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This episode is brought to you by Thorne and I have some incredible news for any of you

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that are in the military, first responder or medical professions.

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Now to learn more about Thorn, go to episode 323 of the Behind the Shield podcast with

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Joel Titoro and Wes Barnett.

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This episode is sponsored by a company I've literally been using for over 15 years now

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and that is 511.

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Now my introduction to their products began when I started wearing 511 uniforms years

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ago for Anaheim Fire Department.

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And since then, I have acquired a host of their backpacks and luggage which have literally

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been around the world with me.

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The backpack where I keep all my recording equipment is a 511 backpack and then most

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of my civilian gear, the clothes that I wear are also 511.

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Now more recently, they've actually branched out into the brick and mortar stores.

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So for example, Gainesville where I do jiu-jitsu has a beautiful 511 store.

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So if you are a fire department, a law enforcement agency, you now have access to an entire inventory

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of clothing and equipment in these 511 stores.

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I've talked about their unique uniforms that are fitted for either male or female first

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responders.

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For those of you who enjoy hiking, this would even be an application I believe for the wildland

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community.

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They've created an ultra light pack now with a hydration system built in for rucking, running

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or other long distance events.

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So if you want to hear more about 511 and their origin story, go to episode 338 of Behind

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the Shield podcast with their CEO, Francisco Morales.

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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.

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As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on

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the show, firefighter, speaker and soon to be author, Ed Munro.

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Now the tragic story that brought Ed and myself together was that he was one of the first

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people on scene after a horrific murder-suicide in station 81 in LA County.

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So we discuss a multitude of topics from his own early life, his journey into the fire

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service, working with inmate crews, mental health in the fire service, the horrendous

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tragedy at station 81, the ripple effect both physically and mentally of that event, the

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essential conversations we need to have in the fire service and so much more.

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Now before we get to this incredibly powerful and heartbreaking conversation, as I say every

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week, please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the

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show, leave feedback and leave a rating.

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Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for

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others to find.

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And this is a free library of well over 900 episodes now.

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So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women's stories so

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I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them.

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So with that being said, I introduce to you Ed Munro.

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Enjoy.

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Well, Ed, I want to start by saying thank you so much for taking the time and coming

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on the behind the shield podcast today.

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Well, thank you for having me.

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So where on planet earth are we finding you this afternoon?

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Right now I'm in Costa Mesa, California.

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I'm obviously not in the fire station and I just came back from the cardiologist office,

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which was not very exciting because they don't want me to work.

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They want me to go on light duty right now, which is not great news.

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So we'll see where that goes.

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Costa Mesa is down the road from where I used to live.

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I worked for Anaheim and lived in Huntington Beach for a while.

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Oh, nice.

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I graduated from high school in Huntington Beach.

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I like that town.

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Okay.

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Well, we'll get to exactly that in a moment then.

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So let's start at the very beginning of your timeline.

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So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what

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your parents did, how many siblings.

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Sure.

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I was born in Texas, in Del Rio, Texas on Laughlin Air Force Base.

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My father was a pilot in the Air Force.

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So I always say don't mess with Texas because I consider myself being in Texas.

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But I've only lived there for a year and then I lived in North Dakota and Washington and

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California.

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I lived in Okinawa for a little bit and my parents, like a lot of military families,

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they split up when I was young.

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And I was, depends on how you look at it, fortunate or not fortunate enough to live

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with both of my parents at different times and different places.

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The result of all that was is I moved a lot.

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I went to 13 schools between first and 12th grade and had a pretty interesting childhood

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that a lot of people say, oh, that must have been difficult.

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I didn't know it was difficult at the time.

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I was just a kid living his life.

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That was what was my normal.

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So let's start with the pros because I've had a lot of people on that were children

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of military and or some people just bounce around.

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Their parents were literally gypsies and for no reason.

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They were just changing cities every couple of years.

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What were the pros of that kind of dynamic that you grew up with?

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I had to see a lot.

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North Dakota is definitely interesting.

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I mean, it snows there.

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They measure it by feet up there.

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They don't really care about inches of snow.

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In Washington, I was there when Mount St. Helens blew up and we got ash all over everything.

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It was a very unique experience.

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I've never seen anything like it since then.

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I've lived on military bases.

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My parents split up when I was in Washington and then I went with my mom to Southern California

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and I started living life there in non-military settings, which was new to me.

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I wasn't used to that.

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I wasn't used to being around kids that had grown up together.

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So that was an adjustment.

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But then I went to live with my father in Okinawa.

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Living in Okinawa is interesting because that's Japan.

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It's Chompco Island.

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It has a lot of really interesting history that's there.

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I wouldn't trade my childhood, those experiences in for anything.

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When I think of Okinawa, it always sends me back to that kind of concept of blue zones.

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Before that, they were known as one of the highest density of centigenarians.

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I think that's the right word.

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People that live to be 100 or older per capita.

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When I've seen people discussing that particular area, it's not just the diet.

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It's almost the mentality of some of the Okinawan people.

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They play together.

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They've got a real sense of community.

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They play instruments.

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They sing.

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So it seems to be an entire ethos on that island, aside from obviously the military

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side, that creates not just longevity as far as a number, but an immense health span during

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their life.

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Oh, I would agree with that.

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The population, it was not uncommon to see very old people just walking around doing

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their thing, whether they're doing Tai Chi in the morning in the park or shopping.

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But they definitely didn't look like they carried stress at all.

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They looked pleasant and happy and content, and they were happy to talk to you.

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They were very polite.

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Beautiful.

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Well, then, so the other side of the coin, as I have matured, understanding the kind

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of the mental health and physical health of the first responders, my eyes were opened

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of the immense impact of childhood struggles, trauma, wherever you want to label it at,

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as we progress through.

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The good thing is if they were addressed early, it became a strength as we progressed through.

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But if left unaddressed, which is a lot of us, buried down, pushed away, compartmentalized,

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they could in some way become a fracture to our foundation.

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And then we go into a profession where we see some horrific stuff.

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When you look back now with this kind of mature lens that you have, were there areas of your

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upbringing that you think were struggles, trauma, whatever you'd like to describe it

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as that contributed maybe later in life?

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Oh, I absolutely think there were.

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Both from the amount of times I relocated to when my parents split up.

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Then I realized that things, looking back, things became kind of difficult.

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And it wasn't until recently as I've started unpacking my own childhood, because I'm in

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the process of writing a book now.

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But I had to unpack that and I discovered I have a lot of resentment for my mom.

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And I had to figure that out.

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It turns out looking back, she was pretty violent.

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Now, she loved me 100%.

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She would give you the shirt off her back.

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She'd give me the shirt off her back.

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But she also had a hair trigger temper.

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And I know my sister and I, we lived in fear of that, especially when we were in grade

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school.

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It wasn't a problem if we did what we were supposed to do.

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But if we made a mistake, then things would get hairy kind of fast.

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My father wasn't like that.

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He was a lot different from my mom.

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He's that guy in the military that was duty, honor, country.

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I kind of picked that up from him and I appreciated him for that.

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He definitely loves me and he held us to a certain standard, but it wasn't like my mom.

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I didn't walk around terrified of him.

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But I didn't want to hurt him all the time.

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What was the reaction to that instability when you were with your mom?

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A lot of times when I hear people talk about that, obviously you talk about Maslow's hierarchy

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of needs.

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I'm struggling with my words today.

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Safety, security, love are the absolute base of the pyramid.

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And so a lot of times when there's that kind of dynamic, there seems to be an overcompensation

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by the child.

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Always seeking approval, always trying to please the parent and also maybe even a level

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of perfectionism.

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So I discovered school wasn't very difficult for me.

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So I always managed to get good grades.

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So I managed to remove that from the equation.

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I knew that if she said she wanted the house vacuumed, I knew there better be lines in

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the carpet from the vacuum and I would make sure that was done.

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And I would make sure I was almost always at a friend's house.

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I would get everything done and then I would not be there.

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And I did that a lot.

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I think my sister and I both would do that.

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Now my sister struggled with school a lot.

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It was difficult for her.

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And so because of that she'd be behind on that and then she'd be behind on things she

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was expected to do at home.

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We would help each other, but there were times when we just weren't able to do that.

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And I witnessed a lot of things between her and my mom that I wish I didn't have to witness.

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Going back a generation, because I think this is the next layer of this conversation, I

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think, in the mental health space.

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If we've gone as far as to look at our early life and that's how our parents behave, well,

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what was their early life like?

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So had you any exposure to your mother's parents and the kind of upbringing that she had that

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maybe contributed to her behavior?

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My mom used to say that she wasn't treating us any different than her mom treated her.

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And I think that's how she rationalized it.

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Now, if I did to my kids what she did to us, they'd put me in jail.

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Yeah.

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I mean, this is a really important conversation and kudos to you for not carrying that on

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because I mean, the dominoes fall and I'm almost a thousand interviews now.

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I'm at 915, 20 deep now recorded.

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And so there's so many kind of overlaps of the Venn diagram and the people that have

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had a struggle growing up, usually that's gone back one, two, three generations.

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Like you said, that's become their baseline that they grew up in and just kind of passed

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on to the child, whether it was alcoholism, whether it was a version of domestic violence.

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And so if you can actually recognize that multi-generational element, that knowledge

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allows you the parent today to say, all right, the buck stops here.

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I'm going to try and do the opposite of what some of the things my parents did to make

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sure that my children don't end up carrying that trauma from their grandparents.

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Oh, I can totally see that.

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And I'm glad that this is a road I never went down with my kids.

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Now, I know that they'll say I was hard in other ways, but you know, in other ways, I

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think I'm a great big pushover at home.

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So you'd have to ask them.

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All right.

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Beautiful.

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What about when back to when you were a school age, what were you playing as far as sports?

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You know what?

236
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It was not uncommon.

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I played pickup games of, you know, football, soccer, baseball, played all that stuff, organized

238
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sports.

239
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I started off in soccer like a lot of kids in the United States.

240
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But you know what?

241
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I ended up running track.

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That ended up being my number one sport into high school and into college.

243
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I was a 400 meter hurdler and a half miler.

244
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That's kind of what I'm built for.

245
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I don't have the raw speed to be a sprinter and I don't have the crazy endurance to be

246
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a distance runner, but I can run hard for a long time like a middle distance guy.

247
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What about career aspirations?

248
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Were you dreaming of the fire service then or was there something else in your mind?

249
00:17:06,640 --> 00:17:11,880
Well when you're young, every little boy in the United States, I don't care who you are,

250
00:17:11,880 --> 00:17:15,440
even the cops will admit this, they dream of being firemen.

251
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They still dream of being firefighters.

252
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Well, that's true.

253
00:17:17,920 --> 00:17:22,880
If they could score a little higher on the civil service exam, they'd all be firemen.

254
00:17:22,880 --> 00:17:27,880
Oh, we're going to get in trouble for that one.

255
00:17:27,880 --> 00:17:33,560
I just interviewed two cops like three hours ago, so they had their chance to.

256
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But yeah, you know what?

257
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Dream of being a fireman, but as you grow up, you have different things go through your

258
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mind.

259
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I wanted to be an engineer at a certain point.

260
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I wanted to be an accountant at a certain point.

261
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It wasn't until I was in college that I realized I really don't want to have to go into an

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office every day.

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I wanted to do something meaningful and I wanted to do something that was interesting

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and different every day.

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As for various reasons, me joining the military wasn't going to be that.

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I started looking around and it wasn't until I had some coworkers who were doing things

267
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to pursue the fire service and I was talking to them about it.

268
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I'm like, oh dude, what a great idea.

269
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I started looking into it and I started pursuing that.

270
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So walk me through your journey into the fire service.

271
00:18:28,160 --> 00:18:29,840
Firstly when did you test?

272
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What was the competition like back then?

273
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Because I think that's an interesting contrast with recruitment that we're seeing at the

274
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moment.

275
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And then talk to me about fitness standards training, etc.

276
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Oh, it is so much different now than it was when I was testing.

277
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So I was in my mid-20s when I started pushing hard.

278
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And I did a lot of things.

279
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I started going to college and I stopped going to college and I started going back to college

280
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again.

281
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The guys I was going to school with were taking fire science classes so I started doing that.

282
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And when I was 27 I started taking tests with various departments because they say why are

283
00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:09,960
you taking classes?

284
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Take tests.

285
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I was a track athlete, retired from running in college so I was in shape and staying in

286
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shape wasn't hard.

287
00:19:18,680 --> 00:19:24,960
I just had to find a hill and find some weights and do my thing.

288
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But I spent nine years trying to get hired.

289
00:19:29,040 --> 00:19:37,080
I tested all the time here in Southern California with departments like LA City and Torrance

290
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and Burbank and you name it.

291
00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:48,120
I ended up testing with Los Angeles County who is who I work for now.

292
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When I took that exam they had 25,000 guys take that exam.

293
00:19:54,400 --> 00:20:00,360
Back then they populated really large hiring lists.

294
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These lists tended to be in effect for roughly seven years.

295
00:20:05,480 --> 00:20:10,200
So when they did an exam the whole world showed up like with my exam.

296
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I've got to be honest walking into the Long Beach Convention Center with thousands of

297
00:20:15,520 --> 00:20:21,240
guys who all look like they should be firemen is extremely intimidating.

298
00:20:21,240 --> 00:20:27,980
But I did that, took the exam, turned it in and they put out a list and this list comes

299
00:20:27,980 --> 00:20:33,360
out and it says, you know, eventually it says it's in band two.

300
00:20:33,360 --> 00:20:36,920
I was like band two I'm never going to get hired.

301
00:20:36,920 --> 00:20:39,680
Well a neighbor of mine is a medic for my department.

302
00:20:39,680 --> 00:20:41,480
He's like oh no you're good.

303
00:20:41,480 --> 00:20:42,760
Like what do you mean?

304
00:20:42,760 --> 00:20:44,800
He goes look at this list.

305
00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:48,560
The V-Band's got 18 guys on it and band one's got 100.

306
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Band two's got a thousand.

307
00:20:49,560 --> 00:20:51,560
He goes they're going to use this list for years.

308
00:20:51,560 --> 00:20:54,160
You're absolutely going to get hired.

309
00:20:54,160 --> 00:20:56,360
Band three had 5,000 names.

310
00:20:56,360 --> 00:20:59,920
Band four had 4,000 names.

311
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So I said alright, well two years later I finally get a thing in the mail.

312
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Hey we want you to come down for your paperwork orientation.

313
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It was two years into my band.

314
00:21:10,200 --> 00:21:11,960
Alright did that.

315
00:21:11,960 --> 00:21:16,960
So I turned in that and I turned in my background package and you know took the physical agility

316
00:21:16,960 --> 00:21:19,800
made sure I had that.

317
00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:26,340
But it was intimidating and then right after I think they only populated a couple classes

318
00:21:26,340 --> 00:21:33,400
after mine and I kind of loosely did some math on it one day and I think out of those

319
00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:41,600
25,000 guys who took the test I think they ended up hiring maybe 500.

320
00:21:41,600 --> 00:21:43,840
I think that's pretty stiff competition.

321
00:21:43,840 --> 00:21:48,120
I'd say so and this is an interesting conversation I just had with these two London cops who

322
00:21:48,120 --> 00:21:54,920
are both retired now but when there's a conversation today about recruitment and we all know that

323
00:21:54,920 --> 00:22:00,600
there is an issue and we'll unpack that later but what I don't think is being told is people

324
00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:02,560
are like oh yeah but we're still able to hire at the moment.

325
00:22:02,560 --> 00:22:08,240
It's like yeah you might have people on seats but understand that you know 10, 15, 20 years

326
00:22:08,240 --> 00:22:14,120
ago when you were testing you had for example 2,500 people test.

327
00:22:14,120 --> 00:22:19,120
I mean in Anaheim at the actual sit down written test so these are people that have already

328
00:22:19,120 --> 00:22:21,160
filtered out.

329
00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:25,440
One that was there was a certified firefighter, certified EMT or paramedic.

330
00:22:25,440 --> 00:22:28,160
Most of them were AOs, wildland experience.

331
00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:33,840
I mean this is a resume for an entrance test so when people say oh yeah I was against whatever,

332
00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:39,160
if that was civilians that's competitive but we're talking like you know a yellow pages

333
00:22:39,160 --> 00:22:42,840
size resume of stuff they've already done to show up like you said because people were

334
00:22:42,840 --> 00:22:47,920
testing everywhere and so you know and I always preface this but I'm not saying that I was

335
00:22:47,920 --> 00:22:54,000
the cream of the crop but they took 30 of us out of a thousand people so clearly there

336
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:56,000
were attributes of these candidates.

337
00:22:56,000 --> 00:23:00,200
They were like this is the ideal candidate that we want.

338
00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:07,360
Now if you've got 600 applying for 500 spots you're taking almost everyone so the ones

339
00:23:07,360 --> 00:23:11,520
that are going to be excellent, the ones that are going to be you know moderate and then

340
00:23:11,520 --> 00:23:15,300
some that maybe cause problems later you know down the road.

341
00:23:15,300 --> 00:23:18,720
So I think this is the part of the recruitment conversation people don't understand is that

342
00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:25,840
when you and I were testing it was so competitive that it forged all of us to be excellent on

343
00:23:25,840 --> 00:23:29,280
the written test, excellent on the physical test you know what I mean.

344
00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:30,280
Practice your oral boards.

345
00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:34,360
I mean all these different things because that's how much the fire burned inside you

346
00:23:34,360 --> 00:23:40,320
to be a firefighter, a police officer, whatever it is but now if they take almost everyone

347
00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:45,200
it's a different dynamic and within that group there are some amazing candidates but we've

348
00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:53,880
enlarged the opportunity for the wrong kind of person to get into that profession too.

349
00:23:53,880 --> 00:24:00,680
I would agree with that and I think the fire service in general there's a lot of old traditional

350
00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:05,480
culture in the fire service that's really had to look itself in the face where these

351
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:11,320
old like candidates from back when we were testing for example we understood what this

352
00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:18,560
culture was going to be like and now when you have a much broader selection of people

353
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:22,880
coming in you know I think our cultures had to address that in and of itself like hey

354
00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:26,840
which part of our culture can we even afford to keep and which part do we need to make

355
00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:33,280
changes to because whether the old school thinkers like it or not these people are here

356
00:24:33,280 --> 00:24:38,520
to stay and you know what they may not have been the ideal candidate from 20 years ago

357
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:44,960
but a lot of them still want to do a good job and they still want to go home at the

358
00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:48,960
end of the day thinking that you know they have job satisfaction and everything else

359
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:55,200
just like anybody else does so I think we've had to address a lot of areas where we were

360
00:24:55,200 --> 00:25:01,600
probably being hostile towards the quote unquote ideal or non-ideal candidate.

361
00:25:01,600 --> 00:25:08,480
Yeah interesting yeah I think this is so in the diversity conversation for example what

362
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:13,640
I realize is the progressive answer to that is not to go out and drag net x amount of

363
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:19,080
people that are female that are this group that are that group but the mentorship programs

364
00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:25,000
so again you're proactively going into these areas finding again the right kind of candidate

365
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:29,480
but then lifting them up training them giving the ability to go to the academy and ultimately

366
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:35,780
become great firefighters so it's the real kind of the wrong way of talking about the

367
00:25:35,780 --> 00:25:39,840
recruitment conversation to me is that well Gen Z's they're like this they're like that

368
00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:45,640
which is complete BS it's just a case of firstly they see all the fire service what it is the

369
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:50,160
good and the bad because now we have the internet which wasn't really a thing 20 years ago you

370
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:55,320
google what's it like to be a firefighter google would say it's amazing period now you google

371
00:25:55,320 --> 00:26:01,140
it and you get to see as we will discuss the other side as well the job is amazing but

372
00:26:01,140 --> 00:26:05,440
there's a huge room for improvement so I think that's the thing is a lot of these younger

373
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:10,880
people are looking at going that doesn't sound so great it's up to us the older fire service

374
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:18,520
to fix it so we create that same kind of shiny object syndrome that drove us to the profession

375
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:23,640
but also take care of the the environment so it sets them up to succeed not break down

376
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:30,440
absolutely I think that you mentioned outreach programs I know my department does them I'm

377
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:37,240
sure Anna I know some I think that they're it's funny you hear these guys talk about

378
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:42,200
why are we trying to do outreach I think outreach programs are great not because we're grooming

379
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:49,040
people to be firemen but because we are educating them about the job and I think that education

380
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:55,240
prior to taking the job is important both for people knowing what they're gonna get

381
00:26:55,240 --> 00:27:02,360
into because I think we would both say that this job's not for everybody so I think the

382
00:27:02,360 --> 00:27:07,480
only way we achieve that is by educating people hey if you might want to do this job great

383
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:14,640
hey here's this six-week show up on the weekends kind of pre-academy thing learn about it I

384
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:20,200
think it's a great idea yeah well I think it's just as powerful to show recruits that

385
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:24,620
they don't want to do the job and my my step down my bonus boy went and did our mentorship

386
00:27:24,620 --> 00:27:28,920
program and after he did it for a few weeks but after he was like yeah I don't think the

387
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:34,440
fire services for me fantastic you didn't waste your time or your money on the academy

388
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:38,160
you already know and now he's a super successful mechanic so there we go you know I mean he

389
00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:43,680
found his way so I think there's as much validity in helping young people check off some things

390
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:47,100
that maybe they don't want to do but like you said if you know nothing about it you

391
00:27:47,100 --> 00:27:50,840
watch backdraft and go I want to be a firefighter and then they tell you to clean toilets and

392
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:56,880
you're like wait a second what the fuck is this this is my service welcome I'm trying

393
00:27:56,880 --> 00:28:00,840
to teach my kids how to clean toilets I can clean a bathroom in under 15 minutes my kids

394
00:28:00,840 --> 00:28:06,320
take an hour what's your problem I've shown you how to do this it's funny you get some

395
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:10,600
salty old senior man that tells you that you're not gonna make it off probation to shout at

396
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:15,720
them that's how you get it done in 15 minutes that's right yeah but then they go complain

397
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:21,400
to mom and I get in trouble there we go there we go I'm not allowed to make people cry all

398
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:25,720
right well then walk me through then what was the environment that you walked into in

399
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:32,480
LA County as far as the fitness standards and the mental health conversation if any

400
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:38,200
fitness standards were were pretty good and I didn't have an issue with those for me even

401
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:43,280
though I was hired I got hired later I was 36 years old when I got hired so even though

402
00:28:43,280 --> 00:28:49,280
that's pretty old to be a new fireman I was still in pretty good shape I mean I ran division

403
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:53,680
one track and I'd always kind of maintained being in being in shape so I didn't have a

404
00:28:53,680 --> 00:29:01,760
hard time with that you know carrying hoes weren't turnouts being all the aerobic demands

405
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:08,760
I had that handled now mentally it was definitely different even when I got hired you know things

406
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:17,560
like like peer support that was only still just beginning and my department had peer

407
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:25,240
support back then but nobody ever talked about it nobody ever mentioned it but you go on

408
00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:30,400
on these calls and you first get in and I was very green I didn't have a lot of experience

409
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:38,240
when I got hired and I remember my very first structure fire it turned out to be you know

410
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:44,360
we get there and this place is just ripping at multiple starting points obvious like it's

411
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:48,560
almost obvious that's gonna be arson from very from the very beginning because it's

412
00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:53,200
being torched from all different points in the house but when you're in the house you

413
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:57,240
know there's a there's a mom and she's dead and then the her sister is dead and her two

414
00:29:57,240 --> 00:30:01,320
kids are dead and they've all been killed by a guy with a machete because it was a gang

415
00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:06,360
hit and there's blood everywhere and I've been on the job for less than a month and

416
00:30:06,360 --> 00:30:10,320
I go through this and point out this fire and I'm stepping over his body and I get

417
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:14,440
done and this happened right at shift change of course so I get relieved on scene by my

418
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:21,040
relief and they're like all right good job kid and I end up going home and I call my

419
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:24,720
wife on the cell phone I'm like you wouldn't believe this I just had my first fire this

420
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:29,840
is what it is and blah blah blah blah blah and I'm telling her this she goes that's

421
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:34,760
crazy you know and I think the only thing that kept that from being like an overwhelming

422
00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:40,200
incident to me is because it was my first one and I had nothing I had nothing in my

423
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:44,240
proverbial cup right everybody's heard about the whole cup thing the very first thing you

424
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:50,880
put in my cup is probably that collar so it didn't bother me so to speak I think if I

425
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:58,200
had that exact same fire today I'd be like oh man that was unbelievably tough but back

426
00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:01,680
then it wasn't I just remember being blown away like this job's crazy I can't believe

427
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:07,320
this what's what's to happen tomorrow it really is I mean that's why I think you get a lot

428
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:10,480
of these young firefighters and we've all been there you know you're chomping at the

429
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:16,680
bit to to go to every call and see everything and then you see the kind of the older more

430
00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:22,480
mature you know firefighters and they're kind of pulling the reins a little bit and I remember

431
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:26,680
one call specifically I wrote about it in my first book we were on extrication as poor

432
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:31,520
little three-year-old was killed in the back decapitated there was a dead guy in the front

433
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:38,880
and then the the mother survived and she the little toddler was or the preschooler was

434
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:43,360
entrapped so we worked the call you know again it wasn't really much to work there was a

435
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:47,160
you know EMS basically on the mother that the engine was already handling and we were

436
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:50,880
there and they were like okay we'll let the coroner work this first and then we'll come

437
00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:57,680
back and get the body out and I'll never forget this my captain Terry and engineer Paul they

438
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:03,040
DFO me and my partner to stay in the station they're like you're gonna see so much horrible

439
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:07,600
shit in your career and we had I know like three years on by that point he said you don't

440
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:12,180
need to add this to your list and so they went and actually got the body out and I'll

441
00:32:12,180 --> 00:32:15,880
never forget that because you know you get young guys and they're just like wanting to

442
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:20,800
see all the shit and I tell you have to tell anyone to a new firefighter see what you have

443
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:26,520
to see and if someone says stay outside stay outside because it is death by a thousand

444
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:30,280
cuts you know and I've been that medic that's told everyone to stay back and we've got for

445
00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:34,280
example like a missing homeless woman that was nothing but flesh and bone by the time

446
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:39,400
I got to her again that you don't she's dead trust me she's like really really dead you

447
00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:42,720
guys don't need to see it you know get let the coroner come and they can be the other

448
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:48,560
set of eyeballs on this but that is I think an under discussed element you know to new

449
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:53,360
people is like look you know it will add up whether you can handle it whether you can't

450
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:57,760
handle it it will add up so the things that you don't need to see don't go out of your

451
00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:00,480
way to see them.

452
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:05,240
That's a very tough point to get across to guys and I've done that like you don't need

453
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:10,440
to go look at that don't stare at it every now and again guys I'll go looking for like

454
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:14,920
videos that have some pretty graphic stuff I'm like why are you watching this we don't

455
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:19,920
need this we can learn the same thing from somewhere else we don't need it to be to be

456
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:27,880
graphic the death by a thousand cuts is such an apt analogy because now you end up with

457
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:33,760
the whole slide carousel right in your head that's that's another me me showing my age

458
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:42,440
I know what slides are and I know the carousel and yeah those don't go away they're there.

459
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:47,080
I've never actually been asked this but I've heard so many people say the worst thing you

460
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:50,920
can ask a firefighter is what's the worst thing that you've seen and I've literally

461
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:56,200
never had someone say that to me per se but it's interesting because if I'm proverbially

462
00:33:56,200 --> 00:34:01,400
you know if I'm asked that question hypothetically my answer will be will be more specific are

463
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:05,480
we talking children we're talking drownings hanging shootings gang attacks horrible car

464
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:10,440
wrecks motorcycles I mean I have a hundred of them you know be more specific and I think

465
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:15,120
that's the real point is that there's not the worst thing that we've seen there's so

466
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:20,160
many that your carousel is going click click click click click click click click because

467
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:25,960
you can't choose one and it's not a oh poor us but I only had 14 years in the fire service

468
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:30,520
literally half of what a lot of people have and you know I was a bit of a black cloud

469
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:36,280
as well but you just accumulate this kind of you know encyclopedia of horrors and so

470
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:42,760
you know I can see how people just can't stand that question but it would be so hard to work

471
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:49,880
out to answer because you literally have this kind of you know slideshow going on in your

472
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:53,080
mind of all the horrible shit.

473
00:34:53,080 --> 00:35:00,760
I had a captain once kind of call me Dr. Death because for a month I went on dead people

474
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:06,960
like every shift I somebody was dead in front of me and he's like dude you are Dr. Death

475
00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:11,960
every time we're with you just we have dead people but yeah the black cloud follows you

476
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:19,440
and it's interesting you brought up that question there's a you've probably seen him his name

477
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:24,160
is Paul Combs he draws you know illustrations of the fire service.

478
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:27,600
Yeah he's been on a couple of times he's an amazing guy.

479
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:32,560
I have never met him I really want to meet him I think he's up in my area where I live

480
00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:39,640
in Idaho I got to look into it but anyway he has a cartoon he drew where there's there's

481
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:47,360
sit on a subway or a bus and there's a civilian there and he's happy he's like let's see

482
00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:51,360
the guy's this fire on a shirt talking to a fireman he's all happy and he asked the

483
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:55,960
exact question what's the worst thing you've ever seen and the fireman like his face is

484
00:35:55,960 --> 00:36:03,680
just down and he's looking at the ground and he's not even talking there's off to the

485
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:09,400
side a bunch of ghostly images you know there's a kid and there's a couple there's a fireman

486
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:14,240
and they're all ghosts and like the little girl's asking him which one of us do you want

487
00:36:14,240 --> 00:36:21,800
to tell him about and I think that's the one thing that when a civilian has that question

488
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:28,280
they don't mean to they're not being rude I mean we have a fascinating job a fascinating

489
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:34,320
career and we see things that the normal person has no concept of and I've heard firemen say

490
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:39,520
well somebody asked me that I go blah you know they get kind of indignant about it I'm

491
00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:44,160
like you know what civilians don't know and they don't understand I'm like I actually

492
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:52,360
I'll half the time I'll answer a question I think they should know and I won't I won't

493
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:59,040
make it more elaborate than it needs to be I'll just tell them what it was if I'm on

494
00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:04,400
my toes I'll tell them about something funny instead like a funny call something that's

495
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:10,080
more interesting and then they'll laugh about it and I'll get away from that yeah yeah I

496
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:12,960
mean it's the thing I mean you firstly you can't describe it secondly I don't know if

497
00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:19,400
you had the same thing for me it wasn't the actual things that we saw the person who had

498
00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:25,680
actually passed away the things that really kind of got into my soul was the screams of

499
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:29,600
the people that loved that person the people that are left behind that pain that have been

500
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:36,960
transferred I remember one we had a it was so sad it was a young guy in his 20s and they

501
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:40,920
just were dropping off a dog before they went to a theme park and he had he just collapsed

502
00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:45,680
and it ended up being a brain bleed and we worked him and the code went textbook I mean

503
00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:49,960
it couldn't have gone better as far as everyone just filling in their place and drugs are

504
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:53,560
on the right time and the compressions and the shocks and everything but it was a brain

505
00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:58,880
bleed and there was no saving him even if he'd had it on the operating table but then

506
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:04,960
I had to do the report and I'm sitting there in the EMS area literally seven eight feet

507
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:10,480
from the room where they just told the family what had happened that's those are things

508
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:13,800
but you can't really articulate that to someone they wouldn't even understand you know when

509
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:19,480
you pull a sheet over a 15 year old gang violence victim and the whole park starts screaming

510
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:22,680
those are things that are seared into your head but you can't really articulate that

511
00:38:22,680 --> 00:38:27,640
because it doesn't sound bad it's the oh the horrible stuff the guy you know under the

512
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:32,120
semi or whatever it was but to me it wasn't so much that it was actually you know the

513
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:36,880
people left behind that shared that suffering and pain and then you know those screams that

514
00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:38,840
you hear over and over again.

515
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:47,120
Well absolutely there are the settings in the context in which all these things happen

516
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:55,760
all that matters all of that none of that stuff happens in a vacuum and even when you

517
00:38:55,760 --> 00:39:00,200
go on somebody who was I don't want to say supposed to be dying but you know somebody

518
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:05,800
who's 85 and terminal cancer or something and you know they're weight 80 pounds and

519
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:11,560
you know that there's nothing you can do for them just being there to pronounce and watching

520
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:18,040
the way their families are it's extremely impactful the settings matter.

521
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:25,000
Absolutely well speaking of you know proactive initiatives we talked about the mentorship

522
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:32,320
program I heard you on the no one fights alone podcast and you touched on the fact that you

523
00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:40,400
work with the what's the right term they use now but the the fire program for the young

524
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:46,600
offenders or prison system so talk to me about that I've had I had a young woman that went

525
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:49,920
through that program she ended up becoming a wildland firefighter one of my friends from

526
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:54,400
Orange County went through the youth you know offender program he ended up becoming a firefighter

527
00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:56,600
so what was your experience with that group?

528
00:39:56,600 --> 00:40:04,220
Well I never worked with the youth but I'll say that my time as a fire crew supervisor

529
00:40:04,220 --> 00:40:11,440
working in our camp system and working with male inmates was probably the one thing I'm

530
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:17,640
most proud of having done in my department I love that job.

531
00:40:17,640 --> 00:40:25,400
In that job you get 14 guys that are all wearing orange and this is an inmate camp and the

532
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:29,320
guards cross them over to you in the morning and you take them out and you train if it's

533
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:34,080
a fire you go to a fire and you're basically using glorified hand tools to cut fire in

534
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:40,400
line on fires and it's amazing work and when you watch them I had this moment a couple

535
00:40:40,400 --> 00:40:44,320
times I would stand back and I'm watching them work and they're doing what I told them

536
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:49,880
to do and they understand what they're doing and you're like you know what I basically

537
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:56,240
I got 14 felons right here who are working together and they're doing something positive

538
00:40:56,240 --> 00:41:02,120
and I bet they're achieving something that they never thought they would.

539
00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:04,960
I love that job, that job is great.

540
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:08,600
I've heard a lot of people speak highly of those crews too when they show up as an extra

541
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:12,960
hand crew on a fire you know a lot of times I've heard the comment that they work like

542
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:14,960
dogs.

543
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:19,240
They work very hard especially if they bought into your program and part of that is just

544
00:41:19,240 --> 00:41:22,560
being fair with them they know that they're inmates and they know that you know what they've

545
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:27,880
all had hard lives and you know what they all have issues with authority you know that's

546
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:34,360
and that makes sense but when they learn that they can trust you that you're looking out

547
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:40,480
for their best interests you know they put out for you and they understand what they

548
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:46,360
need to do and they understand that there are times when you know what their lives are

549
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:52,760
in my hands, my life is in their hands and we have a job to do and you know they would

550
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:53,760
achieve great things.

551
00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:58,320
The only thing I think that's unfortunate is you would hope that more guys would use

552
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:04,440
a program like that to really kind of get turned around and some guys do.

553
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:08,200
There are a couple of the guys that are inmates on crews of mine that I'm still in contact

554
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:14,320
with that have gone on into you know like the Forest Service and built careers there

555
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:19,080
and I think that's amazing but then again I've been at camp and seen a guy come back

556
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:20,800
into camp like why are you here man?

557
00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:26,680
It's like oh you know I messed up and I'm like dude there is no retirement system here.

558
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:29,440
I'm like you're not going to get a pension.

559
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:30,800
You know that right?

560
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:38,000
And they kind of laughed like yeah I know and well all right let's go back to work.

561
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:42,440
It was sad to see him come back and not get things turned around.

562
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:45,800
I think one of the issues that we have in society at the moment though is we look at

563
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:50,440
the failures you know and one thing I talk about over and over again is drug prohibition

564
00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:56,200
and the epic failure of the war on drugs air quotes and people will point to Seattle and

565
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:59,520
go oh they tried it there it didn't work and it's like well you know that's because they

566
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:00,520
half-assed it.

567
00:43:00,520 --> 00:43:03,880
They didn't go all in and provide all the resources for mental health and addiction

568
00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:08,760
counseling and job creation like they have in countries that have done it properly but

569
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:12,780
even with you know with programs like that if you had two people that were in the prison

570
00:43:12,780 --> 00:43:19,000
system and now they work for CDF or you know wherever they are now that's a huge success

571
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:26,800
and I think the mistake we make sometimes is if it's not 100 percent success rate then

572
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:30,480
we discard it you know unless it's a vaccine and everyone's telling us 100 percent then

573
00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:35,880
all of a sudden we're fucking all in for some reason but then it turns out it isn't but

574
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:39,880
you know when it comes to initiatives like this welfare you know national health all

575
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:43,200
these oh well you know there was one time in the ER where this person died so let's

576
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:47,500
not do national health you know and so I think we need to get away from that.

577
00:43:47,500 --> 00:43:52,840
If you had these crews of only 14 and two of the people that you know turn their lives

578
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:56,640
around that is phenomenal that is a massive success.

579
00:43:56,640 --> 00:43:57,920
What was it that worked for them?

580
00:43:57,920 --> 00:43:58,920
Can we build on it?

581
00:43:58,920 --> 00:43:59,920
Can we build on it?

582
00:43:59,920 --> 00:44:05,020
And then you know tweak it so that that other guy maybe doesn't reoffend the next time.

583
00:44:05,020 --> 00:44:09,680
So I think it's really important when we hear these proactive initiatives that reduce

584
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:14,360
recidivism in prison because you're empowering someone to kind of grab hold of their life

585
00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:18,720
giving them a trade because the number of people that leave a prison and then go into

586
00:44:18,720 --> 00:44:22,760
the same exact environment that they had or now they're homeless because they lost the

587
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:26,560
home where they're inside instead you give them an opportunity to actually hold down

588
00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:31,680
the job and then get back on the straight and narrow.

589
00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:38,760
I couldn't agree more with all that and we tend to do that but at the same time we don't

590
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:42,080
hold that kind of crazy standard to other things.

591
00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:45,600
I mean guys get into the fire service but then their lives implode.

592
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:50,960
We don't scrap the fire service but you know guys going into prison like hey let's do this

593
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:51,960
work program.

594
00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:54,680
They want to go out there and cut fire line it's going to be hard.

595
00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:56,360
Now they have to sign up for it.

596
00:44:56,360 --> 00:44:58,920
I think that's kind of misconception in the public too.

597
00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:00,400
They think they get sentenced to that.

598
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:02,400
Like oh that's hard labor and that's not fair.

599
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:04,840
No they have to sign up for it.

600
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:06,480
They get approved for it.

601
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:10,400
Look at who they are and if they're going to be a decent fit.

602
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:13,840
And yeah for the guys that turn their lives around I think that's amazing.

603
00:45:13,840 --> 00:45:17,320
I think it's a good program.

604
00:45:17,320 --> 00:45:18,320
Absolutely.

605
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:23,920
All right well then before we get to you know 2021 as you progress through your career what

606
00:45:23,920 --> 00:45:34,120
was some of the other career events, fires etc that you kind of look back on?

607
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:49,560
You know what I talk when I do talks now and I recently like I was talking with our recruit

608
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:55,960
class that we had and I was telling them about how hey you guys I'm here to tell you about

609
00:45:55,960 --> 00:46:01,960
the fine print on the back side of the brochure that nobody ever told me about before I got

610
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:02,960
hired.

611
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:07,680
And they said you know yeah I'm going to talk to you about one great big call but it doesn't

612
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:09,480
need to be a big sideways call.

613
00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:12,280
You can have a whole career without a giant sideways call.

614
00:46:12,280 --> 00:46:19,360
You can have you know the four-year-old in a pool or a 12 year old hanging that you cut

615
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:21,280
down in the closet.

616
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:26,360
You can have the guy who is in his mid-50s who dropped dead in front of his family two

617
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:27,360
days before Christmas.

618
00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:31,840
I said you know what it could just be those.

619
00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:32,840
Those are the normal calls.

620
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:35,840
I said none of them are normal.

621
00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:38,040
And you know what those are all my calls.

622
00:46:38,040 --> 00:46:40,000
I had all those.

623
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:42,000
I said that's just an example.

624
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:47,760
I said I get crazy stuff all the time but they're all the normal ones.

625
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:52,920
And there's another captain on my job that he and I were talking about it and his point

626
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:56,440
is that you know what the human brain doesn't see those as normal.

627
00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:59,520
We're not really set up to see any of that.

628
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:01,400
All that stuff is just stuff that we have.

629
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:07,880
And so like highlights and stuff from my career like in terms of tragedy I've got all kinds

630
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:08,880
of stuff like that.

631
00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:10,920
I've done some cool fires.

632
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:16,280
Like I was on the Thomas fire which at the time was the largest fire in the history of

633
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:17,280
California.

634
00:47:17,280 --> 00:47:20,440
It got beat out by a bunch of big fires a couple of years later.

635
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:23,160
And that was 16 straight days.

636
00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:24,160
That fire was crazy.

637
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:26,160
I saw crazy fire behavior.

638
00:47:26,160 --> 00:47:27,400
It was fun.

639
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:30,560
I was glad nobody got hurt.

640
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:33,520
Right from that we saved half a dozen horses that nobody will ever know about.

641
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:34,520
Even their owners.

642
00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:35,520
They don't know that we saved them.

643
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:38,320
They just know they came home and they had horses.

644
00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:40,920
But it was great.

645
00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:41,920
Beautiful.

646
00:47:41,920 --> 00:47:43,160
That's exactly the answer.

647
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:46,200
I'm not looking for the gnarliest stuff.

648
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:50,720
Just things that you look back on and sometimes it's just that simple rescue or moment of

649
00:47:50,720 --> 00:47:55,080
kindness and compassion that's important.

650
00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:56,080
Real quick.

651
00:47:56,080 --> 00:47:57,080
Please jump in.

652
00:47:57,080 --> 00:48:03,200
If I'm going to talk about compassion, I think there's one call that highlights it perfectly.

653
00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:07,520
You know like you get called and you've never been called to rescue a cat in a tree or whatever.

654
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:09,760
A dog in a drain or whatever.

655
00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:12,040
I have literally been up to get a cat in a tree.

656
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:13,040
You know what happened?

657
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:15,000
The cat's a better climber than me and it just went higher.

658
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:18,200
We never got it and I'm sure it just walked down the line laughing at me.

659
00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:20,440
I've been on all those calls.

660
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:24,960
Well this time we got a call for a lizard in a house.

661
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:29,840
And we get there and there's this little old lady and she opened the door.

662
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:30,840
I'm like, hi ma'am.

663
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:33,280
This is when I was an engineer.

664
00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:35,840
And my fireman and I go to the door and knock on the door.

665
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:36,840
She opens the door.

666
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:38,320
The old lady, she's like 80 years old.

667
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:40,720
I'm like, ma'am, you have a lizard in your house?

668
00:48:40,720 --> 00:48:44,440
She goes, oh yes, I have a lizard in my house.

669
00:48:44,440 --> 00:48:47,920
My fireman's like, well ma'am, where is he?

670
00:48:47,920 --> 00:48:52,160
And she goes, he's over there acting like he owns the place.

671
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:56,560
And he goes in there and he gets this, you know, it's up in the Antelope Valley and it's

672
00:48:56,560 --> 00:49:00,240
this little gecko lizard and he grabs it and gets it.

673
00:49:00,240 --> 00:49:02,200
He's like, hey, we got it right here.

674
00:49:02,200 --> 00:49:03,200
Do you want to keep it?

675
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:05,800
She says, oh no.

676
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:07,880
And we take this thing and we get rid of it.

677
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:09,520
But you know what?

678
00:49:09,520 --> 00:49:14,480
This little old lady maintained her house like perfect.

679
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:15,840
There was nothing out of place.

680
00:49:15,840 --> 00:49:17,360
There was nothing dirty.

681
00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:23,720
We knew this lizard would have given her an absolute heart attack being in her house.

682
00:49:23,720 --> 00:49:27,640
And for as much as guys complain about going on like these crazy little public assist type

683
00:49:27,640 --> 00:49:33,480
of calls like that, I think though that kind of call is super important to go on because

684
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:39,600
we like to her, that was going to be the big issue of her day or week or month is that

685
00:49:39,600 --> 00:49:40,600
lizard in her house.

686
00:49:40,600 --> 00:49:48,480
It absolutely would have given her stress that would have never gone away.

687
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:54,440
Some of the favorite calls I look back on aside from obviously the adrenaline filled

688
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:59,280
fires and some of the rescues and stuff, but were the back to bed calls where you went

689
00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:02,640
on, you know, especially if it was like an elderly couple.

690
00:50:02,640 --> 00:50:05,800
And I wrote a chapter on in my book about this because I think it was so pertinent,

691
00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:10,520
you know, you go to their home and the husband is to say, in this case, you know, you're

692
00:50:10,520 --> 00:50:15,920
in this case, it's just so full of like shame because the love of his life, you know, if

693
00:50:15,920 --> 00:50:20,440
they're elderly, probably married, you know, 50 plus years has fallen down.

694
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:23,440
She soiled herself and there's nothing he can do.

695
00:50:23,440 --> 00:50:26,720
And he was once, you know, a dude like you and me that would have snatched her up in

696
00:50:26,720 --> 00:50:27,720
a second.

697
00:50:27,720 --> 00:50:31,640
But now he's unable to because he's 80, 90 years old.

698
00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:36,160
And so for, you know, men, women, whoever is on the truck or the engine that they show

699
00:50:36,160 --> 00:50:40,880
up and we, you know, we pick her up, we go above and beyond and clean her up, get us

700
00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:44,640
some some fresh underwear, put her back to bed.

701
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:45,640
And that's it.

702
00:50:45,640 --> 00:50:46,640
It was so easy for us.

703
00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:49,800
It wasn't pleasant, of course, cleaning up someone else's feces and stuff.

704
00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:56,160
But a simple, you know, bath and change of clothes restored their dignity, you know,

705
00:50:56,160 --> 00:51:00,880
and it restored, you know, his his feeling of being that protector that he had his whole

706
00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:01,880
life.

707
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:03,440
But I remember people bitching about those calls.

708
00:51:03,440 --> 00:51:06,320
I'm like, you don't understand the impact that it makes to you.

709
00:51:06,320 --> 00:51:09,680
You just walk in, pick him up, check files and you walk out.

710
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:13,880
But think about for a second that journey that those two people have been through.

711
00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:17,800
And he might have been, you know, a boxer and a military member or who knows what he

712
00:51:17,800 --> 00:51:23,480
was or carpenter or and now he can't even pick up the absolute soulmate that he's been

713
00:51:23,480 --> 00:51:25,140
with 50, 60 years.

714
00:51:25,140 --> 00:51:29,560
When you frame it that way, it's such an important call for us to go on.

715
00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:30,560
Absolutely.

716
00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:33,760
Absolutely, for sure.

717
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:34,760
All right.

718
00:51:34,760 --> 00:51:38,560
Well, then I know that there are some some areas that you can't talk about.

719
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:40,520
Obviously, this is still an active case.

720
00:51:40,520 --> 00:51:45,960
But wherever you would like to go, if you want to talk to me about John and Tony, you

721
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:49,800
know who those men were and your relationship with them.

722
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:52,880
Sure, I can do that.

723
00:51:52,880 --> 00:52:01,520
So Tory, Arnie and John.

724
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:05,360
So Tory, that's OK.

725
00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:09,560
Tory Carlin, he was a paramedic and I've known him since I got hired.

726
00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:16,240
He was at the neighboring fire station from my first spot.

727
00:52:16,240 --> 00:52:21,620
And when I was a brand new fireman, that's the guy I wanted.

728
00:52:21,620 --> 00:52:26,200
So he would be on calls and I would always ask him about things and what he thought.

729
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:29,680
He was always trying to kind of school me up on things.

730
00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:35,640
And to me, he's my hero.

731
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:37,680
Arnie, he was a captain that got shot.

732
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:41,320
He didn't die.

733
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:42,960
Arnie was a guy I've always worked around.

734
00:52:42,960 --> 00:52:45,760
At one point, we were counterparts at a fire station.

735
00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:48,760
We're both engineers on different shifts.

736
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:53,560
And I kind of just always got along well with them.

737
00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:57,720
We always don't bounce ideas off each other.

738
00:52:57,720 --> 00:53:00,560
He was a great guy to know, still a great guy to know.

739
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:03,560
I love that guy.

740
00:53:03,560 --> 00:53:06,800
John the guy, he did the shooting at one point in time.

741
00:53:06,800 --> 00:53:09,800
We were counterparts at a fire station.

742
00:53:09,800 --> 00:53:13,640
We're on different shifts.

743
00:53:13,640 --> 00:53:15,640
We got along well.

744
00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:20,720
He did a good job.

745
00:53:20,720 --> 00:53:21,720
He'd been to my in-laws house.

746
00:53:21,720 --> 00:53:22,720
He was a motorhead.

747
00:53:22,720 --> 00:53:23,720
And so was my father-in-law.

748
00:53:23,720 --> 00:53:27,880
And my father-in-law built race cars.

749
00:53:27,880 --> 00:53:32,480
So I can't say that I didn't know him pretty well because I did.

750
00:53:32,480 --> 00:53:36,520
These were all guys I knew for a lot of years.

751
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:43,400
And I knew they were all guys that I would have done anything for.

752
00:53:43,400 --> 00:53:46,280
So I know we can't go there, but I'm just going to put something out and you don't have

753
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:50,280
to respond to it because again, it might be kind of entangled in that.

754
00:53:50,280 --> 00:53:56,520
But what I always ask people, and obviously we're normally talking about people that have

755
00:53:56,520 --> 00:54:01,560
a downward spiral usually in their own self-harm, whether it's suicide, whether it's some sort

756
00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:05,440
of addiction element, is what were they like when they got hired?

757
00:54:05,440 --> 00:54:11,360
And I think it's very easy for us in the fire service to say, this is this person today.

758
00:54:11,360 --> 00:54:13,320
But how were they when they got hired?

759
00:54:13,320 --> 00:54:18,200
Were they always the same personality or is there being a kind of downward spiral?

760
00:54:18,200 --> 00:54:23,080
And when I talk about the job that I adore, but some of the hours that our men and women

761
00:54:23,080 --> 00:54:28,200
work over and over and over again, before you even have wildfire deployments and some

762
00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:35,160
of these other things, we have created an environment for us to kind of deteriorate,

763
00:54:35,160 --> 00:54:37,320
to degrade.

764
00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:40,880
And that can manifest in a thousand different ways.

765
00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:46,360
More often than not, it's depression, anxiety, maybe drinking, maybe even worse, a darker

766
00:54:46,360 --> 00:54:47,360
place.

767
00:54:47,360 --> 00:54:50,920
But on occasion, it can even go the other way to homicidal tendencies.

768
00:54:50,920 --> 00:54:55,360
And I've had guests on the show that have actually said, and they never did, thank goodness,

769
00:54:55,360 --> 00:54:59,780
but they got to the point mentally where it wasn't just self-harm, it was harm to others

770
00:54:59,780 --> 00:55:00,780
as well.

771
00:55:00,780 --> 00:55:05,920
So you don't need to respond to that, but I just wanted to put that in there that every

772
00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:11,080
time we have that salty person, that angry person, is that someone who's now spiraled

773
00:55:11,080 --> 00:55:15,480
down to a point of crisis or were they always like that and we shouldn't have hired them?

774
00:55:15,480 --> 00:55:20,160
But I think that's an important question for us to ask ourselves as a profession when someone

775
00:55:20,160 --> 00:55:22,160
has reached a certain point.

776
00:55:22,160 --> 00:55:26,800
I think in general, I would agree with that.

777
00:55:26,800 --> 00:55:34,280
I think that we need to be able to look at the people we hire and the people we hire

778
00:55:34,280 --> 00:55:36,320
need to understand why we look at that.

779
00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:41,760
I don't know that we do a great job of educating people about why we need to look at that kind

780
00:55:41,760 --> 00:55:42,760
of thing.

781
00:55:42,760 --> 00:55:43,760
Absolutely.

782
00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:44,760
All right.

783
00:55:44,760 --> 00:55:47,560
Well, then let's move to June 1st, 2021 then.

784
00:55:47,560 --> 00:55:51,400
Can you walk me through the beginning of that day and then how that unfolded through your

785
00:55:51,400 --> 00:55:52,400
eyes?

786
00:55:52,400 --> 00:55:53,400
Sure.

787
00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:57,360
And I'll kind of talk to you the way I do this when I do a talk.

788
00:55:57,360 --> 00:55:58,360
Please.

789
00:55:58,360 --> 00:56:04,600
So, at that point, I was at Fire Station 132 in Santa Clara.

790
00:56:04,600 --> 00:56:08,720
I'd been a captain for about two and a half years.

791
00:56:08,720 --> 00:56:14,360
It was still the first state fire station I'd been assigned to after promoting to captain.

792
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:22,600
I think I'd been on the job 13-ish years at that point.

793
00:56:22,600 --> 00:56:27,520
I knew I didn't know everything, but I knew I thought I was kind of ready to handle just

794
00:56:27,520 --> 00:56:31,160
about anything because I knew who to ask if I didn't know.

795
00:56:31,160 --> 00:56:37,520
They always tell you to be confident in your gear and your training and your experience

796
00:56:37,520 --> 00:56:39,520
and that kind of thing.

797
00:56:39,520 --> 00:56:45,200
That day, I'm in the fire station and it's an overtime shift for me.

798
00:56:45,200 --> 00:56:49,160
I was in the office and we're thinking about going to lunch.

799
00:56:49,160 --> 00:56:56,920
It's probably about a quarter to 11 or so and the phone rings.

800
00:56:56,920 --> 00:57:03,160
I'm getting a phone call from the paramedic at the next station up the road, which is

801
00:57:03,160 --> 00:57:04,160
not very close.

802
00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:06,160
It's 10 miles away.

803
00:57:06,160 --> 00:57:10,560
We have a lot of interface in that part of LA County.

804
00:57:10,560 --> 00:57:12,920
My district was 50 square miles.

805
00:57:12,920 --> 00:57:15,840
I had a lot of suburb and I had a lot of open space.

806
00:57:15,840 --> 00:57:20,640
So, the next fire station in that direction was 10 miles.

807
00:57:20,640 --> 00:57:22,680
It's a paramedic there and he's calling me.

808
00:57:22,680 --> 00:57:30,640
He says, I pick up the phone, fire station 132, Captain Monroe.

809
00:57:30,640 --> 00:57:36,320
Another line, he says, hey Monroe, it's Sparky.

810
00:57:36,320 --> 00:57:38,720
I'm not fucking around.

811
00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:40,120
Two tone just came in here.

812
00:57:40,120 --> 00:57:41,360
He shot and killed Tory.

813
00:57:41,360 --> 00:57:46,200
He shot Arnie and I need help.

814
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:51,840
For people who are listening to your show that aren't in the fire service or first responders

815
00:57:51,840 --> 00:57:58,640
at all, this is such an unusual phone call because 99% of the time it's the tones going

816
00:57:58,640 --> 00:58:01,760
off in the station letting you know you got to go do something.

817
00:58:01,760 --> 00:58:03,880
It's rarely ever a phone call.

818
00:58:03,880 --> 00:58:06,080
Definitely not a phone call from somebody you work with.

819
00:58:06,080 --> 00:58:12,960
He's not calling me, telling me that a guy I know shot and killed another guy I know

820
00:58:12,960 --> 00:58:14,840
and the other guy I know.

821
00:58:14,840 --> 00:58:19,720
These are all guys I'm close to and I didn't know what to do.

822
00:58:19,720 --> 00:58:24,000
Hopefully that helps on its way.

823
00:58:24,000 --> 00:58:25,000
I did the best I could.

824
00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:27,640
I got the phone with him.

825
00:58:27,640 --> 00:58:30,800
My engineer was walking in the office at that time and told him to get the chief on the

826
00:58:30,800 --> 00:58:31,800
phone.

827
00:58:31,800 --> 00:58:38,000
I went and tried calling dispatch supervisor and I couldn't get a hold of him.

828
00:58:38,000 --> 00:58:39,800
I finally got a hold of a line dispatcher.

829
00:58:39,800 --> 00:58:45,920
I was like, hey, this is what happened up there and the line dispatcher said, we are

830
00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:46,920
aware.

831
00:58:46,920 --> 00:58:48,320
I said, all right, do you need us to go?

832
00:58:48,320 --> 00:58:49,320
He said, don't go.

833
00:58:49,320 --> 00:58:50,320
I'm like, are you sure?

834
00:58:50,320 --> 00:58:51,320
Yes, we're sure.

835
00:58:51,320 --> 00:58:52,320
All right.

836
00:58:52,320 --> 00:58:56,440
I got off the phone, got my guys off the phone.

837
00:58:56,440 --> 00:59:00,800
My fireman is coming in at that point and I told them what happened.

838
00:59:00,800 --> 00:59:04,960
They were probably just as deer in the headlights as I was.

839
00:59:04,960 --> 00:59:09,000
I said, look, John and I used to work in this fire station together.

840
00:59:09,000 --> 00:59:11,040
I don't know if he's on his way here or not.

841
00:59:11,040 --> 00:59:12,400
We have no idea where he is.

842
00:59:12,400 --> 00:59:16,880
Let's go get our body armor on and go from there.

843
00:59:16,880 --> 00:59:21,560
That's what we did with the fire engine, put it on our bulletproof vests because in my

844
00:59:21,560 --> 00:59:28,000
department you have to have those from time to time.

845
00:59:28,000 --> 00:59:29,800
We decided to leave the fire station.

846
00:59:29,800 --> 00:59:31,880
We were going to go post up somewhere else.

847
00:59:31,880 --> 00:59:37,040
I'll try and cut a lot of this out because I was going to be talking here for a long

848
00:59:37,040 --> 00:59:38,640
time.

849
00:59:38,640 --> 00:59:43,760
We ended up going to 81's, which is that fire station.

850
00:59:43,760 --> 00:59:44,760
We got there.

851
00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:46,760
I sent my guys to work.

852
00:59:46,760 --> 00:59:52,480
I checked in with the captain that was already there from the assignment that had been started.

853
00:59:52,480 --> 00:59:54,280
I asked him what he needed.

854
00:59:54,280 --> 00:59:56,160
He said he was good.

855
00:59:56,160 --> 00:59:58,160
I asked him, are you sure?

856
00:59:58,160 --> 00:59:59,160
He said, yeah.

857
00:59:59,160 --> 01:00:00,160
But he was pacing.

858
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:01,640
He didn't know what to do.

859
01:00:01,640 --> 01:00:05,320
He was like a coiled spring without anything to rebound against.

860
01:00:05,320 --> 01:00:09,400
I asked him where Torrey was and he pointed.

861
01:00:09,400 --> 01:00:13,320
I saw him at Browardus Bay and he was on the ground.

862
01:00:13,320 --> 01:00:21,680
I walked up to him and I hit a sturdy blanket on him.

863
01:00:21,680 --> 01:00:28,600
I looked at the other captain and I'm like, hey, we need to get a flag.

864
01:00:28,600 --> 01:00:32,440
He said, oh, good idea.

865
01:00:32,440 --> 01:00:35,200
We weren't looking for one.

866
01:00:35,200 --> 01:00:38,000
We couldn't find one so I said, hey, I'm going to take the one down off the flagpole.

867
01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:41,960
That will be the last flag to fly here today.

868
01:00:41,960 --> 01:00:45,120
I took that down and we went and draped it on him.

869
01:00:45,120 --> 01:00:55,560
Then I posted it up next to Torrey because they didn't want him to be by himself.

870
01:00:55,560 --> 01:00:58,160
The other captain walked away and I just stood there and I did my best.

871
01:00:58,160 --> 01:01:01,440
I'm going to be stoic and I'm going to be with him.

872
01:01:01,440 --> 01:01:05,760
He's not going to be alone because in my head I'm thinking the concrete is kind of hard

873
01:01:05,760 --> 01:01:09,760
and it's going to be cold and he's not comfortable.

874
01:01:09,760 --> 01:01:12,760
I wouldn't want to be alone if it was me.

875
01:01:12,760 --> 01:01:19,080
I'm looking at how his body fluids are coming out from under him.

876
01:01:19,080 --> 01:01:25,240
I can see the two shell casings down there on the ground between me and him.

877
01:01:25,240 --> 01:01:32,880
I stood there with him and I wasn't going to be.

878
01:01:32,880 --> 01:01:41,720
I was watching, I'm listening to the radio traffic and I heard a fire go out in the next

879
01:01:41,720 --> 01:01:47,880
district up the road and I'm like, God damn it, that's going to be John.

880
01:01:47,880 --> 01:01:51,000
He's going to be burning down his house and he's going to kill himself.

881
01:01:51,000 --> 01:01:52,000
I was right.

882
01:01:52,000 --> 01:01:54,400
I didn't recognize the address.

883
01:01:54,400 --> 01:01:57,120
I just knew it was.

884
01:01:57,120 --> 01:02:04,040
Like in that moment I realized that the second one of my friends had died but I kind of mentally

885
01:02:04,040 --> 01:02:06,520
did a, well you're on your own dude.

886
01:02:06,520 --> 01:02:08,200
I can't help you.

887
01:02:08,200 --> 01:02:11,040
You've done this.

888
01:02:11,040 --> 01:02:15,520
I can't help you with that.

889
01:02:15,520 --> 01:02:18,960
I kind of mentally put him off on his own.

890
01:02:18,960 --> 01:02:24,920
I stood there with Tory and I watched cops come there and put up crime scene tape and

891
01:02:24,920 --> 01:02:29,680
put down evidence markers and I'm watching guys from my department break down and sob.

892
01:02:29,680 --> 01:02:31,720
I'm just standing there like the stoic.

893
01:02:31,720 --> 01:02:35,440
I'm going to be a guard.

894
01:02:35,440 --> 01:02:39,040
I probably stood there for, we were there for a long time.

895
01:02:39,040 --> 01:02:40,680
We were probably there for about two and a half hours.

896
01:02:40,680 --> 01:02:51,800
I think I stood next to him for an hour, hour and a half.

897
01:02:51,800 --> 01:02:55,080
Eventually the cops came and got me, they needed me to come out.

898
01:02:55,080 --> 01:02:56,080
I don't want to.

899
01:02:56,080 --> 01:02:57,400
I told them no I'm good.

900
01:02:57,400 --> 01:03:01,640
I'm going to stand here.

901
01:03:01,640 --> 01:03:05,960
They had this little deputy she took over for me and when that happened I broke down

902
01:03:05,960 --> 01:03:09,800
and started crying.

903
01:03:09,800 --> 01:03:13,960
The deputy that came and got me, he just held onto me until I stopped.

904
01:03:13,960 --> 01:03:15,680
He probably held me for five minutes.

905
01:03:15,680 --> 01:03:17,680
I just couldn't stop sobbing.

906
01:03:17,680 --> 01:03:23,240
That's how all that started.

907
01:03:23,240 --> 01:03:27,840
Up until that point we talked about death by a thousand cuts.

908
01:03:27,840 --> 01:03:34,060
How were you emotionally and then what was your attitude towards the mental health conversation

909
01:03:34,060 --> 01:03:41,200
in the fire service?

910
01:03:41,200 --> 01:03:43,880
For me this call is extremely impactful.

911
01:03:43,880 --> 01:03:51,880
I struggle with PTSD and depression from this call.

912
01:03:51,880 --> 01:04:01,280
I think it's completely honest to say that this call plus all the other calls will got

913
01:04:01,280 --> 01:04:02,280
me there.

914
01:04:02,280 --> 01:04:09,320
When I mentioned off those other ones from before and a whole bunch of other ones I haven't

915
01:04:09,320 --> 01:04:11,800
mentioned, that's all part of that.

916
01:04:11,800 --> 01:04:18,400
At one point in my career I remember thinking that if somebody took their own life they

917
01:04:18,400 --> 01:04:24,840
were this weak and I was critical of them and I would probably say a lot of nice things

918
01:04:24,840 --> 01:04:27,920
about them.

919
01:04:27,920 --> 01:04:33,560
Since then I can't remember when in my career exactly it was but it was definitely reinforced

920
01:04:33,560 --> 01:04:35,960
with this call.

921
01:04:35,960 --> 01:04:43,520
Guys break and when they break you have to hope that they're not going to take somebody

922
01:04:43,520 --> 01:04:44,520
with them.

923
01:04:44,520 --> 01:04:47,880
When it's in our training they say hey if you're going on a suicide call be careful

924
01:04:47,880 --> 01:04:49,160
because it hurts you.

925
01:04:49,160 --> 01:04:50,160
They might be homicidal.

926
01:04:50,160 --> 01:04:55,960
This is honestly the first time I saw that happen.

927
01:04:55,960 --> 01:05:03,080
I think that if we don't acknowledge that guys break and we aren't there to help them

928
01:05:03,080 --> 01:05:06,680
then at least I try to help them.

929
01:05:06,680 --> 01:05:07,680
People have to want to be helped.

930
01:05:07,680 --> 01:05:12,880
That's something else that's important to understand.

931
01:05:12,880 --> 01:05:16,880
That's an important thing coming away from this for me.

932
01:05:16,880 --> 01:05:22,920
I've become active in things like peer support and being a mental health advocate for first

933
01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:30,360
responders because when the newspapers do editorial pages and people write in on their

934
01:05:30,360 --> 01:05:34,480
letters saying hey these guys signed up for this job they knew what they were getting

935
01:05:34,480 --> 01:05:35,480
into.

936
01:05:35,480 --> 01:05:40,280
There is not one of us who signed up for this and none of us knew we were getting into this

937
01:05:40,280 --> 01:05:43,400
kind of mental stress.

938
01:05:43,400 --> 01:05:46,160
Nobody knows that.

939
01:05:46,160 --> 01:05:53,080
That ignorance is absolutely maddening but when I take a step back and look at what a

940
01:05:53,080 --> 01:05:58,000
terrible job we've done as a profession in educating the people what we actually do we've

941
01:05:58,000 --> 01:05:59,600
kind of got ourselves to blame.

942
01:05:59,600 --> 01:06:03,440
We're not talking about what happened at the firehouse but the attitudes from some of the

943
01:06:03,440 --> 01:06:05,440
public.

944
01:06:05,440 --> 01:06:10,080
When you look at what we signed up for we signed up to show up, get on a rig, run calls

945
01:06:10,080 --> 01:06:13,200
and be there in people's worst times.

946
01:06:13,200 --> 01:06:18,960
For example, 56 hours a week then mandatory overtime and now you've got first responders

947
01:06:18,960 --> 01:06:24,760
working 80, 90, 100 hours a week depending on the wild lands or whatever is going on

948
01:06:24,760 --> 01:06:26,040
at the moment.

949
01:06:26,040 --> 01:06:28,000
That's not what we signed up for.

950
01:06:28,000 --> 01:06:29,320
We signed up to help.

951
01:06:29,320 --> 01:06:35,600
We didn't buy into the fact that the support around a lot of our first responders was going

952
01:06:35,600 --> 01:06:40,000
to get worse and worse and worse and we're going to ask to do more and more and more

953
01:06:40,000 --> 01:06:42,240
with less and less and less.

954
01:06:42,240 --> 01:06:46,720
That's a huge disconnect because the public still thinks that you go to the station, you

955
01:06:46,720 --> 01:06:51,080
and your men and women sit around playing cards, pet the Dalmatian and then when a fire

956
01:06:51,080 --> 01:06:54,460
comes in once, twice a week you go run a call.

957
01:06:54,460 --> 01:07:00,760
The reality is that most fire and EMS combined services in America will be lucky if they

958
01:07:00,760 --> 01:07:04,320
get their gear on the rig before the first call comes in.

959
01:07:04,320 --> 01:07:07,080
On a good day they might only run five or six.

960
01:07:07,080 --> 01:07:10,460
On a bad day they may not see the station for 24 hours.

961
01:07:10,460 --> 01:07:11,760
This is the reality.

962
01:07:11,760 --> 01:07:15,340
When I hear people say, oh, that's what you signed up for, it's not.

963
01:07:15,340 --> 01:07:22,080
It has shifted dramatically from 20 years ago when I was on the understanding that we

964
01:07:22,080 --> 01:07:26,840
went for 24 hours and we worked, but no one was explaining all the other things that came

965
01:07:26,840 --> 01:07:33,700
into that and the breakdown mentally, physically, hormonally, emotionally, relationships that

966
01:07:33,700 --> 01:07:35,440
come with that as well.

967
01:07:35,440 --> 01:07:40,520
Part of that conversation is also sadly even homicide.

968
01:07:40,520 --> 01:07:46,320
The irony is I was just listening when you were telling the story, the last two departments

969
01:07:46,320 --> 01:07:50,500
I worked for, both of them, and these are just firefighters that I worked with and one

970
01:07:50,500 --> 01:07:55,240
of them is a very large department, both of them in those stations had stories about a

971
01:07:55,240 --> 01:07:59,760
previous firefighter that threatened to come back with a gun and kill them all.

972
01:07:59,760 --> 01:08:03,920
Two departments, two stations within a few years of each other.

973
01:08:03,920 --> 01:08:10,720
Again, this global mental health conversation, the fire service, to say that's what you signed

974
01:08:10,720 --> 01:08:15,960
up for is a giant fucking middle finger to everyone who's selfishly served.

975
01:08:15,960 --> 01:08:21,040
The families have watched them walk out the door every X amount of days and that's your

976
01:08:21,040 --> 01:08:25,400
response rather than trying to figure out how can we support the first responders you

977
01:08:25,400 --> 01:08:28,040
reply with, well, that's what you signed up for.

978
01:08:28,040 --> 01:08:30,720
Oh, you're absolutely right.

979
01:08:30,720 --> 01:08:35,160
We all signed up because we want to do something different and we want to have this great job

980
01:08:35,160 --> 01:08:39,480
and have it be meaningful, but none of us wanted to move paper from one side of the

981
01:08:39,480 --> 01:08:40,480
dust to another.

982
01:08:40,480 --> 01:08:47,600
But now we're in this occupation where depending on whose numbers you read or listen to, we

983
01:08:47,600 --> 01:08:52,920
kill ourselves 300 to 1000% higher rate than the national population.

984
01:08:52,920 --> 01:08:55,120
Nobody signed up for our job thinking, oh yeah, that's what I want to do.

985
01:08:55,120 --> 01:08:58,800
I want to kill myself one day.

986
01:08:58,800 --> 01:09:01,960
Nobody's fought, but it's what's happened.

987
01:09:01,960 --> 01:09:03,960
Yeah, you're absolutely right.

988
01:09:03,960 --> 01:09:06,640
We didn't sign up for that.

989
01:09:06,640 --> 01:09:11,760
I want to get to where you were from that point moving forward and your healing journey.

990
01:09:11,760 --> 01:09:15,600
But before we do, as you mentioned, Arnie was wounded but survived.

991
01:09:15,600 --> 01:09:16,600
Thank goodness.

992
01:09:16,600 --> 01:09:21,160
Let's talk about him because a lot of the conversation is about the attacker.

993
01:09:21,160 --> 01:09:25,280
It's about Tori who didn't survive.

994
01:09:25,280 --> 01:09:30,240
But Arnie, it reminds me of Ben Vernon was one of the San Diego firefighters that was

995
01:09:30,240 --> 01:09:35,040
stabbed and he always joked that the other guy that was also stabbed never gets mentioned

996
01:09:35,040 --> 01:09:36,600
in the conversation.

997
01:09:36,600 --> 01:09:39,520
So how is Arnie doing now?

998
01:09:39,520 --> 01:09:46,000
What has been his physical and mental recovery and what are the implications of that particular

999
01:09:46,000 --> 01:09:48,920
incident on his career?

1000
01:09:48,920 --> 01:09:49,920
You know what?

1001
01:09:49,920 --> 01:09:52,560
I'm going to do the absolute best I can.

1002
01:09:52,560 --> 01:09:56,240
I swear, Arnie, if you ever hear this, I'm doing the best I can with this.

1003
01:09:56,240 --> 01:10:00,480
And if I misspeak, I apologize now.

1004
01:10:00,480 --> 01:10:04,560
So Arnie is such a cool guy.

1005
01:10:04,560 --> 01:10:09,960
He actually was a sheriff before, he was deputy sheriff of the county before he became a

1006
01:10:09,960 --> 01:10:10,960
fireman.

1007
01:10:10,960 --> 01:10:19,480
He'd go out, he loved doing outdoor stuff, he'd go hunting and everything.

1008
01:10:19,480 --> 01:10:27,600
And he got shot and went through his spine and now he can't walk without crushes.

1009
01:10:27,600 --> 01:10:32,200
So he'll never work again.

1010
01:10:32,200 --> 01:10:36,760
I saw him at one of the, I guess you call it one of the reunion events.

1011
01:10:36,760 --> 01:10:40,640
He comes walking in, he's got his hand crutches, people are saying hi to him and everything

1012
01:10:40,640 --> 01:10:42,000
and I finally get to talk to him.

1013
01:10:42,000 --> 01:10:43,800
I'm like, hey brother, how you doing?

1014
01:10:43,800 --> 01:10:46,720
He said, hey Ed, I'm alright.

1015
01:10:46,720 --> 01:10:49,640
I'm looking at him like, really dude, you got to use crutches to come in here?

1016
01:10:49,640 --> 01:10:52,680
You think that people don't have enough sympathy for you already?

1017
01:10:52,680 --> 01:10:53,760
You got to like ham it up?

1018
01:10:53,760 --> 01:10:57,960
He starts laughing and he goes, thank you so much because I got people giving me the

1019
01:10:57,960 --> 01:11:02,160
whole like, I feel so bad for you because I needed a laugh.

1020
01:11:02,160 --> 01:11:10,040
He's got a sense of humor but at the same time I know that he has struggled a lot.

1021
01:11:10,040 --> 01:11:17,320
I think it's easy to imagine the kind of things he's had to deal with mentally coming away

1022
01:11:17,320 --> 01:11:18,320
from this.

1023
01:11:18,320 --> 01:11:22,680
The nightmares, the worry, the everything.

1024
01:11:22,680 --> 01:11:25,080
He and I have talked about that.

1025
01:11:25,080 --> 01:11:30,280
I don't want to elaborate too much on it but let's just say it's been really hard for him.

1026
01:11:30,280 --> 01:11:34,840
When you think about the event, it's not just the fact that he had a physical wound and

1027
01:11:34,840 --> 01:11:38,320
then even you factor in a semi paralysis.

1028
01:11:38,320 --> 01:11:43,080
It's also that one minute he was doing what he loved with the men and women that he loved

1029
01:11:43,080 --> 01:11:47,400
doing it with and he had a sense of purpose and he was part of a tribe.

1030
01:11:47,400 --> 01:11:51,440
Then by the squeeze of a trigger, all of that is taken from him.

1031
01:11:51,440 --> 01:11:56,200
I know that one of the big things that we all suffer from when we transition out, whether

1032
01:11:56,200 --> 01:12:02,080
fired, promoted, whatever it is, when we're away from that crew, that firehouse, camaraderie,

1033
01:12:02,080 --> 01:12:06,120
is that kind of feeling of being outside the circle now.

1034
01:12:06,120 --> 01:12:11,340
It must be crushing emotionally to have all of that stolen as well as his physicality.

1035
01:12:11,340 --> 01:12:16,080
One minute he's there able to throw 24s and make entry in a second floor and now he's

1036
01:12:16,080 --> 01:12:18,640
having to use crutches.

1037
01:12:18,640 --> 01:12:20,520
There's a lot for him to process.

1038
01:12:20,520 --> 01:12:24,320
I hope people are still kind of enveloping him and making sure he's okay.

1039
01:12:24,320 --> 01:12:29,000
I try to talk to him every month or two.

1040
01:12:29,000 --> 01:12:33,840
I always got stuff going on, but he takes my calls sometimes.

1041
01:12:33,840 --> 01:12:36,720
It's good.

1042
01:12:36,720 --> 01:12:37,720
What about you then?

1043
01:12:37,720 --> 01:12:43,360
So like you said, you've just been relieved standing duty and exitory now that you've

1044
01:12:43,360 --> 01:12:48,360
had the support of this officer that you actually kind of break down with.

1045
01:12:48,360 --> 01:12:55,560
What over the next couple of years was handled well and then what if it wasn't, could people

1046
01:12:55,560 --> 01:13:00,800
listening improve on how you kind of navigate an incident like this?

1047
01:13:00,800 --> 01:13:04,800
It's such a good question.

1048
01:13:04,800 --> 01:13:10,120
The things that we all go with the things we didn't do so great are stress debrief.

1049
01:13:10,120 --> 01:13:14,360
Even I knew we needed a stress debrief at that time when we were driving the rig back

1050
01:13:14,360 --> 01:13:16,960
down the station and we were given a meeting location.

1051
01:13:16,960 --> 01:13:20,000
We were supposed to have a stress debrief.

1052
01:13:20,000 --> 01:13:23,040
Stress debrief took on a life of its own.

1053
01:13:23,040 --> 01:13:29,680
It spun up into being from people involved in the call to where we had over battalions

1054
01:13:29,680 --> 01:13:31,880
where our guys are.

1055
01:13:31,880 --> 01:13:32,880
People not even involved, just guys.

1056
01:13:32,880 --> 01:13:33,880
They're all there.

1057
01:13:33,880 --> 01:13:36,400
The chiefs want to talk to us.

1058
01:13:36,400 --> 01:13:40,080
If you've been through stress debriefs, you realize that that's really rare.

1059
01:13:40,080 --> 01:13:42,960
We normally don't have chiefs at these things.

1060
01:13:42,960 --> 01:13:48,640
Then we finally got to having the guys involved in the call speak.

1061
01:13:48,640 --> 01:13:55,480
The other captain and myself, we were both more angry and claustrophobic and didn't

1062
01:13:55,480 --> 01:14:01,000
want to be there and didn't understand what we were doing because now we're in this room

1063
01:14:01,000 --> 01:14:04,560
of a whole bunch of people who weren't there, who didn't see it, who didn't experience

1064
01:14:04,560 --> 01:14:05,560
it.

1065
01:14:05,560 --> 01:14:08,120
Dad didn't know what to say.

1066
01:14:08,120 --> 01:14:09,760
He didn't know what to say.

1067
01:14:09,760 --> 01:14:17,240
We talked about what we went through and had gone through briefly, but it was all with

1068
01:14:17,240 --> 01:14:18,240
a bit of defiance.

1069
01:14:18,240 --> 01:14:21,720
If you got a problem, you go ahead and say it.

1070
01:14:21,720 --> 01:14:24,560
It wasn't a great stress debrief.

1071
01:14:24,560 --> 01:14:26,600
I don't think that that's anybody's fault.

1072
01:14:26,600 --> 01:14:28,080
It's just what happened.

1073
01:14:28,080 --> 01:14:29,080
I understand.

1074
01:14:29,080 --> 01:14:35,200
I'm not an expert in crisis management for the fire service posts a critical call like

1075
01:14:35,200 --> 01:14:36,200
that.

1076
01:14:36,200 --> 01:14:40,360
It's just what happened.

1077
01:14:40,360 --> 01:14:44,960
Coming away from that, things that were rough, I was off for a week because I flew back to

1078
01:14:44,960 --> 01:14:45,960
Idaho the next day.

1079
01:14:45,960 --> 01:14:48,520
I was scheduled to, which was good and bad.

1080
01:14:48,520 --> 01:14:49,840
It was good because that wasn't work.

1081
01:14:49,840 --> 01:14:52,880
It was bad because I wasn't plugged in to anybody.

1082
01:14:52,880 --> 01:14:54,360
I wasn't talking to anybody.

1083
01:14:54,360 --> 01:15:00,880
My poor wife was like, what just happened to my husband?

1084
01:15:00,880 --> 01:15:05,160
She did the best she could and then I went back to work like I planned to.

1085
01:15:05,160 --> 01:15:09,240
Here I am, I'm on the honor guard for our department and I'm thinking I'm going to be

1086
01:15:09,240 --> 01:15:12,520
involved in all of this stuff.

1087
01:15:12,520 --> 01:15:20,040
I shouldn't have even tried because that definitely spun me out more.

1088
01:15:20,040 --> 01:15:25,640
I ended up going off on stress three days after I got back to work.

1089
01:15:25,640 --> 01:15:27,020
Went off on stress.

1090
01:15:27,020 --> 01:15:33,200
Things I did well, I got tied in with a therapist who was really culturally competent.

1091
01:15:33,200 --> 01:15:35,760
He understood a lot.

1092
01:15:35,760 --> 01:15:41,080
Had something called EMDR, which was super helpful to me.

1093
01:15:41,080 --> 01:15:43,960
It helped me a lot.

1094
01:15:43,960 --> 01:15:47,960
Then I went back to work in two and a half weeks.

1095
01:15:47,960 --> 01:15:52,640
I thought I was good and it turns out I was kind of held together with scotch tape and

1096
01:15:52,640 --> 01:15:56,240
bailing wire.

1097
01:15:56,240 --> 01:16:00,960
I get this phone call in a few months where it's the work comp people calling me telling

1098
01:16:00,960 --> 01:16:03,960
me they're going to deny my claim.

1099
01:16:03,960 --> 01:16:08,720
It took about 30 seconds for me to relive the entire call and how nobody must believe

1100
01:16:08,720 --> 01:16:14,400
me, the chief still believe me, this company doesn't believe me, nobody probably believes

1101
01:16:14,400 --> 01:16:15,400
me at all.

1102
01:16:15,400 --> 01:16:17,120
What am I even doing there?

1103
01:16:17,120 --> 01:16:18,760
It was tough for me.

1104
01:16:18,760 --> 01:16:24,880
I think that phone call is probably just as damaging to me as the actual incident.

1105
01:16:24,880 --> 01:16:31,080
Then I ended up getting evaluated by a qualified medical examiner and we basically got the

1106
01:16:31,080 --> 01:16:33,720
call picked up and I had some therapy.

1107
01:16:33,720 --> 01:16:36,600
Even that kind of minimized.

1108
01:16:36,600 --> 01:16:40,760
I only was given like 10 therapy visits.

1109
01:16:40,760 --> 01:16:46,840
I ran out and I slowly just drifted off.

1110
01:16:46,840 --> 01:16:53,800
I really kind of disengaged at home and disassociated with a lot of stuff.

1111
01:16:53,800 --> 01:17:01,040
By the time I got help again, I had to go back to see the QME and he apologized.

1112
01:17:01,040 --> 01:17:05,960
He's like, I am sorry because I should have done it this other way.

1113
01:17:05,960 --> 01:17:12,920
I'm still talking to my therapist now but it's been a lot of difficulty in doing that

1114
01:17:12,920 --> 01:17:13,920
now.

1115
01:17:13,920 --> 01:17:14,920
Therapy is great.

1116
01:17:14,920 --> 01:17:15,920
I think it's important.

1117
01:17:15,920 --> 01:17:21,920
I think a lot of guys probably need therapy that don't get it.

1118
01:17:21,920 --> 01:17:25,560
I tell guys now if you think you might need to talk to somebody because we all think we're

1119
01:17:25,560 --> 01:17:30,400
Superman, you definitely need to talk to somebody.

1120
01:17:30,400 --> 01:17:34,440
They say if you're thirsty, you're already behind the eight ball as far as hydration.

1121
01:17:34,440 --> 01:17:37,000
It's the same thing with mental health.

1122
01:17:37,000 --> 01:17:39,960
Same thing, especially with first responders.

1123
01:17:39,960 --> 01:17:44,520
I mean, we all walk around thinking I'm bulletproof.

1124
01:17:44,520 --> 01:17:54,000
EMDR, one of the most exciting things when it comes to mental health being discussed

1125
01:17:54,000 --> 01:18:01,860
in 2024 is that the toolbox is available for our people in general is way bigger than we

1126
01:18:01,860 --> 01:18:03,480
understand, than we know about.

1127
01:18:03,480 --> 01:18:10,000
So it used to be psychiatric meds and talk therapy.

1128
01:18:10,000 --> 01:18:16,680
Now as we sit here, it's psychedelics and equine therapy and EMDR and microcurrent neurofeedback.

1129
01:18:16,680 --> 01:18:19,200
I mean, there's so many different things now.

1130
01:18:19,200 --> 01:18:20,200
So that's beautiful.

1131
01:18:20,200 --> 01:18:23,760
The problem is the people are fording and be able to get into these things.

1132
01:18:23,760 --> 01:18:27,600
That's the barrier to entry and it's very disappointing hearing yet another workman's

1133
01:18:27,600 --> 01:18:28,600
comp story.

1134
01:18:28,600 --> 01:18:32,080
I've had my own with injuries.

1135
01:18:32,080 --> 01:18:36,440
To be fair, in some of those, when I pushed hard enough, they were handled the way they

1136
01:18:36,440 --> 01:18:37,440
should have been.

1137
01:18:37,440 --> 01:18:40,520
Usually a back injury, right, pills and surgery, off you go.

1138
01:18:40,520 --> 01:18:43,040
It's like, well, time out, time out.

1139
01:18:43,040 --> 01:18:45,360
Let's go back a little bit.

1140
01:18:45,360 --> 01:18:53,000
But when it comes to EMDR, where I've heard the success is through addressing acute events.

1141
01:18:53,000 --> 01:18:57,680
I think when you understand what EMDR actually does, taking something so visceral and allowing

1142
01:18:57,680 --> 01:19:02,560
the brain to process it so it becomes more of a memory, it doesn't seem to have a great

1143
01:19:02,560 --> 01:19:06,080
impact people with more, like as we said, the death by a thousand cuts because there's

1144
01:19:06,080 --> 01:19:09,040
not one thing that's really haunting you.

1145
01:19:09,040 --> 01:19:18,280
So what element did you apply EMDR to and what were your results of that specific treatment

1146
01:19:18,280 --> 01:19:21,240
in your healing journey?

1147
01:19:21,240 --> 01:19:27,880
So when I told the story before, pre-EMDR, if I told the story, I would break down.

1148
01:19:27,880 --> 01:19:32,560
I would absolutely start telling the story.

1149
01:19:32,560 --> 01:19:44,040
That EMDR, which like you said, helps your brain to take this invasive image memory that

1150
01:19:44,040 --> 01:19:47,440
you have that isn't going away.

1151
01:19:47,440 --> 01:19:51,280
And the way it's phrased to me and the way I kind of visualize it is to put it in a box,

1152
01:19:51,280 --> 01:19:52,280
put it on a shelf.

1153
01:19:52,280 --> 01:19:55,640
I know it's there and I can reference it.

1154
01:19:55,640 --> 01:19:57,880
That's not a problem.

1155
01:19:57,880 --> 01:20:01,640
But now it's not loud in the front.

1156
01:20:01,640 --> 01:20:07,480
Now it's up on a shelf and I'm able to manage it.

1157
01:20:07,480 --> 01:20:10,360
And that was like immediate.

1158
01:20:10,360 --> 01:20:14,840
Like I could tell the story the next day and I was like, oh wow, that was amazing.

1159
01:20:14,840 --> 01:20:15,840
And I didn't break down sobbing.

1160
01:20:15,840 --> 01:20:16,840
Now I still get emotional.

1161
01:20:16,840 --> 01:20:21,440
I get teary, especially if that depends on the group I'm talking to and kind of how I'm

1162
01:20:21,440 --> 01:20:23,120
feeling and that kind of thing.

1163
01:20:23,120 --> 01:20:25,960
I still get pretty teary about it.

1164
01:20:25,960 --> 01:20:27,240
But I'm not breaking down sobbing.

1165
01:20:27,240 --> 01:20:30,680
That stopped, which that's what I needed at that time.

1166
01:20:30,680 --> 01:20:36,600
That's what I really needed.

1167
01:20:36,600 --> 01:20:40,200
Do I need to do more for that particular call?

1168
01:20:40,200 --> 01:20:43,680
I don't think I do.

1169
01:20:43,680 --> 01:20:45,280
I might for some other things.

1170
01:20:45,280 --> 01:20:50,040
So it's like when you say what's death by a thousand cuts.

1171
01:20:50,040 --> 01:20:51,520
And I may be totally wrong in this.

1172
01:20:51,520 --> 01:20:52,520
This is just me.

1173
01:20:52,520 --> 01:20:53,520
Well, I'm just a fireman.

1174
01:20:53,520 --> 01:20:54,720
What do I know?

1175
01:20:54,720 --> 01:20:57,880
I think that when it's death by a thousand cuts and you're trying to address it with

1176
01:20:57,880 --> 01:21:04,120
a cut or two at a time and address it and put them on the shelf, you're just trying

1177
01:21:04,120 --> 01:21:05,480
to get rid of each cut.

1178
01:21:05,480 --> 01:21:06,480
But that takes a while.

1179
01:21:06,480 --> 01:21:10,880
That's when you hear about people like how I've had 12, 20, 30 EMDR sessions.

1180
01:21:10,880 --> 01:21:14,080
Well, hey, you're dealing with a lot of different stuff and I'm sure they're dealing with all

1181
01:21:14,080 --> 01:21:16,480
different things at the same time.

1182
01:21:16,480 --> 01:21:17,480
Yeah.

1183
01:21:17,480 --> 01:21:21,160
For me, for example, there's nothing that really is invasive.

1184
01:21:21,160 --> 01:21:26,640
So if I was going to go down a route, it would probably be more just the overall holistic

1185
01:21:26,640 --> 01:21:32,200
side, whether it's the equine therapy or the gentle psychedelics, because there's not a

1186
01:21:32,200 --> 01:21:33,200
thing.

1187
01:21:33,200 --> 01:21:37,000
There's nothing that haunts me because there was just, as we said, there's so many.

1188
01:21:37,000 --> 01:21:39,040
There's not one thing that ever kind of bubbles to the surface.

1189
01:21:39,040 --> 01:21:40,920
And it's not something that really bothers me.

1190
01:21:40,920 --> 01:21:50,040
But that being said, to improve sleep quality, to improve or to reduce the brain fog, some

1191
01:21:50,040 --> 01:21:53,960
of these things are a little bit more behind the curtain.

1192
01:21:53,960 --> 01:21:58,520
If you can't specifically talk about a call, that might be an application where EMDR doesn't

1193
01:21:58,520 --> 01:22:02,600
work and maybe you lean into some of the other things that are also out there.

1194
01:22:02,600 --> 01:22:03,600
Right.

1195
01:22:03,600 --> 01:22:06,840
And I may very well be, I haven't tried anything else.

1196
01:22:06,840 --> 01:22:11,320
EMDR helped me for what I needed it to help me with.

1197
01:22:11,320 --> 01:22:16,640
I was just matching everything else.

1198
01:22:16,640 --> 01:22:20,240
So from the workman's comp point of view, let's stick with that for a second.

1199
01:22:20,240 --> 01:22:24,760
I, for example, just had a friend of mine from Anaheim have a cancer diagnosis.

1200
01:22:24,760 --> 01:22:29,240
And again, now they're having to prove, oh, was this a job related cancer and all that

1201
01:22:29,240 --> 01:22:30,240
kind of stuff?

1202
01:22:30,240 --> 01:22:33,280
And it is, it fits one of these things.

1203
01:22:33,280 --> 01:22:40,200
But when it comes to some of these insurance companies, I've heard it said so many times

1204
01:22:40,200 --> 01:22:43,200
with cancer specifically, they'll be like, well, we'll just keep fighting them.

1205
01:22:43,200 --> 01:22:46,980
They'll die before we have to pay them off.

1206
01:22:46,980 --> 01:22:53,480
And so you have that kind of corporate side in some of these workman's comp organizations.

1207
01:22:53,480 --> 01:22:55,680
So you've got someone who's got a cancer diagnosis.

1208
01:22:55,680 --> 01:23:01,320
So you've got someone who is struggling mentally, and then you're adding a plate more stress

1209
01:23:01,320 --> 01:23:04,040
to someone who's already stressed.

1210
01:23:04,040 --> 01:23:09,200
What if you were king for the day needs to change to the next person who goes through

1211
01:23:09,200 --> 01:23:14,400
some sort of trauma, whether it's again, over 20 years or 10 years or after an acute event

1212
01:23:14,400 --> 01:23:19,680
like this, that there's a reduced barrier to entry so they can focus on the healing

1213
01:23:19,680 --> 01:23:24,040
rather than navigating administration and red tape.

1214
01:23:24,040 --> 01:23:30,000
I think the biggest thing about having your claim picked up and just feel like you're

1215
01:23:30,000 --> 01:23:37,320
being believed and knowing that you're going to get treated like any guy who's like legitimately

1216
01:23:37,320 --> 01:23:41,440
sick, ill, struggling, broke and whatever.

1217
01:23:41,440 --> 01:23:47,080
The biggest problem that's been out there are people who have found ways to abuse the

1218
01:23:47,080 --> 01:23:52,480
system to get a free vacation for getting time off or just whatever.

1219
01:23:52,480 --> 01:23:54,480
They don't want to work.

1220
01:23:54,480 --> 01:23:57,600
I mean, to me, it's pretty obvious that that's what's happened.

1221
01:23:57,600 --> 01:24:01,600
And that's why insurance companies have become who they've become in denying things.

1222
01:24:01,600 --> 01:24:03,600
Like, well, we're just going to deny everything.

1223
01:24:03,600 --> 01:24:05,600
Then we're going to investigate all this stuff.

1224
01:24:05,600 --> 01:24:09,040
We're going to put the burden of proof super high.

1225
01:24:09,040 --> 01:24:11,240
And that's what happens.

1226
01:24:11,240 --> 01:24:18,320
I think the fallout and the unintended consequences when guys have legitimate issues that they

1227
01:24:18,320 --> 01:24:27,960
struggle and have to deal with all the stress of proving that they have a legitimate issue.

1228
01:24:27,960 --> 01:24:33,200
This circles around to what I said about the wildland correction system.

1229
01:24:33,200 --> 01:24:40,040
What's happened is the few that abuse the system, they've allowed the workman's comp

1230
01:24:40,040 --> 01:24:42,560
environment to go, oh, you see, it doesn't work.

1231
01:24:42,560 --> 01:24:44,440
You see these firefighters are corrupt.

1232
01:24:44,440 --> 01:24:46,080
They're cheating the system.

1233
01:24:46,080 --> 01:24:48,560
But that's one, two percent.

1234
01:24:48,560 --> 01:24:53,800
And the rest of the 98 are paying for it to the point of ridiculousness where you have

1235
01:24:53,800 --> 01:25:00,240
a firefighter that responded to a homicide of his friend in a firehouse that he stood

1236
01:25:00,240 --> 01:25:01,480
next to.

1237
01:25:01,480 --> 01:25:04,960
And you're questioning whether that was traumatic enough for a mental health.

1238
01:25:04,960 --> 01:25:09,480
What would be the right, I guess, I guess claim for lack of a better word, but a desire

1239
01:25:09,480 --> 01:25:12,160
to get some help is what I'm really trying to say.

1240
01:25:12,160 --> 01:25:15,680
You're absolutely right.

1241
01:25:15,680 --> 01:25:16,680
So that needs to change.

1242
01:25:16,680 --> 01:25:18,160
I was king for a day.

1243
01:25:18,160 --> 01:25:19,160
I'd fix that.

1244
01:25:19,160 --> 01:25:20,160
I don't know how you fix that.

1245
01:25:20,160 --> 01:25:22,200
Well, I mean, I think so.

1246
01:25:22,200 --> 01:25:23,280
Here's what I'm seeing.

1247
01:25:23,280 --> 01:25:25,860
Just to jump in.

1248
01:25:25,860 --> 01:25:29,880
What I've noticed about the fire service more recently, especially when I'm talking about

1249
01:25:29,880 --> 01:25:36,580
the work week, which is a dead horse that I flog like a jockey on crack, is we are so

1250
01:25:36,580 --> 01:25:39,400
courageous in uniform.

1251
01:25:39,400 --> 01:25:41,400
And again, we really are.

1252
01:25:41,400 --> 01:25:45,240
When you look at when you hear other people talk about what we do, they say, I could never

1253
01:25:45,240 --> 01:25:46,240
do that.

1254
01:25:46,240 --> 01:25:48,040
And for us, it's like, well, we just do it because we love it.

1255
01:25:48,040 --> 01:25:50,480
But we go into burning buildings.

1256
01:25:50,480 --> 01:25:55,680
We go in, we cut cars, we go in the tunnels, we hang off ropes, all the things.

1257
01:25:55,680 --> 01:26:01,600
But when it comes for advocating for our own health and the health that then directly affects

1258
01:26:01,600 --> 01:26:04,640
our family, we're cowards.

1259
01:26:04,640 --> 01:26:07,200
And we really are because we just downplay everything.

1260
01:26:07,200 --> 01:26:08,200
Oh, we're fine.

1261
01:26:08,200 --> 01:26:11,360
So again, we almost believe that I signed up for it.

1262
01:26:11,360 --> 01:26:15,760
What I think needs to happen is the fire service needs to unite and have a united voice and

1263
01:26:15,760 --> 01:26:23,280
push back and say, for example, why is it, if I'm talking about the work week for a second,

1264
01:26:23,280 --> 01:26:28,840
that you keep voting that we can't get more time off, yet the people making this vote

1265
01:26:28,840 --> 01:26:32,640
work 40 hours a week and go home to their bed every day?

1266
01:26:32,640 --> 01:26:38,720
Like we're not questioning, we've bought into this kind of fairy tale for so long.

1267
01:26:38,720 --> 01:26:43,760
And I did my whole career until I had an awakening right at the very end where we have the greatest

1268
01:26:43,760 --> 01:26:44,760
job on earth.

1269
01:26:44,760 --> 01:26:46,840
And oh my God, we got the dream schedule.

1270
01:26:46,840 --> 01:26:50,720
But then when you actually tell a civilian what the hours that you work, they're like,

1271
01:26:50,720 --> 01:26:52,800
that doesn't sound like a dream schedule.

1272
01:26:52,800 --> 01:26:57,600
I work 16 hours less and no one can tell me you can't go home.

1273
01:26:57,600 --> 01:27:01,880
I work 56 hours a week and at 730, the phone rings and like gearing, you got to stay for

1274
01:27:01,880 --> 01:27:03,760
another 24.

1275
01:27:03,760 --> 01:27:07,160
That was my reality for most of my fire service career.

1276
01:27:07,160 --> 01:27:11,120
So I think how we change it is we all get on the same page.

1277
01:27:11,120 --> 01:27:14,560
And there's a lot of commonalities now.

1278
01:27:14,560 --> 01:27:18,520
The work week we're starting to realize is bullshit and we just need more people.

1279
01:27:18,520 --> 01:27:22,200
And the way you fix recruitment is you create a better environment that then gets people

1280
01:27:22,200 --> 01:27:24,880
lining up outside our buildings like it used to.

1281
01:27:24,880 --> 01:27:27,200
And there is a little revolution starting in Florida.

1282
01:27:27,200 --> 01:27:31,300
The departments are starting to go to 2472, which I think is so exciting.

1283
01:27:31,300 --> 01:27:35,940
And if you look at the budget side, it actually saves cities and counties a crap load of money

1284
01:27:35,940 --> 01:27:39,840
because when they break us, it costs a fortune on the back end.

1285
01:27:39,840 --> 01:27:43,160
But then you start pushing for that.

1286
01:27:43,160 --> 01:27:48,440
We unite and now all of a sudden we force change and now everything improves, including

1287
01:27:48,440 --> 01:27:54,560
cancer and mental health and obesity and testosterone depletion and marriage and divorce and alcoholism

1288
01:27:54,560 --> 01:27:58,900
and overdoses and suicides because you're not working your people into the ground.

1289
01:27:58,900 --> 01:27:59,900
Is it everything?

1290
01:27:59,900 --> 01:28:00,900
No.

1291
01:28:00,900 --> 01:28:03,600
Is it a massive piece of the pie chart?

1292
01:28:03,600 --> 01:28:04,600
Absolutely.

1293
01:28:04,600 --> 01:28:09,040
But if we just say, well, yeah, we die within five years and everyone's talking about it,

1294
01:28:09,040 --> 01:28:13,880
but no one's doing anything to change it, then it's going to keep happening.

1295
01:28:13,880 --> 01:28:18,040
The definition of insanity, doing the same thing, expecting different results.

1296
01:28:18,040 --> 01:28:25,560
So I think how we change is we hear your stories and like 900 plus stories on this podcast

1297
01:28:25,560 --> 01:28:30,680
and we realize that this is a national, if not international problem in some areas that

1298
01:28:30,680 --> 01:28:37,200
we, if we unite the millions of first responders in this country alone, that we push back and

1299
01:28:37,200 --> 01:28:41,560
we demand that these systems change so that people do take care of our first responders

1300
01:28:41,560 --> 01:28:44,480
because we ask them to do so much.

1301
01:28:44,480 --> 01:28:51,920
We owe it to them to give them the kind of safety net when they need to take a knee.

1302
01:28:51,920 --> 01:28:53,360
I think you're right.

1303
01:28:53,360 --> 01:29:01,840
So we, it's been my opinion that we do a bad job of defending what we do.

1304
01:29:01,840 --> 01:29:08,240
And then when we get attacked by the press or the civilian segment of our society, we

1305
01:29:08,240 --> 01:29:11,400
just kind of roll over and take it.

1306
01:29:11,400 --> 01:29:12,400
We do that a lot.

1307
01:29:12,400 --> 01:29:13,400
Yeah.

1308
01:29:13,400 --> 01:29:15,760
And again, when I say cowardice, that's a harsh word.

1309
01:29:15,760 --> 01:29:21,120
I mean, it's true, but then you also have to fact in that so many of our firefighters

1310
01:29:21,120 --> 01:29:25,120
that say in this particular profession are just so exhausted.

1311
01:29:25,120 --> 01:29:26,960
They don't have a lot of fight left in them.

1312
01:29:26,960 --> 01:29:27,960
They don't.

1313
01:29:27,960 --> 01:29:32,040
This is why one of the reasons why I transitioned out to actually kind of regroup and be this

1314
01:29:32,040 --> 01:29:36,260
angry voice, you know, bang in the trash can for our people.

1315
01:29:36,260 --> 01:29:40,880
Because I know when I was on shift, when I got home, all I want to do is be with my family

1316
01:29:40,880 --> 01:29:41,880
and sleep.

1317
01:29:41,880 --> 01:29:42,880
That was it.

1318
01:29:42,880 --> 01:29:46,720
I didn't have any fight left to start, you know, trying to change the world.

1319
01:29:46,720 --> 01:29:50,260
But you know, when you can advocate loudly for other people and then get them to kind

1320
01:29:50,260 --> 01:29:57,640
of realize and do hopefully some of the legwork for them and get them to realize that we deserve

1321
01:29:57,640 --> 01:30:02,200
to have an environment that allows us to have a healthy retirement, we deserve to have a

1322
01:30:02,200 --> 01:30:09,200
work week that puts us home one more 24 hour period between shifts that mirrors every other

1323
01:30:09,200 --> 01:30:11,640
civilian in the U.S. pretty much.

1324
01:30:11,640 --> 01:30:15,360
Once we were educated enough, then we can kind of start pushing back.

1325
01:30:15,360 --> 01:30:16,360
And I think that's it.

1326
01:30:16,360 --> 01:30:21,840
I think we've we've allowed administrations and I would say even unions the trust that

1327
01:30:21,840 --> 01:30:23,440
they were going to fix these things.

1328
01:30:23,440 --> 01:30:25,920
And my whole career has come and gone.

1329
01:30:25,920 --> 01:30:29,100
And it's exactly the same, if not worse than when I got hired.

1330
01:30:29,100 --> 01:30:35,480
So we need to unite outside of organizations that say that they're there for us as a profession

1331
01:30:35,480 --> 01:30:39,320
and demand that we actually have the environment that allows us to heal.

1332
01:30:39,320 --> 01:30:47,200
Oh, for sure, I think the I think the bureaucratic inertia that exists in all those segments,

1333
01:30:47,200 --> 01:30:53,280
right, in departments and unions, political entities that that either back us or attack

1334
01:30:53,280 --> 01:30:54,280
us.

1335
01:30:54,280 --> 01:30:58,240
It's hard to overcome just the inertia, the direction we've been going.

1336
01:30:58,240 --> 01:30:59,720
Wholesale change is very difficult.

1337
01:30:59,720 --> 01:31:00,720
Yeah.

1338
01:31:00,720 --> 01:31:02,800
Well, that's what's good about the dominoes.

1339
01:31:02,800 --> 01:31:06,320
If the few fall in Florida, it is going to start clicking over.

1340
01:31:06,320 --> 01:31:08,280
And the SCBA is a perfect example.

1341
01:31:08,280 --> 01:31:12,640
I always say this to the guys that are, you know, the I'm going to die in my leather helmet

1342
01:31:12,640 --> 01:31:16,680
guy, you know, the one with the mustache and rub salt and soot in his face and on Instagram

1343
01:31:16,680 --> 01:31:17,680
all the time.

1344
01:31:17,680 --> 01:31:22,840
You know, it's like people thought that no SCBAs were cool until all their friends died

1345
01:31:22,840 --> 01:31:24,260
of lung disease.

1346
01:31:24,260 --> 01:31:26,000
And then they started wearing the SCBA.

1347
01:31:26,000 --> 01:31:27,800
I think the workweek is the same.

1348
01:31:27,800 --> 01:31:31,240
Like we are just going to funeral after funeral after funeral.

1349
01:31:31,240 --> 01:31:35,480
We're at a point now we need to get over, you know, it's what you signed up for.

1350
01:31:35,480 --> 01:31:40,960
You know, I'll sleep when I'm dead and actually have that same kind of revolution that we

1351
01:31:40,960 --> 01:31:47,040
did with safety gear back when bunker gear and SCBAs and masks and ticks and pass alarms

1352
01:31:47,040 --> 01:31:49,860
really started getting pushed forward.

1353
01:31:49,860 --> 01:31:54,040
But now we have to do it with the wellness of the human being inside the bunker gear.

1354
01:31:54,040 --> 01:31:55,040
Absolutely.

1355
01:31:55,040 --> 01:31:56,040
All right.

1356
01:31:56,040 --> 01:31:58,600
Well, I get off my soapbox now.

1357
01:31:58,600 --> 01:32:01,480
That was less questioning and more me just shouting down the microphone.

1358
01:32:01,480 --> 01:32:03,040
All right.

1359
01:32:03,040 --> 01:32:06,240
Well, you mentioned about writing a book.

1360
01:32:06,240 --> 01:32:10,800
Talk to me about what made you decide to do that and then tell me if you've had any kind

1361
01:32:10,800 --> 01:32:15,680
of catharsis from getting it from your mind to the page.

1362
01:32:15,680 --> 01:32:23,960
A friend of mine is helping me become a better speaker.

1363
01:32:23,960 --> 01:32:24,960
She was like, you know, you should write a book.

1364
01:32:24,960 --> 01:32:25,960
Like you think so?

1365
01:32:25,960 --> 01:32:26,960
Yeah, well, she'd read a book.

1366
01:32:26,960 --> 01:32:27,960
I'm like, all right.

1367
01:32:27,960 --> 01:32:28,960
Like I read her book.

1368
01:32:28,960 --> 01:32:29,960
I'm like, oh, that's not bad.

1369
01:32:29,960 --> 01:32:32,480
She goes, I hope you do it.

1370
01:32:32,480 --> 01:32:34,720
So she just told me, like, hey, just start writing stuff.

1371
01:32:34,720 --> 01:32:39,560
And then like I'm going to work with her on how she got hers published.

1372
01:32:39,560 --> 01:32:41,480
I'll probably get my stuff published eventually.

1373
01:32:41,480 --> 01:32:46,240
But I think the most biggest thing I've liked about it isn't that I'm going to be published

1374
01:32:46,240 --> 01:32:47,760
because I don't think I'm going to want to read it.

1375
01:32:47,760 --> 01:32:51,880
It's just me writing about me.

1376
01:32:51,880 --> 01:32:59,120
Me and my call is that I had to think about a whole lot of stuff I haven't thought about

1377
01:32:59,120 --> 01:33:01,040
a really long time.

1378
01:33:01,040 --> 01:33:05,280
And that's been very therapeutic to do.

1379
01:33:05,280 --> 01:33:07,840
You know, I've got, you know, I've handwritten out.

1380
01:33:07,840 --> 01:33:14,080
I mean, it looks like a like a handwriting, like a Civil War journal type of thing that

1381
01:33:14,080 --> 01:33:19,760
I have written all this stuff about my life and about the call and what I felt.

1382
01:33:19,760 --> 01:33:27,440
And that time I take to sit there and get it from my head through my pen onto this paper,

1383
01:33:27,440 --> 01:33:31,280
that's been unbelievably therapeutic for me.

1384
01:33:31,280 --> 01:33:32,480
Beautiful.

1385
01:33:32,480 --> 01:33:41,680
Going back to again, after action of the event as well, when it came to the whole dynamic,

1386
01:33:41,680 --> 01:33:46,800
the potential danger of some sort of attack within a fire service, because this is such

1387
01:33:46,800 --> 01:33:51,760
a unique event and sadly your department experienced it.

1388
01:33:51,760 --> 01:33:55,080
What have been some of the changes operationally?

1389
01:33:55,080 --> 01:33:58,880
God forbid something like that happens again, that there's a threat on the way to a station.

1390
01:33:58,880 --> 01:34:05,360
You know what, operational, I don't know that I've seen a ton of really obvious operational

1391
01:34:05,360 --> 01:34:06,360
changes.

1392
01:34:06,360 --> 01:34:12,200
I think my department in general is much more sensitive to interpersonal conflict coming

1393
01:34:12,200 --> 01:34:13,200
away from that.

1394
01:34:13,200 --> 01:34:15,520
And that makes sense.

1395
01:34:15,520 --> 01:34:20,120
But yeah, I haven't seen just massive policy changes.

1396
01:34:20,120 --> 01:34:21,760
I mean, this call is rare.

1397
01:34:21,760 --> 01:34:28,640
As far as I've been able to find out, there hasn't been this call anywhere in the history

1398
01:34:28,640 --> 01:34:31,400
of the fire service.

1399
01:34:31,400 --> 01:34:33,760
So I don't know.

1400
01:34:33,760 --> 01:34:36,440
I saw an article, I didn't have time to read it properly.

1401
01:34:36,440 --> 01:34:40,400
And so please forgive me if I've got this completely wrong, but it appeared when I just

1402
01:34:40,400 --> 01:34:45,160
scanned it briefly before we sat down that in your area, there was another workplace

1403
01:34:45,160 --> 01:34:49,520
shooting and then there was also a fire and a load of ammunition in the house.

1404
01:34:49,520 --> 01:34:54,640
Was that close to you or were they comparing a call miles away?

1405
01:34:54,640 --> 01:34:56,400
It might have been comparing something miles away.

1406
01:34:56,400 --> 01:34:58,520
I mean, they get workplace shootings out here.

1407
01:34:58,520 --> 01:35:01,920
I mean, that happens.

1408
01:35:01,920 --> 01:35:03,880
It was a warehouse, I think.

1409
01:35:03,880 --> 01:35:08,760
Yeah, and the guy had, yeah, there was a load of ammunition in the fire and in the house

1410
01:35:08,760 --> 01:35:10,480
and he'd set fire to that too.

1411
01:35:10,480 --> 01:35:14,280
But they had it in the same article talking about you, but I wasn't sure if that was something

1412
01:35:14,280 --> 01:35:17,400
that you guys had also been on or if it was further away.

1413
01:35:17,400 --> 01:35:19,600
I think it was Santa Rosa maybe.

1414
01:35:19,600 --> 01:35:21,760
I just want to get them confused.

1415
01:35:21,760 --> 01:35:23,000
Santa Rosa is a ways away.

1416
01:35:23,000 --> 01:35:24,760
Yeah, that might have been it then.

1417
01:35:24,760 --> 01:35:25,960
No idea what that is.

1418
01:35:25,960 --> 01:35:26,960
Yeah, I might.

1419
01:35:26,960 --> 01:35:27,960
Maybe that's what it was.

1420
01:35:27,960 --> 01:35:31,040
They just had two kind of Californian events side by side in this article.

1421
01:35:31,040 --> 01:35:32,360
Yeah, for sure.

1422
01:35:32,360 --> 01:35:33,360
All right.

1423
01:35:33,360 --> 01:35:35,200
Well, we talked about your book.

1424
01:35:35,200 --> 01:35:37,680
And just so you know, I publish on Amazon.

1425
01:35:37,680 --> 01:35:42,440
When you have your book written, that is such an easy way of publishing a book.

1426
01:35:42,440 --> 01:35:45,720
You know, I mean, the people back in the day would have to pursue publishers and get agents

1427
01:35:45,720 --> 01:35:47,120
and all that stuff.

1428
01:35:47,120 --> 01:35:51,480
Now someone writes a book they can publish on Amazon and it's so easy to do.

1429
01:35:51,480 --> 01:35:53,360
So I'm looking forward to seeing that.

1430
01:35:53,360 --> 01:35:57,400
Do you have any kind of idea when you want to put it out?

1431
01:35:57,400 --> 01:35:59,760
My goal is to have it out by the end of the year.

1432
01:35:59,760 --> 01:36:04,440
So if anybody's like, oh, wow, I might want to look at Ed's book by the end of the year.

1433
01:36:04,440 --> 01:36:05,440
Okay, perfect.

1434
01:36:05,440 --> 01:36:09,800
Well, speaking of books then, first closing question, is there a book written by someone

1435
01:36:09,800 --> 01:36:11,560
else that you love to recommend?

1436
01:36:11,560 --> 01:36:15,840
It can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated.

1437
01:36:15,840 --> 01:36:18,440
You know what?

1438
01:36:18,440 --> 01:36:24,960
The book I really love recommending is Unbroken.

1439
01:36:24,960 --> 01:36:33,160
And that was the book about Zamparini and World War II.

1440
01:36:33,160 --> 01:36:35,640
Laura Hillenbrand wrote it.

1441
01:36:35,640 --> 01:36:40,880
That's probably my favorite thing I've read in the last 20 years.

1442
01:36:40,880 --> 01:36:46,720
But he was on a bomber that crashed in the Pacific and he drifted forever and got picked

1443
01:36:46,720 --> 01:36:50,240
up by a Japanese destroyer and was a POW.

1444
01:36:50,240 --> 01:36:54,680
They didn't even know that we didn't know that he was even there.

1445
01:36:54,680 --> 01:36:59,200
And it's his struggle coming away from going through that, coming away from it after the

1446
01:36:59,200 --> 01:37:00,680
war, what he went through.

1447
01:37:00,680 --> 01:37:02,680
I thought it was amazing.

1448
01:37:02,680 --> 01:37:06,240
Yeah, I've had that recommended a few times and I haven't read the book or seen the film

1449
01:37:06,240 --> 01:37:07,240
yet.

1450
01:37:07,240 --> 01:37:08,880
So I need to put that at the top of my list because it sounds incredible.

1451
01:37:08,880 --> 01:37:14,920
I like the book a thousand times more than the movie.

1452
01:37:14,920 --> 01:37:17,000
Okay, I will make sure I read that first.

1453
01:37:17,000 --> 01:37:19,520
I thought the movie could have done a couple of things different that would have made it

1454
01:37:19,520 --> 01:37:21,480
a lot more resonating.

1455
01:37:21,480 --> 01:37:23,840
Yeah, that happens a lot.

1456
01:37:23,840 --> 01:37:25,800
I always talk about Lone Survivor.

1457
01:37:25,800 --> 01:37:27,400
Great story.

1458
01:37:27,400 --> 01:37:34,600
The film did a good job, but I think what it missed was the immense courage of the Afghan

1459
01:37:34,600 --> 01:37:39,680
people that house him and they put their whole lives in danger.

1460
01:37:39,680 --> 01:37:42,720
I felt like I kind of just glanced over that, but that was a big part of that.

1461
01:37:42,720 --> 01:37:47,560
That it was the humanity of this American soldier in Afghanistan and their whole ethos

1462
01:37:47,560 --> 01:37:50,040
in the village was to risk their lives for him.

1463
01:37:50,040 --> 01:37:52,360
And I think that could have been.

1464
01:37:52,360 --> 01:37:53,360
I would totally agree with that.

1465
01:37:53,360 --> 01:37:57,560
His book, that was a great book.

1466
01:37:57,560 --> 01:37:58,560
I love that book too.

1467
01:37:58,560 --> 01:37:59,560
Brilliant.

1468
01:37:59,560 --> 01:38:01,640
All right, well then what about movies and documentaries?

1469
01:38:01,640 --> 01:38:02,640
Any of those that you love?

1470
01:38:02,640 --> 01:38:06,240
You can't really ask me about movies because I'm probably going to tell you to watch Star

1471
01:38:06,240 --> 01:38:07,240
Wars.

1472
01:38:07,240 --> 01:38:08,240
That's fine.

1473
01:38:08,240 --> 01:38:13,120
I'm a Star Wars nerd.

1474
01:38:13,120 --> 01:38:14,120
But that's true.

1475
01:38:14,120 --> 01:38:15,880
I'm kind of a big nerd about that kind of stuff.

1476
01:38:15,880 --> 01:38:19,260
So I don't really say a lot of impactful stuff when it comes to movies.

1477
01:38:19,260 --> 01:38:22,440
My movie quotes are all kind of silly.

1478
01:38:22,440 --> 01:38:27,920
You know documentaries, you know the documentary I like the best I've seen most recently is

1479
01:38:27,920 --> 01:38:31,040
probably Free Solo.

1480
01:38:31,040 --> 01:38:36,080
And that's the guy who climbs El Capitan without a rope and he does it unbelievably fast.

1481
01:38:36,080 --> 01:38:44,160
And I was absolutely blown away by that guy and his focus and just how he kind of put

1482
01:38:44,160 --> 01:38:45,160
things.

1483
01:38:45,160 --> 01:38:46,160
Absolutely.

1484
01:38:46,160 --> 01:38:48,600
Alex Honnold is someone I still want to try and get on the show one day.

1485
01:38:48,600 --> 01:38:53,200
I mean his perception of fear and also diligence of training.

1486
01:38:53,200 --> 01:38:57,720
Because you listen to these extreme athletes, the base jumpers and some of these other people

1487
01:38:57,720 --> 01:39:01,480
I had on the show, they're not risk averse, it's the opposite.

1488
01:39:01,480 --> 01:39:05,080
They understand risks so much that they practice and practice and practice.

1489
01:39:05,080 --> 01:39:08,160
And you watch Alex preparing for that climb.

1490
01:39:08,160 --> 01:39:14,720
He did just a few feet over and over and over and over again, working on handholds and grip

1491
01:39:14,720 --> 01:39:15,720
and everything else.

1492
01:39:15,720 --> 01:39:21,080
So I think there was a lot of takeaway from that when you apply it to Fire and EMS.

1493
01:39:21,080 --> 01:39:23,960
I'd agree with that.

1494
01:39:23,960 --> 01:39:25,080
All right well the next question.

1495
01:39:25,080 --> 01:39:29,360
Is there a person that you'd recommend to come on this podcast as a guest to speak to

1496
01:39:29,360 --> 01:39:33,960
the first responders, military and associated professions of the world?

1497
01:39:33,960 --> 01:39:41,680
Well the guy I would say you talked to last year at the Brothers Helping Brothers conference,

1498
01:39:41,680 --> 01:39:42,680
which is Raul Rivas.

1499
01:39:42,680 --> 01:39:48,760
So you talked to him already last year and that's another guy that probably should have

1500
01:39:48,760 --> 01:39:51,320
been a fireman, not a cop.

1501
01:39:51,320 --> 01:39:52,320
So I hope he hears that.

1502
01:39:52,320 --> 01:39:58,800
It's like this, yes Raul, you should have been a fireman.

1503
01:39:58,800 --> 01:40:06,640
But I would, somebody who haven't heard, I was scrolling through your list of people

1504
01:40:06,640 --> 01:40:07,640
you've already had.

1505
01:40:07,640 --> 01:40:11,000
You've had some amazing people on your show already.

1506
01:40:11,000 --> 01:40:13,200
It's actually kind of a really intimidating list.

1507
01:40:13,200 --> 01:40:15,800
I'm like, oh people will take a break when I'm on it.

1508
01:40:15,800 --> 01:40:16,800
No, no, no.

1509
01:40:16,800 --> 01:40:18,040
Everyone says the same thing.

1510
01:40:18,040 --> 01:40:21,280
Even some of the people that are very well known say the same thing.

1511
01:40:21,280 --> 01:40:23,000
So it's funny that same comment.

1512
01:40:23,000 --> 01:40:24,720
And I think it comes from humility.

1513
01:40:24,720 --> 01:40:26,840
The humble ones say that.

1514
01:40:26,840 --> 01:40:32,880
Maybe, I don't know who I could recommend that you haven't already had.

1515
01:40:32,880 --> 01:40:34,760
Well let's go to Brothers Helping Brothers then.

1516
01:40:34,760 --> 01:40:38,800
So just as a segue, you are speaking there this year, is that correct?

1517
01:40:38,800 --> 01:40:40,800
Yeah, this year, yeah I'll be there.

1518
01:40:40,800 --> 01:40:47,480
It's in October and he just retired but his name is Scott Ross.

1519
01:40:47,480 --> 01:40:51,800
He was who spun up our peer support way back when for our department.

1520
01:40:51,800 --> 01:40:54,800
He and I are speaking together.

1521
01:40:54,800 --> 01:40:58,880
That was something that we kind of got on the books in the last year or so.

1522
01:40:58,880 --> 01:41:00,360
So we'll be up there together.

1523
01:41:00,360 --> 01:41:01,360
Brilliant.

1524
01:41:01,360 --> 01:41:02,480
Yeah, that was so cool.

1525
01:41:02,480 --> 01:41:08,120
I interviewed Jeff Orange with Raoul on stage and Raoul obviously was basically the guy

1526
01:41:08,120 --> 01:41:14,280
that shot the Pulse shooter and then Jeff was the one who created Orlando's peer support

1527
01:41:14,280 --> 01:41:17,760
by chance a few months or a couple years prior.

1528
01:41:17,760 --> 01:41:22,360
But the irony is, I mean those two were incredible and you kind of hear the events of that day

1529
01:41:22,360 --> 01:41:27,360
but also the support that the people from Orlando in that particular case got from the

1530
01:41:27,360 --> 01:41:29,160
police side and the fire side.

1531
01:41:29,160 --> 01:41:33,960
The irony is the city of Orlando to this day doesn't support their peer support team.

1532
01:41:33,960 --> 01:41:34,960
So that's benevolent.

1533
01:41:34,960 --> 01:41:37,740
That's a good thing that's come out of their union.

1534
01:41:37,740 --> 01:41:40,400
But their actual fire department, the city doesn't support them.

1535
01:41:40,400 --> 01:41:41,400
It's insane.

1536
01:41:41,400 --> 01:41:42,400
Oh, that's horrible.

1537
01:41:42,400 --> 01:41:49,440
Yeah, if the guys need help, we all need help even if we don't recognize it.

1538
01:41:49,440 --> 01:41:50,440
100%.

1539
01:41:50,440 --> 01:41:51,440
All right.

1540
01:41:51,440 --> 01:41:54,480
Well, speaking of that, what do you do to decompress these days?

1541
01:41:54,480 --> 01:41:56,800
What do I do?

1542
01:41:56,800 --> 01:41:58,840
Well, I just bought a pinball game.

1543
01:41:58,840 --> 01:42:01,200
I like to play that when I go home.

1544
01:42:01,200 --> 01:42:05,280
100%, I got about a Stern pinball game, brand new.

1545
01:42:05,280 --> 01:42:06,440
It's not even a vintage one.

1546
01:42:06,440 --> 01:42:09,440
It's one of the newer ones and it's loud.

1547
01:42:09,440 --> 01:42:11,320
It's got a lot going on.

1548
01:42:11,320 --> 01:42:15,280
It's a great way to get lost in that.

1549
01:42:15,280 --> 01:42:17,720
It's pretty easy to say I work out because I do that.

1550
01:42:17,720 --> 01:42:19,080
I like to get out.

1551
01:42:19,080 --> 01:42:25,600
I've kind of started taking up fly fishing.

1552
01:42:25,600 --> 01:42:27,720
There's a movie called Mending the Line.

1553
01:42:27,720 --> 01:42:29,680
I just saw it last couple of weeks ago.

1554
01:42:29,680 --> 01:42:33,360
My wife and I sat down and watched it.

1555
01:42:33,360 --> 01:42:41,120
It's about a military guy who's going through his PTSD struggle and so much of that made

1556
01:42:41,120 --> 01:42:42,120
me feel weird.

1557
01:42:42,120 --> 01:42:44,520
It's the way he felt mirrored how I felt.

1558
01:42:44,520 --> 01:42:46,520
He gets into fly fishing.

1559
01:42:46,520 --> 01:42:48,400
It's a whole story about that.

1560
01:42:48,400 --> 01:42:53,080
At the end, they kind of allude to how he's built this organization around fly fishing

1561
01:42:53,080 --> 01:42:56,920
for vets with PTSD.

1562
01:42:56,920 --> 01:42:59,040
Really appreciate that movie and its message.

1563
01:42:59,040 --> 01:43:02,160
Yeah, I got up and go fly fishing.

1564
01:43:02,160 --> 01:43:03,160
I didn't really caught anything.

1565
01:43:03,160 --> 01:43:05,320
I just stand in the river just doing my thing.

1566
01:43:05,320 --> 01:43:08,320
It's therapeutic and it's amazing.

1567
01:43:08,320 --> 01:43:11,960
Yeah, I don't do anything that's magical.

1568
01:43:11,960 --> 01:43:18,440
If I'm at home, I try not to sit still staring at walls.

1569
01:43:18,440 --> 01:43:22,680
If I get outside, I kind of want to do something where it's not too many people.

1570
01:43:22,680 --> 01:43:23,680
Absolutely.

1571
01:43:23,680 --> 01:43:26,240
All right, well then the very last question.

1572
01:43:26,240 --> 01:43:30,840
I'm sure people listening would love to reach out to you, find out where you're speaking

1573
01:43:30,840 --> 01:43:35,280
or if you could even come to them and obviously stay in contact with you as far as the book

1574
01:43:35,280 --> 01:43:36,280
when it comes out too.

1575
01:43:36,280 --> 01:43:39,840
So, where are the best places online for people to find you?

1576
01:43:39,840 --> 01:43:44,160
The best place online is probably on LinkedIn.

1577
01:43:44,160 --> 01:43:52,120
That's where my profile is set up to address this.

1578
01:43:52,120 --> 01:44:03,040
Speaking my incident, my email address would be munro.fire.speaker at gmail.com.

1579
01:44:03,040 --> 01:44:06,480
Reach me there too.

1580
01:44:06,480 --> 01:44:07,480
Brilliant.

1581
01:44:07,480 --> 01:44:09,720
Well, Ed, I want to say thank you so much.

1582
01:44:09,720 --> 01:44:13,520
When I came into this and I always do this with anyone, they've had an acute event in

1583
01:44:13,520 --> 01:44:16,220
their life, but that's not their whole life.

1584
01:44:16,220 --> 01:44:21,080
It's one chapter, albeit a traumatic chapter, but it's been amazing just kind of hearing

1585
01:44:21,080 --> 01:44:27,760
your journey through obviously the Firefighter and Corrections initiative that's going on,

1586
01:44:27,760 --> 01:44:31,640
your own personal mental health journey and even learning about how Arnie's doing now

1587
01:44:31,640 --> 01:44:33,520
I think is important as well.

1588
01:44:33,520 --> 01:44:37,040
I want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the Behind the

1589
01:44:37,040 --> 01:44:39,320
Shield podcast today.

1590
01:44:39,320 --> 01:44:40,320
Thanks for having me.

1591
01:44:40,320 --> 01:44:41,320
For anybody who wants to sleep, I'm sorry.

1592
01:44:41,320 --> 01:45:02,360
Good night.