Why Did You Join?

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Permalink Reply by Patience Ryan on February 14, 2009 at 5:58pm

just another couple side notes. in accepting the opportunity to run calls out of two stations I also got a '20' pager. Unlike the pagers most everybody else has that only page them for their station calls, I get a page for everything in the district. on occasion it can drive me batty just because it's going off a lot, and/or it's not my stations. though it is interesting to know what is going on in the rest of the district.

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Permalink Reply by strtcopr on February 16, 2009 at 8:48am

Why did I join? Why did I join? I'm asking myself that very question,right now. Didn't you read my profile? Nah,only joking..well ,not totally joking.... I think I joined because it's in my blood-see ''Where does the time go?''

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Permalink Reply by elmer john panther jr. on August 16, 2009 at 2:29am

i'm elmer and i'm a fireholic...i joined to help people in need .my defining moment was about 2 years prior,i happened to see a policeman responding to a call with lights and sirens. acar pulled out in front of him and his dog.causeing a bad mvc. immediatly called 911 and seen the oficer climb out of his car seemingly stunned thankful he had an airbag and seatbelt.the other car wasnt so lucky the driver was killed instantly and his two passengers were injured.all i could do was tell them to lie still till the ambulance got there .seemed like an eternity.i remember thinking i wished i had some type of training so i could help.then shortly after that i got coerced by a cousin to take a first responder course.i did.now i 've been in it for one year and 8 months. im 39 now and i wished i could go back in time and start when i was 18. i love what im doing.and now i'm a lifer. be safe out there everyone.

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Permalink Reply by Justin on August 16, 2009 at 10:14pm

well i joined because the fire chief asked me to. i started off running with the local vol ems service because volunteering in the emergency services has always ran in my family. well i moved near the local fire house and one day the fire chief asked me if i would join " just to help out with the ems side of things" since there was only about 5 or 6 emt's. so i agreed. then they talked me into trying on an scba and i thought that was pertty cool, so before long i got talked into going to the fire academy (which im glad i did) and since then iv been hooked.

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Permalink Reply by jared m snyder on September 3, 2009 at 7:39pm

I became a firefighter in California back in 1996, while living in the small town of San Juan Bautista, Ca. The local fire chief who ran a volunteer department was a regular customer of mine at the Saddle shop I helped run. He convinced me to come to a meeting or two, telling me that since i was in town during the day on a regualr basis, i would be a perfect addition to the small department. Although our town had emergency back up from CALFIRE (which was formerly known as CDF) and the San Benito County Fire Department, first response was SJBFD's responsibility... Well, here I am 13 years later and back to being a probationary firefighter... I love the job of being a firefighter.... I love the adrenaline rush of heading to a scene, the camaraderie between myself and my crew and the sense of knowing I've helped make a difference in my community....

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Permalink Reply by Thomas McBride on November 13, 2009 at 8:10pm

Well I will try to make this short. I wanted to join about 15 years ago and a friend of mine who was in the Dept talked me out of it. Now we jump to last June a firefighter comes into where I work and we talk, I end up telling him my story and he says "it isn't hard to join just fill out an application, I will sponser you". So I did, I went to the firehouse and got an app., filled it out and was told they had to do some background checks then the village board had to approve it, then the members would vote. If they voted me in then I would be sworn in as a firefighter. Ok so I filled the app. out, now I wait what I thought would be a month, turned out to be 6 months (my app. got misplaced). I was ready to give up on being a firefighter when I got a call from the Fire Chief to set up an appointment for a security interview. I was tickled I was getting in, (wasn't sure what was driving me yet) Well they aproved me and I was sworn in in January 09. I have been there for 11 months have taken scean support, Haz-Mat opps., and I am now finishing FF1 on the 21st. Why did I join? It is now the same as when the Assistant Chief asked me, I want to help people. Plain and simple, yes I am addicted to the adrenalin rush when my pager trips, yes I am addicted to that dead tired feeling when I get home in the wee hours of the AM from a call and need to get ready for work, yes I am addicted to being one of a few people that can make someones day by helping them get through what might have been the worst time of their life.

I as others said here, I treat this part of my life as I do my family, Job and any other aspect of my life I enjoy, respect and hold dear to me. Firefighting to me is being able to help others in a way noone else can. and I can post this now because I have reached a point in my training that I can do some things without much thought.

Another addiction I found (and I can't believe I am going to say this) I am addicted to training. I already signed up for two more classes that will take me into spring and when we get the spring scheduale I am already planning three more classes if they are offered. I also want to take the driver training our dept. offers.

Well I think short is out of the question but I needed to answer the question honestly.

Thank you for listening to me rant.

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