I WISH YOU COULD SEE

I wish you could see the sadness in that poor gentleman's eye's as his livelihood and business burn to the ground or that family returning home, only to find their belongings and home, damaged and destroyed.

I wish you could see what it is like to search a burning bedroom for missing children, flames rolling violently above, your palms and knees burning as you crawl, the floor sagging immensely as the room below you is being devoured by flame.

I wish you could see a wife's horror at 4 a.m. as I check her husband of fifty years for a pulse and find none. I start CPR anyway, hoping against hope to bring him around, knowing in my heart that it is too late. But wanting his wife and family to know that everything possible was tried.

I wish you could see and smell burning insulation, the taste of soot-filled mucus, the feeling of intense heat radiating through your turnout gear, the sound of flames crackling, and the feeling of being able to see absolutely nothing through the dense, dark smoke - the sensation I have become all too familiar with.

I wish you could see and understand how it feels to go to work in the morning after having spent most of the night, hot and soaking wet at a multiple alarm structure fire.

I wish you could be in the emergency room, as the doctor pronounces dead the beautiful little five year old that I have been trying to save for the past thirty minutes. Who will never go on her first date or say the word, "I LOVE YOU MOMMY!" again.

I wish you could feel the frustration I feel in the cab of my engine, the driver pushing down hard on the brake, my arm pulling and pulling on the air horn, as you fail to yield the right of way at the intersection. When you need us, however, the first thing you tell us is, "It took you forever to get here."

I wish you could read my mind as I help extricate a teenage girl from the front seat of her mangled car. What if it were your sister, wife or friend? What are the reactions of the parent going to be when the policeman knocks at their door, hat in hand.

I wish you could know how it feels to walk into your home and greet your loved ones, not having the heart to tell them you nearly lost your life at the last "routine" call.

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