it was a car that got washed off into a creek near the university. A tree had fallen across the roadway, and the driver swerved to miss the tree and went into a ditch. He was chest deep in water and pinned in the car. We waded down to him in the swift water and pried the door open and rescued him. Back into service again.

Another alarm, small house fire north of 19th Street. All in all, we made twenty-four runs that night. We had two working fires and several rescues. Several medical calls and three false alarms. The rest of the fire department was busy all night as well. Two people died, swept away by the fast water. Many cars from the car lots on North Lamar were swept in to the Colorado River. Lamar itself was underwater from about Twenty-Six Street to the river. We made the national news that night. The next day at noon, the A shift came on.

Since I was on the A shift, I didn’t get to go home. The next time I saw Jim, I told him, You owe me about two shifts for that trade. I spent that whole shift trying to recuperate from Memorial Day. Luckily, all we had was a few medical calls, but I was still exhausted when I got home.

Police Crash

Most incidents in the fire service happen between the hours of eight o’clock in the evening and four o’clock in the morning. One evening, we received a box alarm, at the 2200 block of New York Avenue. We responded, and on arrival we found a two-bedroom house on fire. As we were first in, we liked to apply quick water. We entered the residence and applied the correct amount of water on the seat of the fire. This fire occurred about eight thirty in the evening. Because of the quick water, and our response time, we were able to black the fire out quickly. Our backup arrived, and we backed out. They took care of salvage and overhaul. We loaded our hose and went back to the station. We had just backed in to the truck bay, when we heard a tremendous crash.

Apparently, the police department had received a call about a domestic disturbance. There was a car sitting at the intersection of Second and Chicon. Three police cars were headed east on second Street. The car waited for all three to clear the intersection and then started to proceed. However, there was a fourth police car that did not have his lights and siren on. Four police cars were overkill as far as I was concerned, but that’s not my call. The fourth police car swerved to miss the car that was waiting but started to proceed. The police officer lost control and hit a tree. That night, he had a ride along with him. He must have been trying to impress his passenger. The officer did not have his seat belt fastened, but the ride-along did.

When they hit the tree, they were going about eighty-five miles per hour. The officer went through the windshield, and his head hit the tree, killing him instantly. The passenger was severely injured as well. As soon as we heard the crash, we responded and blocked the scene of the crash with our engine. The officer’s injuries were obviously fatal, so we concentrated on the passenger. The doors of the vehicle were jammed shut, so we had to use our Hurst tool, the jaws of life, to get the door open. By that time, since our officer had reported to dispatch about the crash, EMS arrived. We put a cervical collar on the passenger then strapped him to a backboard, and then EMS transported him. We had to wait for the medical examiner to remove the police officer.

The young officer’s father was a decorated police officer. The city fathers ended up naming a street after that young officer even though he broke procedure by going too fast and not using his lights and siren. He also didn’t have his seat belt on; in my opinion, that is what killed him. We hate when there is a loss of life, especially a police officer who is definitely one of the good guys. His father was a backup to us in gang territory many times. We felt his loss and told him so. He responded many times after that incident with us and were glad to have him there. A fireman does what is necessary to save lives and fight fire. We felt helpless, but we did what we had to do for the passenger. Not a very good night at engine seven.

Big Red

The fire station was our home, we lived there one third of our lives. Twenty-four hours on and forty-eight hours off. We did everything that you do at home: cut the grass, clean both the station and our equipment, cook, study, shower and shave, and sleep. We also watched TV, especially on Sundays, when we watched football. Sometimes different police officers would come and watch the games with us. One of them was a giant of a man with red hair, he was a sergeant.

One evening, the alarm tone sounded. It was a medical assist call at Second and Canadian. That street was east of us about six blocks. Second Street was a one-way street west. When we responded, we had to go up to First and then east to Canadian. When we arrived, we saw two men down. One of the men was Big Red, and he had a knife sticking out of his chest. The other man was shot right in the forehead and was obviously dead. Big Red was conscious, losing a lot of blood, and in a lot of pain. We went right to work on our friend.

We bandaged the knife in place sticking out of his chest. When the EMS arrived, we already had our friend packaged and ready to go. I rode with the sergeant to the hospital, telling him all the way that he was going to be all right. EMS assessed the other man and said that he was deceased.

What had happened was