We Live in the Gray
Fire Week 2 and What I read last week..
Ambiguity is of the essence of human existence, and everything we live or think has always several meanings. - Maurice Merleau-Ponty
I signal to my teammate to mask up and we begin entry. We enter a room that is very low visibility, almost pitch black. Barely visible outlines can be made of the room from the tiny bits of sun rays coming through. My immediate thoughts are to slow movement down. My sensory perceptions of touch and hear become magnified while others become minimized. My gut instincts, my second brain, sensing the slight unease and slowly developing uncertainties, send messages to my brain and then my body that something is wrong. A focused mercurial mood swing takes place. My breathing slightly speeds up. My over-encumbered bunker gear along with my SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus) reduces my mobility but enhances my survivability, a trade-off worth taking. My SCBA and mask provide a source of oxygen to survive the gray and wispy smoke. I don’t know what lies ahead but I know my time is timed, 30 minutes of air in my apparatus, 5500 PSI, give or take. I slowly touch and feel my way forward, staying low, with my hands guiding me, acting first and feeling later. I sound like Darth Vader with every breath I take.
I come across a wall and feel my way to a small opening at the bottom. I try to fit through and fail, my bunker gear has fattened me up. I panic slightly as I feel stuck. My breathing speeds up. My initial thought is there is no way I can fit through here. I glance back to my teammate and say I can’t fit through this! He shows me a way by sticking my SCBA through the hole first, while keeping the regulator attached to the mask, and then pulling my way through, one arm at a time, awkwardly, but successfully.
My unease about the situation perks up as I realize what lies ahead. Pure information surrounds me in my current state of maximum uncertainty, information being synonymous with unpredictability. However so, calibrating my movements to my intentions. Perspirations begin and my mask fogs up. My visibility is now zero. Emotions like fear and anxiety propel me to move forward. My bunker gear trapping my body heat, steams me up like a dumpling, further forcing my body to sweat more to try and regulate itself. Its attempt to achieve homeostasis makes me hotter as the moisture within my bunker gear begins to transfer heat more rapidly. I stay low and crawl forward, communicating with my teammate to make sure he’s there, and come across another small opening that I must shove myself through. This one is longer in length and takes more effort to squeeze through. I bang my head against planks and forcefully, with much effort, squeeze through. I feel a bit drained although I haven’t really moved much.
The highly uncertain situation is taking a toll on my physiology and psychology. My brain is firing on all cylinders in its attempt to minimize surprise, knowing that surprise lurks around every corner. I continue to plug my way through small openings, getting stuck occasionally and having to pull back out to re-insert myself the proper way. I’m sucking air in further draining my SCBA with each move forward. About 20 or so minutes in, the bell on my SCBA goes off to warn me of low air pressure. The continous ringing noise, loud and annoying, but purposeful, creates a sense of urgency to move faster. I glance down at my PASS (personal alert safety system) system and see 8 minutes of air left. My breathing quickens and my situational awareness devolves as slight panic ensues on the thought of getting stuck again or running out of air. Each breath feels shorter and shorter and my chest tightens. Laying on my stomach, I slow down my breaths as much as possible to rid myself of my parochial outlook, trying not to lose context in the grayness. With my senses gathered, I crawl forward through the final opening.
That was my first confined spaces drill. It was much more intense in reality than this attempt to recall and describe the experience. Seconds felt like minutes and minutes felt like hours. Getting stuck in tight holes, crawling around exhausted in complete darkness, while sweating profusely in heavy, movement restricting gear was intense.
Some observations and thoughts in fire week 2 :
We did lots of hose work this week. We learned how to unload hose off the rig into hydrants, pull heavy, lengthy hose efficiently, pull hose through buildings, roll hose up, and load hose onto the rig the proper way so it can be deployed efficiently. How you load the hose on the rig improves the process of unloading the hose. The system is simple but requires everyone acting together as one. Advancing the hoseline requires finesse, efficiency, and communication. I felt like a sailor calling out actions on the rig..”brass overhead!” “brass approaching!” “brass in the bed!” “Break!” “load hose!” were some of the comms used. By the end of the week, my lower back, shoulders, and forearms were taxed.
Getting a hose attached to a hydrant requires speed and finesse. I noticed I lack dexterity in my fingers and hands when it comes to operating tools like a hydrant wrench. My baseball catcher skills never transferred over I guess.
We performed a drill where they had us swing an axe, run stairs, pull tires, flip tires, and swing hammers with our full bunker gear and SCBA on until absolute exhaustion. The purpose was to drain our SCBA to roughly 500 PSIs until we were sucking air to show how long our air lasts and how we can manage it at those low levels while hypoxic. I got light-headed towards the end below that 500 psi mark. I kept going until my tank ran out of air and I was completely deprived of oxygen. My mask sucked to my face when I had no oxygen left. Pretty terrible lols.
Ineffective leadership causes teams to break down. We got thrown into novel situations where there was a lack of communication amongst our leaders and things got chaotic. For example, they had us run stairs as a team and they secretly kidnapped some of us without the rest of us knowing. When we finished, we noticed some of us were missing. We then got yelled at for not keeping an eye on each other, and they sent us on a search and rescue to find the others. The search and rescue was kind of a shit show too because we were running around with our heads cut off searching ineffectively. Good leadership is good communication. Try to be more concise and direct. We got better as a team as the week went on.
We live in the gray. Lots of ways to handle situations, context dependent, thousand ways to skin a cat, etc. Nothing is really black and white. Lots of answers “depends”.
Knots, knots, and knots. I’m terrible at knots, it's atrocious. However, I got better this week and it's something I need to focus on. Clove hitches, hitches, overhand safety knots, figure-eights, figure-eights on a bight are some of the knots to hoist equipment and tools. Great website for learning knots : https://www.animatedknots.com/basic-knots
Easy to feel overwhelmed at times, especially in confined spaces. Slow down. Repetition, repetition, and repetition. Universal, really. Marathon, not a sprint.
I’m getting better at throwing my bunker gear and SCBA on fast as well as getting more comfortable moving around in it.
Some links of what I read last week :
Good stuff. Scary to think your equipment to help you in your job can very much compromise your own safety and tank the whole mission. Great work around. Don't give up on knots. Try practicing with your wife. Yes, in that regard. Respectfully. Cool read.