Jest Out of Jurisdiction
Law Enforcement / First Responder stories and experiences with a focus on comedic blunders, events, and the lighter side of stressful jobs. Stories are firsthand accounts told by the hosts Flash and T-Dot with accompanying guest interviews.
Jest Out of Jurisdiction
Lucky Breaks, Lucky Charms, and Fire Alarms.
Step into the world of those who run toward danger with our exclusive conversation featuring father-son firefighting duo Forrest and Colton. This episode pulls back the curtain on the real-life experiences of career firefighters – from heart-stopping emergencies to the surprising humor that fills firehouse life.
Blue lights from the dead of the night, lying on a run of dim street light, laughing through the written reports. Truth stranger than the wildest courts, tales from the force gone astray, caught up in the games they play High speed chases gone awry, serious turns into pie in the sky, just out of jurisdiction, left during the conviction? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Some things are just for showing off.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he did pay.
Speaker 5:When I was in Belgium, I was stationed over there after 9-11. And this guy, he had a sack of sides and he would choke everybody.
Speaker 2:And he flashed the first sergeant and they said God, what's that thing up Something, I don't know what they got man.
Speaker 5:Maybe he did it because it's blessing and curse he's just uncomfortable all the time.
Speaker 6:Two time pass he wanted to walk around naked all the time come out of the shower naked. It's like dude. Nobody wants to see that, but you couldn't stop looking.
Speaker 5:It's like a train wreck. It's like dude. Nobody will see that, but you couldn't stop looking yeah it's like a trainer.
Speaker 2:It's horrible to look at but, you can't I don't want to see that. Oh my gosh that's horrible.
Speaker 7:Why is it so purple? I've heard of that before. Oh, big and blue keep it away from me.
Speaker 5:Well, I'm glad you guys are here. We're kind of out of practice. We ain't done one since foot.
Speaker 7:I know it's been a while been on vacation, been sick, been exploding at both ends the flu again, no, just the stomach virus no, just whatever is blooming allergies.
Speaker 5:Well, we're happy you guys are here. My dv-214 is here, so I can wear this legitimately, oh yeah we're getting ready that I had to.
Speaker 6:I had to test him for his stories. He was a little leery about approval from his work but I just told him you just don't say anybody's name, you don't even have to. I retired from Louisville. Now I work for another fire department. So whatever I say about Louisville, it would definitely not be negative.
Speaker 2:But and they know my dad, yeah, so yeah, well, he's got one son, that's on there yeah, don't ever bring shame on the fire department, even after you're gone.
Speaker 5:Yeah, do we have any other fire departments.
Speaker 2:No, it's the only one I was at a bank.
Speaker 7:We can tell bank which here's, here's the caveat to that, anything that's said, none of this is live, so it can be edited out if you decide yeah there's a couple of days turned around before I'll have it out, so cool, that makes him work, so he prefers not to.
Speaker 5:Well, I don't care. I mean, we won't.
Speaker 6:I'll listen to you guys, you know yeah, yeah, you try to keep everything.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you try to keep everything we try. We have not bashed. It's all been funny stories.
Speaker 7:No, we've tried to stay out of the political stuff. Nobody wants to get on there and listen If they're listening to a podcast. Nobody wants to listen to politics. They don't want to listen to our.
Speaker 4:They do but it's not us. If they want to hear politics, they can go to Facebook, right.
Speaker 7:Right, exactly, try and give break and kind of kind of put the humanity back into everything.
Speaker 6:And yeah, we're so, oh, congratulations on your, oh, thank you getting hired. Thank you, good, we'll see. I bet you like that it'll be, it'll be good.
Speaker 7:It'll be a good experience too. He beat me in the job well it's not hard to beat somebody in the job that interviews for you also, so I was like I hire that guy there sitting there.
Speaker 5:He was sitting there, like I said, I'm here to fill another spot and say, hire that guy and if another school resource officer job opens up, hire me back. I went for another job that didn't exist yet. I was just keeping my Because I worked for them before and I loved it. I loved them, but just in case there was something else popped up, I just wanted to stay in their minds. And we got. We rode up and had a good day interviewing for the same job, carpooling laughter it was funny, so I don't know they.
Speaker 5:They're pretty cool. I think about things. I think we've had. We got some interviews scheduled with them, so I'm hoping they don't. I don't think they'll say nothing no, I mean so far.
Speaker 7:I mean one of the detectives listened is listening to it right now. So at like two times speed.
Speaker 5:So that's gotta be that speeds my slow draw up.
Speaker 7:Yeah, exactly so yeah nothing was said about that, but yeah, when we won't, well, yeah, we won't don't.
Speaker 5:If you say, hey, don't put that in, just kind of give a yeah, maybe went too far, or if.
Speaker 7:Or if you say it and then decide later like hey, I probably shouldn't have said that, then afterwards we'll.
Speaker 6:And me. I'm not worried, we're just looking for funny stories, yeah.
Speaker 4:Plenty, that's all.
Speaker 7:And well, you don't pass for here, don't pass your supervisors.
Speaker 3:Peers are fair game.
Speaker 7:Just don't light up your bosses?
Speaker 5:no chiefs, no majors yeah, I guess a lieutenant or whatever y'all have is fair game, I guess, but if they answer calls with you. I think they're fair game it's up to you.
Speaker 2:I don't know what's fair game.
Speaker 3:To be honest, it's hard to tell sometimes because technically we're supposed to get everything approved before we do anything.
Speaker 7:Sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.
Speaker 4:I just said that, didn't I? Yeah, I was wanting to buy another shotgun. Yeah, about your wife.
Speaker 5:Did you kill anything today?
Speaker 7:What kind.
Speaker 4:TriStar G2 Vapor.
Speaker 7:That sounds like something that the CBO would get mad about.
Speaker 3:I would say like I said you gotta bypass Congress every now and then exactly executive orders they'll come back with it's too much spending there.
Speaker 4:I think the judge will say it's overruled. You're gonna have to return that.
Speaker 5:Good guess there, I think the judge will say oh, it's overruled, you're gonna have to return that all right, guys, all right you ready to kick her off? Yep go for it. You know these folks better than me and I don't know how to ask fire questions. I'm, I'm kind of stupid.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just we'll wing it we'll wing it and y'all can do what.
Speaker 6:I'll hand it over to y'all however much of an intro you want on yourself we won't do the big Sean Ryan no ain't nobody got four hours to listen to a podcast, so I guess it's been what it's been a month since we did a Ain't.
Speaker 7:Nobody got four hours to listen to a podcast Navy SEAL, yeah, so I guess it's been what. It's been a month since we did a podcast, so we're finally back with another episode.
Speaker 5:This is season two, I guess.
Speaker 7:Yeah, we'll call this season two. A little hiatus, a little vacation time, a little respite Yep, it gives everybody a chance to hopefully have caught up on all the episodes anyways. But we've got another good episode with you or for you tonight. I got two seasoned firefighters with us, one more seasoned than the other. One may be just lightly salted, but we've got Colton and Forrest with us. And Forrest, if you want to kick us off, tell us a little bit about your journey in the fire.
Speaker 6:I got hired by Louisville Fire Department in September of 1989. And I was there for 21 years when I retired, when I retired and then I went part-time with the smaller department that's still in the Louisville suburbs and then in 2015, I went full-time with them and I've been there since then. I retired as a captain from Louisville Fire Department and currently I'm a captain with this department.
Speaker 5:Awesome you just want to do. All you want to do is add me in Double dips. What he's doing. He's like I don't want to be a firefighter. I want to go work in my county.
Speaker 6:Well yeah, they wasn't double dipping. I went through a divorce and my pension got cut in half, but it's all good. What do?
Speaker 5:they say Marriage is grand and divorce is at least 100 grand. Give or take it happens.
Speaker 3:It happens, but it happens.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's tough. Me and Derek House were talking the other day. We were like how in the world? He just hit 31 years of marriage and I hit 26 or something. And he said I just asked him. I was like how did they put up with us this long of work? And it's just. I was like, yeah, savior is special. And I asked my wife the same. She's like that's a lot of prayers, buddy. Yeah, a lot of grace.
Speaker 6:My wife was fond of saying every third day you were gone for 24 hours and that was my time and you retired and you were here all the time.
Speaker 3:That's funny.
Speaker 5:That's part of it, though it's the. It's the hard part of what we do. The reality of first responding is tough. Yeah, you don't realize how it's a total in your family?
Speaker 7:how much you get used to not being around?
Speaker 6:each other until you're around each other a lot so yeah, whenever something bad happens, we have to go and our families stay behind and they have to. If the electricity goes out because of a storm, we go to work, yeah, and the wife has to deal with no power whatever's going on, yeah, so it is hard when you're at home.
Speaker 3:It always happens when you're at work oh yeah, I need a phone call text picture. Look at this. Is this right?
Speaker 2:no, no that tree through the roof.
Speaker 5:It's not right. But when I, when I deployed, when I deployed to belgium uh, we've been married just a couple of years and um, I remember you know like who in the world is going to I'm not there at all and she did well, took care of a lot of things, you know I'm like, from power outages to yard mowing. I was like man, she's tough.
Speaker 7:Your wife is a saint though? Yeah, she is, so I mean so tell us about you. You don't have to go into specifics on your agency or anything.
Speaker 5:Okay, it's just, you say I'm a firefighter.
Speaker 2:I'm a firefighter, a lightly salted four-year firefighter. I was assigned to an engine for three years and then I'm coming up on a year on the truck in July and the guy next to me is my father, well-known fella. In my fire department. Everybody's always poking and prodding on me and telling me stories about him Got big shoes to fill, I don't know.
Speaker 3:They're bigger than mine. I love them yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So kind of went through college and did all that. I thought about leaving and coming back and trying out for different departments, but stuck it out, got my degree, worked at a bank, worked in sales for I guess two or so years. Me and my dad, we were eating and I was just like I can't do this anymore. He was like what I was like, answering this phone, typing emails, sitting in my little cubicle. I'm going to go nuts.
Speaker 7:I can agree with that.
Speaker 3:Lost my mind a little bit there. You want me to tell the story. No, no, no, it's a terrible story. Let me, I can agree with that.
Speaker 6:Lost my mind a little bit there. Do you want me to tell the story? No, no, no, it's a terrible story. Let me tell it. We're telling the story this is an embellished story.
Speaker 1:See, Dad, he's so salty. He's so salty that he's rusted a little bit.
Speaker 2:His stories are just they're a little out there, but I just kind of keep them on straight and narrow on some of these stories. Now we're going to veto that.
Speaker 6:So anyway, he asked me if we can go to Zaxby's for lunch and we get our food and sit down and he's sitting there it was dinner. He's starting to get loud about how he can't do this job. He's like a hamster on a wheel. He can't stand being in an office and he's getting louder and louder until people are looking at us and I'm like let's go, let's go, let's get out of here. And we go out to the parking lot and it starts raining and he starts telling me how he's thrown his life away.
Speaker 6:He's went and got a degree and all he ever wanted to do was be a firefighter like his dad. Yeah, and I like, you're 20, what were you? 23 or 24? I think I was 24 and I'm like buddy, you're young, you haven't thrown your life away and he's just he's having a meltdown because he's across the street.
Speaker 2:There's a guy, he's got this little lit office space and he's just typing away on his computer it is like probably seven or eight o'clock at night and I was like that's what I don't want. I was like, look at that, that guy's miserable. I was like I don't care how much money he makes. I was like I can't do that.
Speaker 7:No, what's funny about that is I used to dream of having that type of office job when I was policing, and then I got a taste of it and I'm like no, I was wrong. I don't admit that often.
Speaker 6:Well, and the kind of person Colton is? He said a very nice thing. He thought that I was in a bad situation coming out of a divorce and stuff and he told me. He said, dad, I just wanted to get a job where I can help take care of you. We never cried on this podcast.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you what that was all rain, that was just heavy rain.
Speaker 1:You're not crying, I'm crying.
Speaker 3:Nobody can be prouder of your son.
Speaker 2:He is just an amazing young man. Well, I grew up watching him and I mean I never really thought anything about a fireman. Like that's just what my dad did and like that's just what I grew up with. So that's what I saw. I just thought it was normal, you know. Oh it, it's Wednesday and my dad's taking me out fishing in the morning, bringing me home donuts like this is great. We're like, we're going to play baseball or basketball or whatever, just spending all this time with me. I was like this is awesome. And then he's gone for a little bit, it comes right back, gets to do all these different things. I was like I want that, like I want to be able to do things During the week, not just come home at 5 o'clock and be tired and go do whatever for like an hour and go back to bed and do it all over again.
Speaker 7:I get it the work-life balance of, even though it's stressful jobs and I don't know how stressful that taking a nap and playing Xbox gets.
Speaker 1:You wouldn't believe.
Speaker 7:But the work-life balance is a lot better in first responder type of jobs, because you do have a stressful job. You are. It is high, stress it's high. You know you're up and down constantly. You may be playing xbox and then all of a sudden you got to go. You know keep a house from burning down, or you know go to a medical call, and you got to flip that switch immediately. I'm just picking at you over over that.
Speaker 2:But oh, there's no xbox at my house, but it's no different than us sitting and watching a movie at dispatch or something.
Speaker 6:Scott Cunningham Colton's at a you were at a house, how many runs? Did they make last year, darrell?
Speaker 2:Bock, the engine made 4,600 runs Scott.
Speaker 6:Cunningham oh, darrell Bock, so that's 16. Scott Cunningham oh yeah, colton does that. Darrell Bock, and the truck's not far behind.
Speaker 7:Scott Cunningham, no 4,300. Now, with that, is that medical and fire?
Speaker 2:That's everything Car accidents, alarms, elevators, medical runs fires Cats and trees yeah.
Speaker 7:You know, I've never seen a cat skeleton in a tree. That's why I say that.
Speaker 2:That's what we always say.
Speaker 3:There was one cat that was actually stuck and I was like man, I'm doing it.
Speaker 2:This is what everybody makes fun of us for and I'm doing it.
Speaker 3:And this cat. I was actually more scared of that cat than anything.
Speaker 2:that was on fire for my whole first year. I was like this cat is going to light me up. I was full gear and I grabbed that thing by the neck and I threw it over the wall and I just jumped over it. I was like let's get out of here. I'm pretty sure we saw that cat on the side of the road later on that night driving by. I was like I don't know.
Speaker 3:No, he wasn't standing anymore.
Speaker 2:He was flat. Should have stayed in the tree.
Speaker 6:The house he's at now. I was at for five years when I was at Louisisville. It's kind of cool. I went by and visited for the first time and took my wife and it was. It was cool seeing the house that that would have been about 95, so it's been about 30 years ago when I was there is it one of the busiest ones? Yeah, it's probably the busiest in the city, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's definitely the busiest in the city.
Speaker 4:How many are they I?
Speaker 2:mean as far as stations, I'm not exactly sure, I think Louisville has about 17. Yeah, probably somewhere around there, but some are double houses, so we've got engines and trucks, but I'm not exactly sure how many men's on a crew, usually on a shift. Four on an engine, four on a truck, unless you're on a rescue company, which they have, five on the truck.
Speaker 7:See all that's different than how it is here, our little podunk town. It's just you've got four guys on shift period, that's it. But they're also not. I mean, not until recently they weren't running medical calls or anything, unless it was an all-call for a 1046 or something like that. It would be, they would only go to fires. Now they've started running some medical medical calls and a lot more wrecks, and just about every wreck that comes out now or there, there they were.
Speaker 5:So yeah, scary stuff. I could imagine having that. We, I think our call volume we doug doug's here with us, by the way, and what's our. Can you remember because we both admin dumb why we did that? But I think our most calls for service in a year for the entire department was probably somewhere in that neighborhood, maybe 8,000, somewhere in that neighborhood.
Speaker 7:So and you know, yeah which that's you know, and that sounds like a lot, but it's inflated a little bit well, you got everything added on right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, expert trolls and stuff like that trolls that you know may have taken five seconds so as soon as you get out, say expert trail is logged in the cat so that creates a yeah, a cad number.
Speaker 5:So so a lot of that, a lot of that you know, I would say half of that, over half. That probably, though, is officer responding to something, and you know even the extra patrols and the things like that we we go to. You know, yeah, we have time to, and I and I've got friends down in tulsa who will be like there'll be 50 calls waiting on the next shift to come in. Just as far as police, you know, they're that far behind. They've got to prioritize everything Working small town stuff. We're able to just go knock it out.
Speaker 5:And piggyback it was very rare that we ever held a call for the oncoming shift.
Speaker 4:Sheriff's office every now and then would do it. But it wasn't that many, it was far and few we never held if it's five minutes before we got off work and they gave out a say, a wreck or something in that nature. We went. Now, once we got there and it was going to take time then the next ship coming would come in and relieve us.
Speaker 2:The only time that anything's sort of like. That is, if there's just major events going on, if there's like multiple fires going on, they'll hold med runs for everybody, just so we don't get spread too thin or anything like that. And if it's that bad, then they'll bring the other shifts back in Right and then they'll ride on auxiliaries.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's a big. That's a lot bigger tandem than we're. It's a big.
Speaker 7:It's a lot bigger town than we're Now you said that there's assignments for trucks and rescue and what else. So, just as far as personnel.
Speaker 2:I mean rescue, special rescues, stuff like that, special houses, like the truck. There will have five, Okay.
Speaker 7:And then just regular trucks, like us, like we just have four. Then uh, responses with those, or do they all respond they all?
Speaker 2:respond to everything in their area and then if there's a special event, like they'll respond, like high angle rescue or you know, like an extraction team or something like.
Speaker 2:No, we don't just have like a rescue team just for rescue stuff or just like specialty stuff. Uh, we got specialty houses spread out throughout, like we got hazmat houses spread out, uh, structural collapse, uh. So you know, I include trucks and quints, but so quints we try to keep five on, okay, because they're a little bit further out and the response time from other trucks would be a little bit later out there, and you all know what trucks and engines.
Speaker 6:You all know the difference.
Speaker 7:You can specify, because not everybody knows.
Speaker 2:Well, some are red and white.
Speaker 6:When you say an engine that has pump and hose, so it pumps water and that's their main function. Pump and hose, okay, so it pumps water, and that's their main function. A true truck does not have hose and pumps and it's. It's got the aerial ladder, okay. So those guys mainly go in to do the grunt work, ventilate the building, any kind of research and rescue yes, they're trying to put the fire out.
Speaker 3:The truck is doing all of the work that you don't really see.
Speaker 6:Knocking windows out, cutting a hole in the roof, putting fans up, lights up.
Speaker 4:So the desirable job for the fire department is to be on the pumper right.
Speaker 6:For some guys Depends on where you're at, I mean, once you get later on where you're at Once you get lighter out in a few years, I don't know, you know Louisville, they always tried to put the bigger guys on the trucks because there was so much with lifting the ladders and stuff. So that's kind of what I wanted to do, since I was a small guy.
Speaker 1:We're not small.
Speaker 6:I was lucky, I was taller than 10 years on an engine and 10 years on a truck and I was on the dive and rescue at that house for five years. He's amphibious.
Speaker 2:I'm not.
Speaker 6:So that was fun.
Speaker 5:Listen those cats whoever the bridge rescue that made national news was badass.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it may not have been but it was.
Speaker 5:whoever did that?
Speaker 2:It was like a Spider-Man scene. Yes, it really was.
Speaker 5:That was some ninja stuff right there. That was awesome.
Speaker 6:That's a lot of training. I mean, I was there, we trained at least once a month we had to do rope training once a month, we had to do dive training, then we had to do all of our inspections and all the other training on top of it. Then we also had a what used to be a coast guard boat that we refurbished and made a fire boat. This is a Louisville, so they'd send people down there. We'd train on that. But the those high angle rescues, that's kind of rare when they come in.
Speaker 6:But when they do in that case, you're glad you did do all that training absolutely with the high angle rescues.
Speaker 7:Did you all, either of you, ever have to do or seeing it done with like call you in on, like suicides of jumpers and stuff to have to rappel down and that? No, that was well that's what I mean did you see it?
Speaker 2:I'm saying that's what the call is for like, that'll pop up, you know, and you'll make it with the possible different side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, somebody up for us they'll see somebody you know.
Speaker 2:A lot of the time they're fossils. You know somebody's right from the street, somebody's windows open and they're sitting on it, or something like that.
Speaker 7:Well, I mean, you know how john q public, yeah, I mean this guy's suspicious now the one we went on when I was there was the second street bridge.
Speaker 6:People would that was their thing. They would jump from the second street bridge, the house he's at now. A lot of times they will respond there also.
Speaker 5:The 2nd Street, the pedestrian. Yeah, it's got a pedestrian walkway.
Speaker 2:It's very tight.
Speaker 6:Yeah, we would go get on the fire boat and we would wait underneath in case they jumped His company, I'm guessing they probably still do it they would go on the bridge and kind of observe from up top, yeah, while usually a police unit would try to talk them down. Yeah, yeah, they were depending on, depending on the unit you get.
Speaker 7:They're yelling, do a flip.
Speaker 6:So well, when I was there I mean, I remember one, one of them, it was probably 15 degrees and we're out there on the boat and I was the captain and I am freezing and I'm like this guy is not going to jump and all of a sudden splash, he hits right by us. I'm like oh crap.
Speaker 6:But you know, we had a couple of guys dressed out in their dive suit and they went right in the water and they had to pull him out of the mud because people don't realize how shallow the river is. So he hit the water and stuck in the mud.
Speaker 5:They got him out but we were like woohoo, you know that'll work, but I just start heading toward the the falls there.
Speaker 2:That's not too far away from the falls, it's not yeah, that's on the other side, that's more, that's closer, yeah, they headed towards the hydroelectric NAMM, and that was now.
Speaker 6:That's something we did. A lot is in the summertime. The bodies would float down there and we would get a call from Elgini you have to do a trip.
Speaker 6:We see a body that's in the strainers. Yeah, that was, there was some. I'll tell a good story. I was down there one day and at that time I was a sergeant which drives. My captain was this macho man I mean he was, we called him Johnny Bravo and me and him were out there and the police. They had their dive gear but they kept it in their trunk. They didn't have all the specialized helmets like the super light helmets where nothing can come in nothing, and we couldn't get this.
Speaker 6:I mean I don't want to be too gross but skin's falling off the fish are eating, and it's 90 degrees out and me and my captain can't get him in the body bag and I look over and one of the cops is throwing up. I mean, it was that nasty that would be me and this guy's this guy's arm was just sticking up and my captain just he takes and breaks his arm so he can fold it into the body bag. And then everybody on the bank was throwing up and we got him in there and took him out. There was no other way to get him in a body bag.
Speaker 7:You got to do what you got to do.
Speaker 6:Yeah, those strainers were bad.
Speaker 5:I think I might throw it up right now. That's horrible. That's when I knew I couldn't do rescue and fires. I was like I don't do well with blood and guts.
Speaker 4:I mean, I've seen my fair share, but I could always be like go.
Speaker 7:We need somebody quick. It's more so for me, this instinct that when I see something on fire, I don't necessarily want to run into it.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I didn't either. When I first got on I was like we're going in there.
Speaker 7:Let's go. I've spent my whole life saying that's hot, I don't want to touch it.
Speaker 5:What's the tallest building in Louisville? I mean there's some tall buildings. It's changed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the name always changes.
Speaker 6:It used to be the Mercer.
Speaker 2:It's either between the Mercer and the PNC Mercer.
Speaker 6:Yeah, commonwealth building, it's got a dome on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I think it's that one or the PNC building, I don't know.
Speaker 6:It's not the PNC. I want to say it's about 50 stories.
Speaker 7:Is there an aerial that you've got that'll reach that dome.
Speaker 3:That's a helicopter.
Speaker 6:It will not. It will not.
Speaker 5:That would be. Getting upstairs has got to be a tough one, yeah.
Speaker 2:Quickly, I couldn't imagine.
Speaker 5:I think the last drill school class.
Speaker 2:they did a full, you know high-rise training there with those recruits and everything. They took everything up and I think I don't remember how many stories it is.
Speaker 6:I want to say it's 50, but I could be wrong.
Speaker 2:I can't remember the exact number, but it sounded awful.
Speaker 7:I'm out of breath after five stories.
Speaker 5:I'm out of breath just talking about this.
Speaker 2:You reach a zone where you become a zombie. Your feet just keep moving.
Speaker 3:You don't know how and you're just like I've got to do this or I won't have a job.
Speaker 4:Is that a rush or something? I mean, is it adrenaline rush? As far as the high rise.
Speaker 6:That only and when you're. I mean, when you're running into a fireman, you go yeah sometimes you're looking at it and you're like I don't want to go any further.
Speaker 2:I'm you know yeah, the adrenaline, only I don't want to go any further. Adrenaline only takes you so far, adrenaline is like when it gets knocked out and you're getting excited and stuff. Then when you get there you're like all right, I've got to calm down and I've got to think.
Speaker 7:I've got to do my stuff. It's kind of like a good fight or a foot pursuit. You're only good for so many yards or so this sucks.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and I remember my first fire. My captain pretty much drug me in there. I was going, but I was just like this whole thing's on fire, what are we going to do? We went in there and he immediately said you're going up in the attic. They had a ladder and up in the attic I went and I sucked in some smoke and heat and I came back down that ladder headfirst, hit the floor and started trying to yank my mask off and he jumped on me and wouldn't let me take the mask off. He's yelling at me don't you pull that off, don't you pull that off. I was fortunate. I had a great captain.
Speaker 3:What was that like?
Speaker 5:your first fire? Was it a house fire. What was that Like? Your first fire Was it a house fire?
Speaker 6:It was a church At that time. I got out of drill school in December. It snowed the graduation day and it dropped down to zero degrees and they had an arsonist down in the West End and he was setting churches on fire Evil.
Speaker 4:Was this in the 80s?
Speaker 6:So it would have been december of 89.
Speaker 5:Wow so he was going in there just sitting and then he was setting them on fire.
Speaker 6:They're catching, you know, I don't remember. Uh, the fire stopped so they must have it's. And you know, it's funny, an arson guy. I him. How do you guys catch arsonists? He goes. We usually go to the gas stations in the area and we look back through their film and we look for somebody filling up a milk jug with gas, see how close it is to the place catching on fire. That's usually our guy, wow.
Speaker 3:That's pretty smart. Why did we think that? I don't know. You remember the firebombing we had?
Speaker 5:Yeah, that was investigated.
Speaker 7:I had no idea what I was doing. Then Danny handed that over. He was like here this is your case.
Speaker 2:I was like I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker 7:Firebombing Out here, maultabing people's houses and cars.
Speaker 5:Out here. Yeah Geez, I don't know if they ever caught him or not.
Speaker 7:We handed it over to an arson investigator, the arson guys.
Speaker 6:they had some interesting stories. I remember they had a couple of kids in Louisville and every once in a while they would go over and they would let these kids start a fire on their grill at their house and that would satisfy them. But whatever that was they had they wanted to start a fire. That would pacify them.
Speaker 5:You could tell me that there's probably a lot more people like that. I mean, I love watching fires, but I don't have a desire to go burn your house down.
Speaker 7:That is exactly what your problem is. That is why you pee in the bed.
Speaker 5:so much I do pee in the bed. That's a different story. I do pee in the bed.
Speaker 6:That's a different story. Supposedly there's a real power in watching the destruction of it go and knowing that you started it. That kind of feeds, that, whatever that is, I mean I can get that Fire does fascinate me, but I've never wanted to burn a.
Speaker 7:Yeah right, Because we're mentally somewhat stable. I don't know if I can get that Fire does fascinate me, but I've never wanted to burn a yeah right, Because we're mentally somewhat stable. Yeah, I don't know if I'd go that far.
Speaker 2:Like you said, fire is beautiful and scary at the same time it's like it's alive.
Speaker 6:Yeah, it is, and you can probably tell it when you're inside. It is roaring, it's loud, it's not just a quiet, I mean it's.
Speaker 4:Popping and cracking like a fire. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Plus, I guess the wind it's pulling in and it roars it does yeah.
Speaker 7:Do you get in there and get kind of tunnel vision, though you have no vision Like auditory exclusion kind of like you have no vision, you can't see.
Speaker 2:It's funny. All people walk up and they're like oh man, yeah, I watched Chicago fire this night. I'm like those are the clearest looking fires I've ever seen, because I have never seen anything other than it's either fire or it's just. I can't even see my hand in front of my face. There's just smoke everywhere. So you're really just going in there blind, just trying to find your way around. So when it's like a hoarder house or something, you're basically just swimming. I was swimming through ornaments one time, just crushing all of them in this attic, just trying to get I don't even know where. I was just trying to figure out where my captain went, just swimming. He's like what are you doing, alan? He's here. I'm like I think I found the ornaments cap yeah, you, you can't see inside, and it's.
Speaker 6:I mean you could get lost in a closet. I'll tell you it was.
Speaker 2:Uh, the fire was. I mean, even when the out. I mean all that smoke is still sitting in there unless it's properly ventilated or whatever. But most of the time, a lot of the times you get to it quick, the smoke's just filled up the room or whatever. Like it's just hard to get some of that out. Some of these windows are you. Just you got the fire out. You don't need to just be breaking windows left and right so that smoke's just kind of stuck in there. And we were going through doing a secondary search, so they'd already done the primary search, so we're just kind of walking through and checking other rooms, make sure nobody's in there, and it's real smoky on that second floor and not hot or anything like we're not scared.
Speaker 2:No fire or nothing. We're just walking around, just walking around, looking. It's pretty well taken care of at this point and these departments. They just got weird stairwells and weird places and, uh, my captain's like I'm over here when you're walking, I've got him like within arm's reach, I see him and I'm in this room and then all of a sudden I just don't hear him, don't see him anywhere and he comes walking or he comes out of nowhere like right in my face.
Speaker 2:He goes hey, I found the stairs over there. And we walk out and he goes. I was like did you fall down those stairs? And he's like yeah, I swear. I was like I was going to say I can see you playing today and then, all of a sudden, you were just gone.
Speaker 7:Can't be cool like him.
Speaker 1:Found them.
Speaker 2:That's how you find stairs. Sometimes you fall right down.
Speaker 6:Yeah, you fall down them.
Speaker 5:All right. What is the scariest fire that you've been in?
Speaker 6:For me, and this was all my fault. It was my last two weeks in the fire department at Louisville and it was a hoarder's house, but we did not know it, and it was a three-story big mansion in the Highlands which is kind of a yuppie trendy area.
Speaker 6:It's a nice area yeah it's like on the third floor and again, we didn't know it was a hoarder's house and I had a new guy of less than a year in and I got way too cocky and we were on the landing and I ran up past everybody up onto the floor and kicked a door in and when I kicked that door, in the whole place all I saw was red and I thought my new guy was with me and all I remember is the stairs weren't there anymore and I was in the hallway and I was down on my stomach and all I could see was red and I was trying to get out and I went back into what was the bedroom?
Speaker 6:I didn't know it was a bedroom, but it was so thick with books and clothes and and I couldn't find a window and I thought I was going to burn up and I'm yelling for my new guy because I thought he was up there with me and I did not want to leave without him and finally, all I could think to do was crawl back towards the fire, hoping to feel that open there where the stairwell was, and I did and everybody was piled up on the landing. I rolled down the steps and I started yelling and then I left my new guy up there and I immediately hear no, you didn't Cap.
Speaker 6:I'm right here, I never went up and I'm yelling and screaming at him, calling him a coward. We had a guy that had two years on that retired from the Louisville Police Department and got hired on the fire department and he was standing there with a hose. I was yelling, screaming at him because I thought he opened the hose while I was up there and steamed me. I don't know if you've ever grabbed something out of the oven with a wet rag. It'll burn.
Speaker 6:Yes, that's what getting steamed is. And uh, so the next morning I'm sitting at the table waiting for shift change to happen and I'm just sitting there and all them guys are sitting there drinking coffee and I said, I'm done. They're like, you're what? I said I'm done. I thought I was going to die. I laid up there and made my peace with God and one of them goes oh sweet seven-pound baby Jesus, please, baby Jesus, let me in heaven. Oh. So then another one starts saying it and I got mad and got up, went home and said I'm done. I dodged the bullet, I'm done. That was one of the scariest, but that was one time I thought I was really going to get burned up and I retired.
Speaker 7:That was the decision maker there that was it, that was it, and then you went back.
Speaker 6:I got divorced and I went back.
Speaker 1:Had to go back To another. Get into my head, god wasn't telling me to retire.
Speaker 6:He was telling me don't run up there ahead of everybody next time and kick an oar in, just take a break is what he was saying yeah, take a break Chill out.
Speaker 3:Be the leader.
Speaker 5:Not the tip of the spear anymore. Isn't that hard to do when you're in leadership to allow others to? You want to be the guy. You want to still be the guy.
Speaker 6:Yeah, we just had a car wreck last day at work and it was on its side and the guy was really messed up and the major there told me to give the Sawzall to the new guy because I was cutting the roof off and I was like what he goes, give it to the new guy. And he told me later I don't want you up there doing the grunt work all the time and I'm like it's hard not to.
Speaker 1:What about you?
Speaker 6:man. He told me one I know he's got one already.
Speaker 2:I've got a good video. Do you want to watch it later?
Speaker 3:We'll definitely check it out, it's pretty good.
Speaker 2:It's a GoPro, so I was on a different engine, so I was still. I think I only had it maybe a year on the streets or a year and a half from the streets, and it was a big it was a shotgun house but it had like 10 foot ceilings, like there's no second floor.
Speaker 2:It was high ceilings and I guess it was a hoarder because there was stuff all throughout this place. But the fire was in the rear and we were on the address side and so I flaked out a line and the truck captain who's my captain now went in with his firefighter who's now my senior firefighter on the truck and they went in and I followed him with the line and you know they're asking. We got a line in here and it's just pitch black and I guess they moved. They moved I guess it was a fridge or something in front of this door or dresser and my, my truck firefighter now we call him Big Country, big strong fella. He's a cow farmer out there in Mount Eden and he rips this dresser, throws it across the room. Luckily he didn't hit me, couldn't see me, and the fire just comes running through. But when you got your mask on it's hard to like. Your depth perception's kind of off.
Speaker 7:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because you're technically not even really seeing, like because you don't expect to see anything, and the fire's, like I see it, and I'm like, oh, there it is, it's right there, like I'm about to hit it. And then I like realize, no, it's two inches from my face. Like it's right here.
Speaker 2:And so I kind of turned my head and I'm like, oh wait, no, it's everywhere, it's to my right, everything. So that then the captain I was with he's a very confident, very aggressive guy and, uh, fighting fire, and he, he goes get out. And I was like now I know we're in trouble and I just laid down and opened up the line and just laid down on the ground and just sprayed and they got out of the way, I guess, and then I felt somebody was tugging on the line so I just kind of crawled over.
Speaker 2:I say that I did the right thing by laying down and opening the line, but really I fell and I just opened up the line and just sprayed as high as I could just trying to cool everything off and we got a pretty cool video of it. But it's literally just like fire everywhere. You can't tell the entrance from where we're at. It's just fire everywhere. It's pretty cool. We'll check it, but yeah, that was definitely the scariest I was. And then we're sitting there and they're like smokes pouring out like ready let's go back in.
Speaker 7:I'm like all right, you said it was a gopro video. Uh, yeah, there's a couple different videos.
Speaker 2:We got a video with a drone that shows the fire pushing from the back all the way up to the front and it just kind of blows out the front, uh, the top of the, the door that's on the front, from like all the way, basically like if you're looking at this table, it just goes all the way through the shotgun, and then it's got a GoPro video. That's do you guys?
Speaker 5:pretty cool. Do y'all wear GoPros a lot, or?
Speaker 1:for training it's.
Speaker 7:Yeah, that's what I was. Yeah, so we brought.
Speaker 2:We watched that over the critique, because we did a critique on that one, because that was a pretty unique event, because that doesn't usually happen just like anything fire related. But if you got a, GoPro we use it, certain people use it, but yeah just like anything fire related.
Speaker 7:It's the opposite of police related. Body cams are never good for training or anything. They can be yeah, they can be Train what you did wrong, that's right.
Speaker 1:Don't do this.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a good one, that was a good fire Fires.
Speaker 5:It's just a little it's like Doug was saying it's just kind of it's its own thing, it is it does what it does. It's wild and I'm sure there's things Different fuels and things that happen but I remember fire doesn't want to die either, does it?
Speaker 6:No, what it does. And what it did when I kicked that door in, it sat in there and it burned until it used up all the oxygen. And when it does that, it starts smoldering down and it sits there. All the heat is still in there and it's just sitting there waiting for you to kick a door in so it can burn that oxygen comes in and when it does, it fires it.
Speaker 6:That's what blew me back and that's what was complete red and chased me back into the back of the house where I couldn't get out, and then it was going with him. I would say probably. What happened is, when they came in that door, it got the fuel and it ran towards them and that's why, all of a sudden, he was just overcome. So it's running towards the source cause it wants to get out, it wants more oxygen and yeah, it's just it's just like yeah, it's one reason.
Speaker 6:when it builds up heat like this, it's one reason you see us go to the roof and cut a hole in the roof. We're making a chimney, so that's the purpose. Right, that's the purpose, because then, all of a sudden, it can go up and out Instead of running towards a door or a window. The heat gets out. You can do a better job.
Speaker 4:I always wondered why they've done that.
Speaker 7:I said they're destroying a perfectly good well, I always thought how would you get on top of a burning house?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's I, I loved you can see the smoke too. It starts. It goes from, you know, pulling out the front of this house, at the top of the door entry, and then you see it just start to come down and keep coming down.
Speaker 7:I would imagine you can see the fire retreat and then you see it just start to come down and keep coming down. I would imagine you could see the fire retreat back and then, when it blows out, it just goes up the top because it's looking for that oxygen With full turnout gear and everything on what's the temperatures you can withstand, that's a great question Before you start.
Speaker 6:I don't know.
Speaker 7:Before you start turning into a baked potato.
Speaker 2:I haven't turned into a baked potato.
Speaker 6:I haven't turned into a baked potato yet, so I'm not sure exactly what the heat is like we wear a hood now a Nomex hood and we get our mask on, then we pull that hood up, then we have our helmet and it has ear flaps so we can take more heat, which I remember. The old-timers always said that was a bad thing because we would stay longer in the fire. They liked having their ears exposed and that's how they said oh time to get out. I can feel my ears burning Right. And when I first came in that first year, we did not have to wear a Nomex hood and I liked it better. Now some people would say, oh, you're stupid.
Speaker 7:Well, it gave you an indicator.
Speaker 6:It kind of gave you an indicator you can be in there when, when you shouldn't, shouldn't be right, because they've made our gear so good. So that's, that's a good thing. It's a lot better than when I came in the gear. Uh, the guys right before I came in they wore the rubber boots and they would just pull them all the way up and then they had the long fire coat over it. They didn't have the pants. Those days are over, and that's a good thing.
Speaker 2:You're showing your salt right now.
Speaker 3:I know.
Speaker 2:A little pepper too.
Speaker 5:It's got some steak sauce, yeah, but that like okay, this is a silly question, it may not be. I wear contacts. That can't be good in a fire. It'd have to melt.
Speaker 6:Well, they've got the mask, so your mask covering, but also you can get a. I don't have it, but I think guys get a prescription, almost like on the goggle part of it. Well, they fit right inside the mask, okay, but if they've got their contacts, they're not. I'd hate to be slanted, yeah.
Speaker 5:Most of the time you can't see anything anyway, so most of them aren't too worried about it.
Speaker 1:The contacts.
Speaker 2:They're fine with contacts behind the mask, I mean, if those contacts are melting.
Speaker 7:They got some serious sear mask, yeah, okay.
Speaker 5:I was just wondering, because I was like man, I've been hot where I gotta get these out of here. You know just from well, that was grilling, I didn't have any eye on too much lighter fluid too much Boy Scout secret.
Speaker 4:That's exactly. Too much lighter fluid, too much.
Speaker 5:Boy Scout secret. That's exactly right. Oh my gosh, I've done dumb stuff on fire Well who hasn't?
Speaker 7:Speaking of dumb stuff we were talking about a hypothetical question before everybody got here. It's a good one. Yeah, it's a good one.
Speaker 3:So you all watch Saturday Night Live. Well, I don't. I don't either. This is an good one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good one. So you all watch Saturday Night Live. Well, I don't know, this is an old one.
Speaker 7:Yeah, I don't know how old it is, so there's a skit that they had on there, but it brings up a good hypothetical question. Now I know how we would respond to it, and that is to leave and let you all handle it. I've been there, but you're at the top. You're at a water park at the top of this big, you know, I don't know how many.
Speaker 5:It was several stories.
Speaker 7:Several story water slide. You got a guy who has a heart attack, dies at the top of the slide. Big, big heavyset guy.
Speaker 6:I know I don't know where you're going with this Hypothetically, do you carry him down the steps?
Speaker 7:No, or do you push him down the steps you need to let me answer this.
Speaker 6:You don't want this coming back on you. You push him down the slide.
Speaker 2:No we'd use a stair chair and we'd get him down, secure him properly. That's the PCA chief. Actually, if he had a heart attack, we'd have him on a stretcher. We would be carrying him because he'd have to be able to do CPR. But you could probably get enough pressure in that slide? I don't know.
Speaker 6:Seriously, we would probably try to get some harness on, put a rope, I mean, if you're being serious and ease him down the water slide.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so let him go down a slide.
Speaker 6:Yeah, you would just push him and say whee, you know, obviously that was not an option that was presented in the skit, that would be it.
Speaker 3:And that's why he's a firefighter and I'm a captain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he makes the decision not to just fire.
Speaker 5:It was a good skit.
Speaker 7:I recommend it.
Speaker 2:That would be a unique situation, though that would be interesting, like I said, I know how we would handle it.
Speaker 7:It's all right, boys have fun.
Speaker 5:They have a water park up there at the Kentucky Kingdom, don't they? They do. You got to think through these things.
Speaker 6:We used to go there all the time they had trouble with a roller coaster and there, all the time they would, they had trouble with a roller coaster and it was a pretty frequent trip to go up and have to get the people out of it because it would stop, it would get stuck and it would hang upside down, upside down.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, that is definitely. Yeah, that are coming off track oh god yeah nobody ever fell.
Speaker 6:Uh, they didn did have one incident with that parachute drop type deal where a girl Got her legs, got her legs cut off. I think it was her feet.
Speaker 2:It was her legs or feet, yeah, but Louisville was like the number one foot surgeons in the world.
Speaker 6:I think at that point I'm sure that made her feel better.
Speaker 3:I don't know if they were just making that up, but apparently Hopefully she got that thing, reattached that up.
Speaker 7:but apparently, how was he got that thing reattached? Could you imagine being on the ground level of that?
Speaker 4:and somebody's foot, just come flying by your hand what about if that had happened to him? Oh god, died drunk, you know, right, huh, what shoulder man he put it on your shoulder, your friend. Oh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's not talking about his foot, though.
Speaker 4:No.
Speaker 6:That was a conversation we had before we started recording.
Speaker 2:I think oh yeah, yeah, that was just.
Speaker 4:Oh no, we were recording.
Speaker 1:No, oh yeah. Yeah, it could be. Oh, Doug, we were recording. No, oh yeah.
Speaker 6:Yeah, it could be, oh, okay. As you say, Doug, I think I left my truck unlocked. Can you go?
Speaker 5:out and check it, please. All right, we've hit some serious, scary ones. Let's hear some fun ones.
Speaker 6:Some fun ones. Oh, yeah, man, I've got those All right. Yeah, we were known for pranks one of our favorite pranks and again, since you're not on we went through a lot of broomsticks, because we would take broomsticks occasionally and we would cut them to the same size as the bed rails and we had a small mattress and box spring. That was our bed place and we put three or four of those on, shoved a wedge in so the bed wouldn't move, and tied a rope on it. So then, when whoever you were trying to get would fall asleep, we called it going for a ride.
Speaker 6:In the middle of the night you take off, running, and it happened to me once where I couldn't breathe, the rush of being yanked out like a roller coaster taking off, and you think you're dreaming and when it's over, you're laying in the middle of the floor and everybody's giggling and snickering like a bunch of little girls and you're in the middle of the floor and you don't know what happened. Oh my gosh. Yeah, super soaker guns guys get. When they get bored, they start coming up with games, dumping flour on each other, just have you got some funny stuff in my department in alaska thanks for making the trip, by the way.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah that's funny, because my my department is Anchorage Middletown.
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, we consider.
Speaker 2:Alaska posers. Yeah no, we don't do any pranks up there in Alaska. You have to remember runs.
Speaker 6:Weird amount of runs in Anchorage. Alaska Non-fire department pranks as far as that like runs. So I got a new guy one time. His name is Donnie and the area of town we were in has a lot of people who are. You got a lot of homeless people, a lot of people who are kind of unstable. And we're coming back from the grocery store I pointed out two high rises and I said, hey, when we make a run there, you're going to see some stuff you might see. You might see some naked stuff, you might see drunks, you might see all kinds of stuff. So sure enough wasn't. A couple hours later we go to what's called york towers I'll just say it for a fire alarm sounding and, uh, we go up there and old guy answers the door. He's completely naked and he's just standing there and I said, hey, uh, man, you got an alarm going off in your apartment and your air condition is out yeah.
Speaker 6:I said do you think maybe you could go put some clothes on? When he just looks at me, I said could you please put some clothes on so I can come in there and check it? He walks away. He comes back with a black t-shirt on. I still remember his t-shirt, that was it. It he's still standing there half naked. How do you like this? It looked like somebody holding a frog up. I'm just like good grief. I said you know what it looks good in there to me. Let's go. We had a lot of those, a lot of nudity involved in runs you sure you weren't in Mount Vernon Kentucky?
Speaker 4:I said, one came out on Mike Bryant. You know, mike, she came right out the back door on him, naked as a jaybird we had a couple that um, older, slightly disabled.
Speaker 6:they both had recliners that the seat would lift up to help them get up and they would sit around naked all the time because probably about every other shift we'd have to go to help one of them up off the floor and you could see the streak stain on their seats. And my guys were so quick. I know they were thinking before we ever got there and I'm thinking, okay, we're going to have to help these people up. That's not how they're thinking. They're thinking, hey, I'll get the left arm, you get the right arm, and that will leave Cap at the back. And it never failed. And there I'd be in the back trying to lift up this naked either the man or the woman, and it was just consistent every time and they would snicker and giggle, gotcha every single time you got to tell the story about the.
Speaker 2:I don't remember what his name was, but you. He was a cool guy. He became a police officer. He retired from louisville became a police officer yeah, you pranked him with the coke in the funnel above his bed. Oh no, he pranked me. Oh, he got you. That's a good one.
Speaker 6:That's even I like those ones, yeah louisville's got a really old house and it is now a bar called Silver Dollar Saloon and the bedrooms were up on the second floor. I think all of them pretty much were in the old houses. So he comes in on his day off, he climbs up in this nasty attic which I didn't even know those firehouses may be built in like 1900. It still had the horse stables in the back. That's awesome, wow, that is. And uh. He's up there and and drills a little hole above my bed. He takes a two liter coke bottle and he cuts the bottom of it off so that it's more like a funnel. He fills up a latex glove and ties it off like a water balloon. He puts that in there, sticks that nozzle in that little hole, puts a hook on the side of it and runs a string across the attic and lets it come down to where his bed is.
Speaker 5:This took some time this took some time.
Speaker 6:And so when we came back to work, I'm in bed and I'm asleep and I wake up kind of out of it because something is dripping on me and it's dripping, and it's dripping and then all of a sudden it wasn't dripping anymore. He got that latex glove to rip and that water comes down and soaks me while I'm half asleep and then he had this funny laugh because Jorge was Puerto Rican and he was from New York and he's ooh ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, I got you.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I did get him back. Yeah, I won't say what he did. He played so many jokes. He put weight plates in your pillowcase and you go in there and you get in bed and as soon as you laid your head down on the pillowcase, you're hitting what was usually a 10-pound weight plate smacking your face on it.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and it would hurt, and one night I pulled that thing out in the dark threw it across the room and hit him because I heard it thud and he's like, oh God, oh God, oh God, and that was the end of that.
Speaker 5:But he retired. I don't know what's more dangerous the firehouse?
Speaker 6:or the people that work there, oh yeah, when he retired he got on the Louisville Police Department and I won't try to tell the story, but he had a story where he had to fight the red man Guy in a suit. Well, I'll go ahead and tell it. He failed it twice I think, and they told him three times and you're out. And they told him three times and you're out. So, if I remember right, he walked in, threw the baton at the guy's feet and put his hand on his gun. Instead they're staring at him and said get it. And they were like all right, you pass, because they told him you've got to get this guy under control.
Speaker 3:So he says, pick it up, pick it up Pick it up.
Speaker 6:Now, you know, got to get this guy under control, yeah, so just pick it up, pick it up. Pick it up Now you know how training is it wasn't a real gun, so let me put that out there.
Speaker 5:Right, yeah.
Speaker 6:It was a red gun as well. Yeah.
Speaker 7:With Redman. For anybody who's not familiar with it, it's what police training goes through, when you learn your defensive tactics and things, and it pretty much equates to you going in with a foam pool noodle as a baton and then them commencing to throw in a whooping on you for the next 15 minutes and you trying to survive. Yeah.
Speaker 5:If you do well, you'll only end up with a couple nice hits to the head, and if you're able to use your baton correctly, they'll, they'll call it yeah.
Speaker 6:but if you don't use the baton correctly, you, you will pack that whipping yeah you will regret it so yeah, and jorge was a great guy, one of my favorite firefighters, so we had this good friend.
Speaker 5:We had this little guy. He worked for the Department of the Park Services. We was in the academy. We had this legendary man. They named the gym after him up at Richmond LJ Weber.
Speaker 4:He's a great guy. He's a great man.
Speaker 5:Weber would say gentlemen, a real, proper guy. I don't even know if he'd ever been in police. I don't think so. Just badass. I mean that's what. He was hired as a little man. I mean just a little guy. But every recruit that ever went through was scared to death of him because he was like a ninja. He was like Chuck Norris to us, I mean he was awesome.
Speaker 3:He had that respect.
Speaker 5:And this guy kept swinging that pool noodle and it would glance off his shoulder and hit him in the head. He said, sir, the next time you hit me in the head with that, there will be consequences. He was ripped alive, he wasn't done. He was ripped alive, he wasn't done, he was a wreck. So they're attacking him. He hits, smack, boom hits him. And our pitcher, our academy class pitcher he's got a black eye, completely black eye, had to go to the hospital and get cut. He just swung him up. He just bah. He was like bless your heart. But he warned him.
Speaker 4:Twice, he was good though man. Yeah, he was. He wasn't the police. There was always rumors flying around that he came from the CIA or something of that nature. He was an expert in all this. He was our Chuck Norris man. He was.
Speaker 5:You didn't have him, did you? No, gosh, he was scary.
Speaker 3:He was going way before I got there. I was like they had a scenario I don't know, Doug.
Speaker 5:He was a shoplifter and you're a single unit. You had to arrest him, okay, can you? Sir? Can you please turn around and put your hands behind you? Nope, I'll do anything. I'll go with you, but you're not putting handcuffs on me, sir. It's our policy that we had to handcuff you. Nope, I think six people here is back. Send everybody Send everybody Send everybody.
Speaker 5:Nobody wanted to just go hands-on and he was going to comply. That was the scenario. He would have complied, but he wasn't going to be handcuffed, but he wasn't going to handcuff him. Nobody would be like well, let's go, buddy. Everybody's like oh, I got a handcuff.
Speaker 4:Now if you was in Mount Vernon you would. Everybody's like, oh, I got a hand cut now. If you said Mount Vernon, you would, because I've done it many times, you should say that. But I have a poor old guy I had up there give a call and he's the guy wandering around on highway 70. Just, he's intoxicated, according to the people. I mean it is peephole in the rain, I mean it is gushing down, it's like two o'clock in the morning and I'm aggravated anyway because it's like 15 miles away from town. So I go out that way and Timmy Cameron, who y'all don't know, timmy you might. I've heard the name he was with me.
Speaker 4:We get out there. It's on Highway 70, right at the Rock Castle and Pulaski line. We pull up there and, sure enough, there he is. He's just dancing around.
Speaker 1:He's having a good time.
Speaker 4:I won't say who he was because his brother's kind of high up and things. I won't say who he was because his brother's kind of high up in things.
Speaker 1:So I get up there and I roll my window down about like that, because I mean it's still point.
Speaker 4:I said what are you doing? I'm dancing in the rain, baby. I said, well, you can't be doing that, you're going to have to go with us. So I said, said open the door and get in. He opens the back door, jumps right in, we turn around, head back to the jail, out, lodge him and away we go.
Speaker 5:that's happened many times yeah it's kind of like a Mayberry in a way so what I hear is it's raining outside and if he said no, doug wouldn't get in the house just keep trying, somebody keep trying now you ain't, you're jammed yeah, try to avoid the traffic if you can.
Speaker 6:Of course, there wasn't no traffic at that time and I had no idea oh my god, yeah, you talked about those like that guy being a tough guy. I was lucky. When I came through drill school we had guys that were finishing up their career, that had been in, been in vietnam, and they were. They were tough guys and they would put their hands on you in drill school. So I there was. I had one drill instructor and if you look down when you're raising a ladder, he'd start kicking you in the shins and, uh, it hurt and you couldn't let that ladder go. You just have to take this kicking in the shin and he's yelling and screaming. He was, he was mean, I mean, really mean, and all of them I was most guys were scared of him and something you'd hear from the old guys all the time. If you had an argument with them they'd say you want to go out back. I mean, you come out of their mouths so fast. Let's go out back and fight. You're like I'm not going out there.
Speaker 6:Because they all grew up in the boxing gym in Portland, there in Louisville, or what they called the South End. They were just rough, rough guys and I remember when I was brand new there was three of us. Hey, new boy, you want to go drinking with us? We were getting off work and I'm like 8 am baby.
Speaker 7:I'm brand new. It's 5 o'clock somewhere.
Speaker 6:I'm brand new and I'm thinking, you'm thinking I better do this. So I go, and after a couple hours I need to get home. So I go home. Well, two days go by. I come back into work. I come in and those three guys have pulled chairs into. We had a community shower with four shower heads. They're all sitting in their chairs in the shower with the same clothes on that they left. That first morning when I went to the bar with them, them guys, they would go down dixie highway to those bars and they would tear the bar bars apart. They were just rough guys. Now the funny thing is the guy who sat there and would kick you in the shins the fire department I'm at now I work with his son.
Speaker 3:You kicked him in the shin.
Speaker 6:No Retribution, no because a couple of years ago that guy, his dad, sent me a message on Facebook Messenger and he said hey, I'm reaching out to all the people and I'm sorry about the way I treated you back then and I thought, well, this guy's probably found Jesus, yeah. And I told him I appreciate the way you treated me, I think it was good, I think it was good for you. I'm not the guy that would put my hands on somebody, but I no regrets about having those guys. They made me better firemen, absolutely. And you know you can't be putting your hands on people, but for me it didn't bother me him kicking me in the shins, I just took it and went on made you, made you aware that you're not supposed to be doing something.
Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah you know and I, when I see that guy guy they moved him out of the house I'm at now and moved me in there I try to always ask him how his dad's doing, because his dad's probably 80 now. He probably looks back on his life and thinks he could have been nicer. But that's a lot to reach out to somebody and say I'm sorry about what I did to you 30 years ago.
Speaker 5:Obviously, you're right. He probably did reflect find the Lord make some amends. I've had to make those calls.
Speaker 6:He probably called a lot of people and I thought good for him.
Speaker 5:That's good. It's hard to eat.
Speaker 6:I love them, old guys like that they were tough Reminds me of the scene from Billy Madison.
Speaker 7:He's what I call that guy. Forrest O'Hare putting on his lipstick.
Speaker 2:Saved my life.
Speaker 5:Now. Where did you say you were now now?
Speaker 6:it's Anchorage Middletown fire department, middletown and it's it's in the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's one of the houses.
Speaker 6:Yeah, great department. We merged with five other departments, so now we are the third largest department in the state, behind Lexington and Louisville.
Speaker 5:Wow, wow.
Speaker 6:Yeah, we've got. I should know this. We've got 10 houses and we share a house with St Matthew's Fire Department, so we have a company in one of their houses.
Speaker 5:Did you all have to respond to the accident that Scotty Schaeffler got arrested at at Valhalla?
Speaker 6:Yes, and I don't know anything about it, really about what happened there.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't even say yeah, I try not to say too much, since I'm there right now.
Speaker 6:But, it's a great department. We've got some great people there, matter of fact, and it's growing.
Speaker 4:That day something big was happening, wasn't it's growing? Yeah, that day something big was happening, wasn't it other than that?
Speaker 6:it was the uh, well, it was the golf tournament.
Speaker 4:Yeah yeah, but there was office coming there for some reason or other. Oh seinfeld, oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, we went and saw seinfeld at the palace.
Speaker 5:That's right yeah, that's yeah. We went and saw Seinfeld at the palace, that's right, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 7:The palace. I love that palace. How was?
Speaker 6:that, by the way, was it good? It was good. It was. Yeah, that's one of my best fire stories. They had just finished renovating the palace. It was beautiful and I was at when I was saying the rescue house it's at 12th and Jefferson and they sent a call out in the night that the palace was on fire and I had Johnny Bravo, captain.
Speaker 5:Now, the palace is right there, down from Galt House, right, yes, it's on 4th Street, on 4th Street.
Speaker 6:Yeah, just if you're coming from the river, it's just up from 4th Street.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 6:Yeah, just if you're coming from the river. It's just up from 4th Street line and I remember my captain saying don't let truck two beat us there.
Speaker 1:And that's the house he's at.
Speaker 6:And Anchorage will have to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, truck two, so they had.
Speaker 6:We both had a truck where a guy steers in the back as a tillerman.
Speaker 3:Oh cool, yeah.
Speaker 6:So I'm driving the front and here we're flying, don't you let them beat us, don't you let them beat us. And we hit an intersection at the same time, where 4th Street is that you turn, and I turned right in front of him. He's like, yes, you beat us.
Speaker 2:And I pulled right up in front and things have changed a lot we don't race nowadays, you know.
Speaker 6:So I pulled up in front of it and I got right up against the curb because we have to put these outriggers out. And he's like what are you gonna do? I said I'm gonna put that out on the sidewalk, we'll be fine. He takes off inside because I got to put the aerial ladder up and because we got what's called a ladder pipe and it usually flows about 800 to a thousand gallons. I think now it's maybe 1200, but wow.
Speaker 6:So so I was gonna put that on the roof. That's where you can see the fire and he takes off inside and pretty soon he comes running back out. Don't you lose the?
Speaker 1:palace. Don't you lose the palace.
Speaker 7:That's how he would talk and I would say hey, I got this Go back in.
Speaker 6:So that was one of my proudest moments. And actually the palace shared a common wall with another building and that's where the fire was coming out. That wall kept it from going into the palace but there were companies up on the roof that said, man, we heard a train coming and we knew that ladder pipe, because that thing, you can demolish a building with it. It will put so much water out Really. Oh yeah, they heard that thing kick on and they were running for their lives up there.
Speaker 1:They were still on the roof, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:That's what's supposed to happen.
Speaker 5:Don't worry about you guys. We can't lose the house. Don't lose the house that's like the Notre Dame up there. Oh yeah, it's beautiful, oh yeah.
Speaker 6:It's beautiful. Seinfeld was great.
Speaker 4:Had one troublemaker right at the end, one troublemaker had to be she could not make it for like five or ten more minutes just heckling started heckling him foolishness he was great he just blew it off though.
Speaker 5:Jerry's great Louisville's like. I like going to Louisville, me and my wife like to go up. I hate to say this, but the Yum Center is a little better than Rupp Arena as far as watching events. Oh, yeah, well, it's much newer. Yeah, it's newer, it's got all the stuff. But I've watched Stapleton up there. It was one of them Awesome.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cool.
Speaker 5:Yeah it's a good one. Good one right there. It's a cool venue, but nothing like the Palace, of course.
Speaker 6:Right For me. I prefer Neyland Stadium. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:But, none of you guys are Tennessee fans. No, oh my gosh.
Speaker 5:This podcast was good.
Speaker 6:I grew up most of the time in Soddy Daisy, tennessee, which is close to Chattanooga, and so in my interview for Louisville we had this guy. He was the assistant chief and he was a jerk, full-blown jerk, scary just to be around him, and Louisville did not hire volunteers. When I got on and he asked me in the interview, he said are you a volunteer? And I said yes, sir, I grew up in Chattanooga and he looked at me. He goes what I said. I've been a volunteer since I was a kid. I loved their football. He goes are you stupid?
Speaker 6:And I said no, sir, I grew up there. I love the balls he goes. I'm talking about a volunteer fireman, you idiot. And I said oh no sir, I don't know anything about that. And he goes he's just sitting there shaking his head. He said you can go now.
Speaker 6:And I stood up and I reached across his desk to shake his hand and he just sat there looking at me and I pulled my hand back and I left. I went home, I got the paper out and I started looking in the classifieds for a job. I told my wife at the time I don't think I'm getting hired, I'm like what?
Speaker 1:I'm a little bit new, I'm a little bit idiot. I'm Rocky Top.
Speaker 7:That's like your ID story.
Speaker 4:Oh, about the guys on the.
Speaker 7:Yeah, the guys that you stopped with the.
Speaker 4:ID. Jesse's there with me on that one, these two birds. I don't know what we're out there for. We're just stopping cars. That one, they, these two birds. I don't know what we was out there for, we just stopping cars. But it was this third shift and we always hang out on the parkway because Clay County bunch they kind of wild over there. Well, this car goes by. I don't remember if I stopped it for speeding or what the deal was, I just don't remember that part of it. But I pulled this guy over. Jesse's got one pulled over on the other side of the road and by the time I get out I'm walking over to him and I look in there and that's two big old, rough-looking fellas Touch hogs is what I call them Big old beards. He's just some rough looking, rough looking overhauls in the works and I said that's kind of like. One of the folks said you better send me help. I might have help with this guy. He's got tattoos and everything. But anyway, I won't say who that was. I know who it was.
Speaker 1:You know who it was.
Speaker 4:But anyway, I said, jesse, you might want to come over here. So he gets done. He wails around over there to where I'm at and we walk up. I walk up to the passenger side and I talked to him. I said I need to see a license and he hands them to me and I looked at first do you have any ID? And he looks at me, says about what? No, I need to see your identification too out of his beard they were good, just good old boys.
Speaker 4:But yeah, I wound up, no ID I ain't got no idea about that.
Speaker 5:We have all kinds in here. I'm sure y'all have them too.
Speaker 4:I can't imagine doing the. I think it goes both ways the fire department gigged the police, we gigged the deputy, but it's all good. We've always had a good working relationship with each other until they blocked the roads, and that gets on my nerves. Yeah. With each other until they block the roads, and that gets on my nerves, yeah.
Speaker 6:And I'll tell you one we had. There's a neighborhood there in Louisville called the Portland Neighborhood. It sits on the river and it's kind of rough working class people. They said we had a fire, a house fire. So we pull up, we're running in and I see all these growing lights and there's rack after rack after rack of marijuana plants. The whole house is a marijuana house. We're growing Indoor yeah. And I've got a line and I'm standing there looking around like, in slow motion, the devil's less.
Speaker 3:The devil's less.
Speaker 6:I see all these cops in there with guns. They're doing their thing and we're kind of. They got there first and they parked out front. My sergeant's trying to yell at a cop. What are you parking out front?
Speaker 1:You're blocking you know, and.
Speaker 6:I finally had to say man shut up. Yeah, I said shut up dude Radio did not tell them and they didn't tell us, they just sent the fire dispatcher and the police dispatcher. They sent us both to the same run. Somebody had set a little fire on the outside trying to burn down this operation Really, and they sent us both in there and that was scary. That gets dangerous.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was like alright, let's get out of here. That could have been an interesting call.
Speaker 2:They blocked the house. We want to grow on fire.
Speaker 4:We got some plants in here.
Speaker 4:We had an incident up at Mount Vernon one time and the mayor was a female. I won't say who she was, but they had a fire and anyway, she's going home. Of course they had the road blocked. Well, they didn't have the road blocked, but they had the fire hose across the road. Yeah Well, she drives over it. Oh oh, honey, you thought the world was coming to an end. Oh yeah, oh, you thought the world was coming. Oh yeah, you thought the world was coming to an end. Yeah, I was there. One of the fuck. She ran over the fire hose. I said so.
Speaker 4:You still got water but, anyway, I pulled her over and it was the mayor. She's. What are you pulling me over? For yeah she says oh, what's? That gonna hurt anything, she said I had to get home.
Speaker 5:I said well, I bet them things are they're.
Speaker 2:They're not cheap at all. You know what?
Speaker 6:I don't know what. I guess I should know, like the bigger one, the five-inch sections.
Speaker 2:It's about $1,000, I think.
Speaker 6:But I mean, we make something that you can put there. That's like little ramps. They can drive a car right over it.
Speaker 4:But yeah, I didn't know it was a big offense, oh man.
Speaker 7:We learned that one chicken festival. That's what I was going to say.
Speaker 2:I think it's a felony.
Speaker 5:Because if that hose goes out, well, I'm pretty sure it can damage the pumps as well.
Speaker 6:If it sends the pressure back. I think that is the biggest part of it?
Speaker 2:I think so, and that's a very expensive piece of machinery Because you're pumping it and then that just stops it while the pumps are hitting it.
Speaker 7:It's probably rebounded that pressure back in.
Speaker 5:Yeah, one of my things not to do.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 6:I had a pretty big fire and blocked. I got in a little bit of trouble because I took a hydrant on the other side of the street on what's called Bardstown Road and it's the happening place where people cruise up and down on the weekends and it was a Friday night and it was the only one I could take. It was a restaurant with an apartment above it. But it's kind of a funny story, my sergeant. He got in the habit every time we would come up on a report of a fire I'd be looking at the building to make my call in and he'd go. We got a working fire and I'd be like just messing with me playing around.
Speaker 3:I'd get mad at him and after a while.
Speaker 6:I'd just go off on him. I'd say stop doing that. So we pull up in front of this restaurant and I'm looking and he goes. We've got a working fire and I looked at him and I said I said to stop saying that when I'm trying to call in and he goes, no, it's coming out the roof.
Speaker 4:And I look, I'm like oh God oh God, he cried wolf too many times. He did, he did.
Speaker 6:And I called it in and we had to put our line to the other side of Bardstown Road. Take the hydrant, nobody could cross it and me and my firefighter went inside. We're running air and we've got our masks on. It's a little bit smoky in the restaurant part and everybody's sitting there eating their food and you can see the smoke is starting to kind of bank down. And I look around and I said, hey, building's on fire, get out.
Speaker 3:And nobody moves, they just sit there looking at me and I'm looking at them. All the non-smokers are outside already and everybody's like what's?
Speaker 6:wrong man. I'm standing there looking at them all and nobody's moving and I said I said get the building's on fire, get out.
Speaker 7:Still nobody moved. This is $80 a plate. I'm going to take my chances.
Speaker 6:So, yeah, and I lost it. I yelled get the out of here and I started kicking tables over and knocking them. They all, just they scattered running outside and I think we fought that fire for almost an hour. Even the chief showed up. They had tongue and groove walls, ceilings. We're in there with chainsaws trying to get in the walls. But yeah, I came back out and it was about 10 degrees and first thing I hear is why'd you block Bardstown Road? And I said it's where the hydrant was.
Speaker 7:Yeah, that's never happened. Yeah, after you had to deal with all that, yeah, yeah, that would have been pissed off right there.
Speaker 5:I was working up in Mount Vernon. Was it Gene's restaurant?
Speaker 4:Yes, but it burned. Oh, was you working there then?
Speaker 5:Yeah, it was in 2012-ish and I came in. I saw this guy come in from London heading up that way. See the fire. There was still people eating in there. They had delicious breakfast and they were not going to because kitchen caught. Yeah, you know it. Just all that grease and all that stuff. Yeah, well, they stayed in there.
Speaker 4:Think they get it out that was a good place to eat.
Speaker 3:I never replaced it.
Speaker 5:I get it If it's good food. You can't get it. Money's worth a gift.
Speaker 4:This is the last time we're going to be able to eat here. Get all you can get baby.
Speaker 5:Pizza Hut's still there. Yeah, I guess I'll eat up there in a little bit. Yeah, fun stuff. I think it's been up there a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, fun stuff.
Speaker 5:I'll tell you, the scariest fire. I don't know if he was working that third shift when Main Street no, down on Middle Street, next to that little Mexican restaurant over the house.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:This guy. He said my baby's still in there and this sucker is fully like dead. It is bad, my baby's still in there. His four fire department got there and we were about ready to go in and we couldn't get in. It was that. I mean, we were like we're going to die if we go. I remember us freaking out, freaking out. Well, baby wasn't no baby. He was probably 17, 18 years old and he was in there smoking cigarettes. He didn't tell his dad.
Speaker 1:He ran out. He didn't tell his dad my baby.
Speaker 5:My baby might kill him, might kill us. I was like that was the scariest I've ever been in a fire club. I remember thinking I don't really like this.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I've seen people call their cats and their dogs babies. My baby's in there and you're like, oh my God, where's the baby at? What's my dog?
Speaker 7:What Let it be?
Speaker 4:That's right.
Speaker 6:They usually come out when that door opens in the front. They're smarter than us. Amen to that.
Speaker 2:We made an apartment fire and actually it was like a condo but it shared a wall With this other apartment and the roof. I guess the attic was on fire and you could see it kind of coming out and we were rolling up. We were about to go in and the engine is rolling up with the line behind us and I see their new guy masking up and I guess I turned around before I saw it happen. But he told me it was either one of the cats that the lady was saying was inside or it was a raccoon that was living in the attic or something. But an animal of raccoon size was living in the attic or something. But an animal of a raccoon size flew off of the attic, knocked his mask off while he was trying to mask up Because the captain was like what's?
Speaker 2:taking you so long to mask up. We've got to get in here. And he's like I just got hit in the head. I don't even know where I'm at right now. I mean, I could guess.
Speaker 3:Came flying off the roof and I was like, oh man, that's awesome, just attack me. I was like that's awesome.
Speaker 4:That's a unique video.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wish he had his GoPro on for that one that would have been good.
Speaker 5:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 3:Fun stuff.
Speaker 5:What else you got? I know you got something else funny.
Speaker 7:You told some stories there the garage door story with the paramedic.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 6:That's hilarious. I've not heard this At one time. Now Louisville has closed this house down, but it was the oldest active fire house in the country and I want to say it was built in 1872. Oh, wow, and I actually spent about nine years total at that house. But it's kind of hard to picture the overhead doors where we would come in and out of. They would take and they would make a little small entry door in those. Those doors were metal and it had a little key key code. You just punch them in. So when you need to get in you'd punch that in and you'd open this little door up and you would step over about a six-inch section where this little square was cut out, almost like a little doggy door for people like yeah yeah, yep and um.
Speaker 6:So it was summertime and it was hot in this house, but I wanted to take a nap. Take me a little nap on the couch there, good, yeah, yeah, come on now. I knew I'd be running all night long, wouldn't get much sleep, so I opened that door, probably about six inches, because the neighborhood's a little rough. I didn't want somebody just to wander in. You could open the door up and hit the stop button, but there's an electronic eye that goes across them also in case the truck is going out and they're coming down, and it immediately takes it back up. So that overhead door is sitting about six inches off the ground and I'm asleep and the ambulance pulls up out front and the ems girl. She gets off the ambulance, punches that coat in, steps over into the firehouse and trips that eye. Now she's got one leg in and one leg out and that door takes off and goes up and catches her and now she's riding this door up and luckily, because that little entry door was swung inward, it jammed at the top and the motor's sitting there running trying to go all the way up and at the time I didn't even realize how dangerous it was.
Speaker 6:I hear her yelling out there and I get up and walked out there and I looked up there at her and I said what are you doing to my door? I said You're going to break it and I've got to write this up. She started yelling at me you better get me down, you, mother, I'm going to kill you. I'm looking up at her like, oh God, this is bad. I go over and I'm trying to hit the down button but it won't come down because I'm tripping that eye and again I'm tripping the eye. Pretty soon the other guys come out and she's losing her mind, screaming and yelling at us and all of a sudden the knockout goes off. We're making a run and I said, hey, we got to go Now. She's really mad, you better not go so real quick. I called and said we're out of service. We got her down. I think she smacked me in the head. Maybe she was ready to beat everybody up and you know we're all like, oh my God, this could have been really bad.
Speaker 5:You were just, you were right in the middle of a three-hour nap when that happened. Yeah, three hours.
Speaker 2:Maybe you had a half-dream right there, so you weren't really.
Speaker 7:He's getting naked REM sleep, oh man.
Speaker 4:Of course he is a sweeper man that crew, those two girls.
Speaker 6:They were so much fun because they were more ornery and prank playing than we were. My sergeant one day he's standing there and that one. I think they were watching the rocky movie where he eats the raw eggs and he goes oh I can do that, she goes. I'll bet you won't. I'll give you five dollars if you do so. He cracks an egg and swallows it and she's like I can't believe you did that and he goes.
Speaker 6:You want to make your money back and she's like yeah he goes um, I'll bet you can't swallow a spoonful of cinnamon. Oh my gosh and I. I had no idea. I'd never heard that prank. But she takes a spoonful of cinnamon and I look over at her and, like a dragon, she's puffing it out of her nose and she can't breathe.
Speaker 6:CPR, oh my gosh, and he's laughing so hard. She can't get water down, she can't. And as a captain you always look and say, yeah, this is bad. I've got to manage these kids playing pranks on each other and she was finally able to breathe. But I think he took a bit of a whooping. But they're the ones that got me drinking coffee. I was 45 at the time and my in-laws in. They would take in missionaries who would come back to the country and they took in some from Columbia and they brought a big bag of coffee. I didn't drink coffee, Nobody did, so I took in the firehouse. I'm upstairs in bed. It's about 1 in the morning and all of a sudden that bedroom door flies open. The two EMS girls run in there. Get up, Get up, Get up. You've got to try this. You've got to try this.
Speaker 3:That Colombian coffee must have been pretty powerful. Yeah, Go following them downstairs and they would shove a cup Like meth.
Speaker 7:Yeah, it was the weirdest coffee they'd ever seen you grind it up and it's white.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's cocaine.
Speaker 6:Yeah, Buddy they shoved a cup of coffee under my nose at like 1 in the morning.
Speaker 1:They said drink this, drink this. And I'm like.
Speaker 3:I don't like coffee.
Speaker 6:They said we're not asking you, we're telling you drink it, drink it. And I drank that coffee and I know when I got off that morning I went and did like a six-mile run through the park and it may be the fastest I've ever run. I think I did that six miles in like five and a half minute miles. I was flying and from then on I've been a coffee junkie. There you go, but it's got to come from really bad coffee Forrest.
Speaker 4:you've been on some big runs, right, I have Like what.
Speaker 6:The GE Fire, I think he's talking about.
Speaker 1:Oh, those kind of runs, no, I'm talking about Fire Run.
Speaker 4:He's talking about Run and Run.
Speaker 6:I've done.
Speaker 3:He done Run Doll.
Speaker 6:I've done the Boston Marathon a couple times and I've done it's no coincidence his name is Forrest yeah.
Speaker 4:Run, forrest run. How much you got that?
Speaker 6:lot. Oh yeah yeah, I finished five Ironmans and about over 20 half Ironmans. They have a big one at Louisville, don't they?
Speaker 5:they do? They had an.
Speaker 6:Ironman at one time. That happened in October. They lost it and they brought back last year a half Ironman to kind of take it's place so four Ironmans, where have you been with them? Chattanooga, louisville, chattanooga, louisville, oh, north Carolina and Florida.
Speaker 2:Didn't you do one in San Diego?
Speaker 6:I did a fireman there on Coronado Island. I've heard it's the only time they let people in on the Navy SEAL base where they train. They had one there Did you run the beach there?
Speaker 5:Yes, that's beautiful right there with the hotel. I was stationed at San Diego, so we go there every now and then, yeah, what is that hotel? The Hotel Del, the Hotel Del Mar? Okay, the big white one.
Speaker 3:Yes, victorian looking.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful, it's right there and the Navy SEALs will run that right in front of them. Right, because you can sit out there and watch them train.
Speaker 6:Yeah, we went in the beach to swim, right where they go in, that's cold water. Yeah, it is. It don't matter what time of year, the Pacific Ocean is frigid.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Wow, and you've got to contend with the great whites out there. It's awful. They didn't tell you that, though, did you?
Speaker 6:He went to school in Los Angeles. He decided to go out there and I moved here from California. When I got out of high school, I decided I wanted to go see it for a summer and I ended up staying five years, Wow. And then I moved back here and then he went to school. Where'd you go to school?
Speaker 2:then Biola University, b-i-o-l-a Bible Institute of Los Angeles.
Speaker 7:Okay, I think there's a song B-I-O-L-A.
Speaker 2:Go Eagles. D2 baby. We were in LA Pretty big deal.
Speaker 4:Then you came, left there and came to.
Speaker 2:Came back to God's country. Yes, sir.
Speaker 6:Tell them what you. What you told me one thing you learned because you were homesick. Oh I learned.
Speaker 2:Everybody out there thought I was the biggest redneck ever out there. They're like man, you say things funny and I'm like you've got no idea.
Speaker 3:I was like you've got no idea.
Speaker 2:I'm a city suburbs guy.
Speaker 6:Well, colton's an old soul and he told me one time he said you know, dad, me and you are alike. He said you don't live in the moment. He said I was in Southern California. I had the beach, I had the mountain and all I could think about was I want to be back home in Kentucky and I did not live in the moment and enjoy it.
Speaker 2:He said you need to live in the moment.
Speaker 6:He's wise beyond his years, live in the moment. I think we all have a little bit of that.
Speaker 7:The grass is always greener. Oh yeah, what city is?
Speaker 2:that college, La Mirada. So it's in LA County but it's La Mirada California.
Speaker 3:Is that up north a little bit?
Speaker 6:No, it's right on the line.
Speaker 3:It's really close to Fullerton.
Speaker 2:It's like 45 minutes inland from like Beach Boulevard.
Speaker 5:So I'll tell a story about. I was coming home and the cheapest airport you know, san Diego airport was expensive to fly out of and you usually had a long, weird layover. It was weird. It was a smaller airport compared to LAX, so I decided to go up to fly out of LAX for $100 cheaper. I was not thinking about the gas money and stuff. So I got my buddy to drive my vehicle up there, flew home, came back to LAX, they came and picked me up and we're coming down to 405 and we need gas and we get off on Crenshaw half a day. Oh, there's only one way back on and it was like legit, here here we are boys, I mean boys in the hoods.
Speaker 3:They were like how do we get back?
Speaker 4:on this interstate.
Speaker 3:They were like go.
Speaker 5:They were quite different. It was all opening. It was just. It was everything you thought of.
Speaker 1:I mean, I watched the movie.
Speaker 5:I was like we're here, it was just different.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was different.
Speaker 5:It was in the wrong, you know just wrong exit. We didn't know we just needed gas. And in the wrong. You know this is the wrong exit. We didn't know we just needed gas. And it did not come back onto the interstate it was. You had to go all the way down and then back.
Speaker 4:so so you had to go through that we went through it we went.
Speaker 5:We made a couple blocks down before we got back where we needed. But I thought this is it?
Speaker 2:it was different. Biggest thing I missed was grass how green it is here and like every time I came back I was going out in deer stand with dad, like right away, didn't matter how cold it was, I mean, the deer stand was frozen. Yeah yeah, january, it was like the last day we could hunt. That's three or four inches of snow, oh yeah that's let's go.
Speaker 6:Yeah, that's one of the things that I missed when I get outside, because where?
Speaker 5:you were at, you can be in what you could be a big bear in like four hours or so yeah, so we went to big bear one morning and snowboarded, and then we were on the beach I mean, there's definitely great things about it, like if I could afford to live there yeah, I mean
Speaker 1:it'd be great to live there but like everyone's, like oh man you come.
Speaker 2:You know, you went out there and where are you coming back? Why are you coming back here?
Speaker 1:I'm like well for one, I'd be homeless if I lived out there.
Speaker 2:And they're like why are you coming back here? I'm like well for one.
Speaker 1:I'd be homeless if I lived out there. Yeah, absolutely. I was like I can afford to live here. It's a great life here.
Speaker 2:It's like don't get it twisted, this place is awesome and everybody comes back to Louisville. Nobody asks what college you went to. They ask you what high school you went to.
Speaker 6:Everybody comes back. Did you go?
Speaker 5:to Trinity or St X. It's true. Yeah, it's different, california's different. I could be at the beach, on base there at Camp Hamilton, and we could go out, hit the 15 up to San Bernardino, go up the mountain and be up there At Big Bear. Yeah, snowboarding, that was awesome, awesome. Or trying to snowboard great fish.
Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah, that was one thing I missed. And I was living in a condo and they had a pond. And I'm walking around first day on there and I see all these huge bass in this pond in the center of the condo complex. So I shot to. I guess it was maybe a walmart, bought me an ugly stick and some plastic worms. Man, I'm out there, people are yep, people were up against the fence at the pool looking at me. I'm pulling bass out like crazy and here comes a condo manager Excuse me, there's no fishing here and I looked over and I got a big bass.
Speaker 1:I said oh yeah, there is. I said, look at these.
Speaker 6:Look at them in there, she goes you're not allowed to fish here. I said there's no way you can't put bass in your largemouth bass like this and think nobody's going to fish. She goes I don't know what they are, but there's no fishing like this and think nobody's going to fish. She goes I don't know what they are, but there's no fishing. I said you don't have a sign up? She goes well, it should just be known. Do you even live here?
Speaker 1:I said yeah, I live here.
Speaker 6:And she said where are you from? I said Soddy Daisy, tennessee. She goes, you can't fish here. I'll call the police on you. I was like.
Speaker 7:I looked at her and said I'll be back tonight and smiled at her. I mean it's not posted, we're not in the Saudi.
Speaker 5:Arabia anymore, my wife she's a Navy brat so she'd been everywhere in the world In California from San Francisco to San Diego, virginia Beach. She was born in Virginia Beach but moved back here when she was like 13 and developed quite the different twang you know, had a little of everything. She's a hodgepodge of different accents, but when we moved back to San Diego, when we got married, she went out there with me from our last year. It was great. I mean, there is nothing like authentic Baja Mexican food.
Speaker 5:Oh yeah, nobody knows, fish, tacos and stuff Lobster burritos oh yeah, but we were. She went into some store looking there was a help wanting and they were like they hired her on the spot because of her accent. No kidding, you store looking there was a help want and they were like they hired her on the spot because of her accent. No kidding, like you're probably not the most qualified, but we know you can sell wedding dresses because people are gonna be like where are you from? It's true, it was awesome. They were like if you went out in town, you're in the marines, because you're obviously not from here the way you talk.
Speaker 5:So, it was a unique experience that we had out there. Now, fire-wise, out there there was some major, you know brush fire. Just fires came in and I remember watching it. We went to on base, we went out to this area and this thing, this fire was coming at us. There was a big tarmac where we was at and there was a maintenance shop. Nobody was getting panicky and I was like that's big guys.
Speaker 5:I was like that's not a big fire. And it came right up to the tarmac and it was over. They were like that's a big fire.
Speaker 3:It was putting up to the tarmac and it was over. They were like that's a big fire over there. It just went up in the mountain.
Speaker 5:I was like wow, but you know how it is the rainy season's in June and then it has all summer and winter to dry in the fall, and that's why what happened out in LA and some of these other places my first year there, it never rained once.
Speaker 6:Not one time did it rain that first year.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's desert. The June gloom out down in San Diego It'd be cold in June. We're watching baseball games with sweatshirts on Watching Padres games and then it'd be hot inland, but it was never really Well, they don't inland, but it was never, never, really.
Speaker 6:Well, they don't have air conditioners there. No, for the most part along the beach, that's uh got a natural. What was that guy? Uh, they call him the night stalker. He was, yes, and he was getting in people's windows because it was a little bit hot and they were leaving their windows open because they didn't have air conditioners. And he was one street over from where I lived, on one person.
Speaker 3:Really oh yeah.
Speaker 6:That's scary. California's it's different.
Speaker 5:Some of the best people.
Speaker 2:They got a little thing, a little bit of everything out there.
Speaker 6:Oh, I worked in the factories there and I was like the only white boy there, yeah, and it was all Mexicans. A lot of them did not speak English, but when they found out I was from Tennessee, they called me Tennessee Tuxedo because they knew the cartoon.
Speaker 3:Tennessee, tuxedo and they knew Elvis.
Speaker 6:So yeah, sometimes I'd make a guitar out of a piece of cardboard or something and I'd do my Elvis thing and they loved it but, they'd invite me home to have dinner with them and their families, big families and they were the best. Oh, I had to go to the doctor because I started getting an ulcer because the food truck they call it a roach coach.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's what we called them out there.
Speaker 6:Yeah, they'd come in there with them breakfast burritos. Oh my gosh, I got that. I got that, yeah, with the peppers, and I'd sit there and sweat and wipe the sweat off until finally I had to go to the doctor. I told them my stomach's upset and they're like you're not from here, you can't be eating the peppers and stuff with the Mexicans. Dude, the doctor's like you gotta start drinking milk. Then you can eat the burrito, I guess, but no more maybe my favorite food.
Speaker 5:You go to them taco stands. They have like Arriba's, and all these little taco stands. You know what I'm talking about. Get those giant carne asada burritos, hot peppers and carrots.
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, mochada, Big bag of churros, oh my gosh. And you could go down to Tijuana then, when I was there, I could too.
Speaker 5:I don't know if it's safe, I wouldn't go now. I was down there one time and we were coming across and we was trying to get all these Marines back across. We came down there and my buddy he just stops right in the middle of the strip. You know how the strip kind of goes that way, then back that way towards the border.
Speaker 6:Yes.
Speaker 5:And there are all their cylinder chiclets and stuff like that, and my buddy just decides he had to pee and decides to pee right in the middle of the strip. Well, a federali, a female federali sees him comes over there and is, like you coming with us, and we were like, yeah, no, no, no, please, no, no, and um, I bribed her with five dollars. We got out of there, though it was, uh, I like we can't take you to Tijuana. No, put a diaper on if you can't hold it right.
Speaker 5:So yeah, I had brought a police officer before.
Speaker 3:It just wasn't Mexico, it don't matter.
Speaker 5:Does it even count there and on my polygraph? I was worried about that, so I just admitted to him.
Speaker 1:I said I have paid off a police officer before.
Speaker 5:Because I was so scared I was going to fail that Whenever you ever committed a crime and stuff like that you don't ask that stuff.
Speaker 4:Well, really it wasn't a crime.
Speaker 5:No, it was Mexico. But I was like I did bribe a police officer in Mexico one time.
Speaker 7:They looked at me like what is wrong with you? I?
Speaker 5:was like I was so scared I fell on a polygraph International, International criminal here.
Speaker 6:Interpol is here for you. We had to do a polygraph at Louisville. Yeah, I was such a nervous wreck that it showed I was even lying about my name, where I lived and I remember that I guess he was a retired cop. He threw his pencil at me and he said just get out, it's good enough for government work. He said I can't even tell if you know what your real name is anymore.
Speaker 7:You got to calm down, sir oh yeah, it's a fun time. I know when I went through mine they ask you if you ever smoked marijuana or had anything. Well, I know when I went through mine, they ask you if you ever smoked marijuana or had anything. I'd never been around it as a kid so I'd never smoked it, never tried it, still haven't. We spent an hour on that question because he did not believe me. He's like I don't care what it says, I don't believe you, you grow it, don't you Really?
Speaker 3:You're from eastern Kentucky, I know you.
Speaker 7:Have you grown it?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a different question. We're not there yet.
Speaker 4:I freaked out on that question, though it was pretty bad that's like one of the guys at the PD said when he went through his polygraph he's one of the upper ranks. Now they said they asked him about if he'd smoke marijuana. He said yeah. He said well, how much? He said I don't know. A little bit here and there my guy went how much marijuana have you smoked? He said what about 15 pounds? Oh gosh, there's something in that name. He said what about 15 pounds? Oh gosh, there's something in that name. He said that much you want me to tell you. So there it is.
Speaker 6:I mean that could be over a 10-year period or something Smoked a truckload, I don't know.
Speaker 4:That's funny. I said you didn't tell them that. He said oh yeah, I told them that he said you didn't tell them that.
Speaker 6:He said oh yeah, I told them that. He said they weren't going to quit until I told them something I probably would have lessened it.
Speaker 5:I smoked probably three pounds in my lifetime. Well, we've sidetracked, I guess we could call it now, unless you've got something fun else?
Speaker 6:No, not really. I would say that people used to ask me what I liked about being a fireman and I rode my bike and ran and swam so much that I would always tell them all my free time. But you know, then when my boys came along, it switched. I didn't hesitate. I said all the free time I have to do stuff with my kids. I I got to spend the time with my kids. Now I'm away from them 24 hours, but then I was there. I could do carpool a lot of the time and that was it.
Speaker 6:And I've got two really good sons. I'd like to think some of it was pouring myself into them, but I always tell people don't take too much credit when they turn out great and don't take too much blame. But I'm very proud of my son both of my boys. But Colton followed me in my footsteps. I'm glad I did not do anything bad and I always say don't bring shame on the fire department. It's bigger than you and it's probably the same way with policemen. Don't bring shame on the place you work and I seem to have a pretty good reputation. Colton always says that and I always get feedback from people about how good he is Awesome.
Speaker 7:Yeah, we try not to bring shame on our department. I can't say that they sometimes have a way of doing it themselves.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we can all say we were proud to do what we did. Yes. I mean it's an honorable profession it is, and you make it what it is and some people make it good and there's a small handful, a very small percentage, that makes it bad.
Speaker 5:That's what it is.
Speaker 4:That's in every profession
Speaker 5:but it seems like when you're doing first responding careers, it seems like the spotlight gets put on you when you're bad.
Speaker 7:You're held to a higher standard, yeah and that's fine.
Speaker 5:We, we didn't do this for the money, no, no. So I think our hearts were all right, you know when we, when we, did our job. So that's a it's.
Speaker 5:I appreciate what you're still doing and you, I mean somebody's got to be out there on the front lines and we're sure glad to meet you and have you on the podcast today. It's going to be a hopefully now. Here's the idea when we come up there to your house one day and talk to some of these old cats too, I'd love just at your oh, not your house.
Speaker 3:You know I don't want to go to anchor jelaska.
Speaker 7:Well, you can ask. You can ask for permission in anchor jelaska and see if they're okay with it
Speaker 5:and then we might make a visit, but yeah I think your, your department, might be a little bit more flexible.
Speaker 6:My house is very young, the guys are young, Where's the old chief and them around?
Speaker 5:They might sit around with us.
Speaker 6:They might, and actually they used to do a podcast. Not too long ago we just hired a public information officer that retired from Louisville. He just started the other day.
Speaker 2:I was going to say you can get a bunch of retired guys. Oh yeah.
Speaker 7:That's where your stories are.
Speaker 6:I had a roommate for for nine years and he was in the West End. He retired after I did and he actually I don't know if y'all told it, but I married Doug's sister last summer and my roommate got his minister's license so he could marry us.
Speaker 7:That's awesome.
Speaker 6:And his name's Harold Boy. He's a funny guy. He's got a lot of story.
Speaker 1:He is, yeah, he's hilarious and he, I'm for it.
Speaker 6:I've said something to him about we need to come down here and do this, but he's, he just got the last of his stuff out. He's yeah, he's told, he's told my wife. You know, you really ruined a good thing. We never had a single argument the whole time. She's a homewrecker. Yeah, she just was Doug's sister. My wife, she's tough, she gives it right back to him when she don't back down.
Speaker 2:Harold's house was like apparently a rumor. I wasn't around for it, but if you got detailed to that particular firehouse down there and the other fellows were there, you were terrified, like they were terrified, to get detailed down there, sent down there, detailed, like you get sent from your firehouse down there to fill a spot and they said they did all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 2:You'd be trying to cook and you'd have your recipe, and you're trying to cook a good meal and all of a sudden one of them will come up, crumple it up and just eat it.
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, you're flying blind halfway through. Yeah, we had a guy that loved Lucky Charms and Harold loved Lucky Charms marshmallows. So we get up for shift change and that guy's coming on duty, but he's not there yet. He had one of them. Great big, giant lucky charms boxes up on top of the refrigerator, yeah, yeah, and I walked in there to get me a coffee and harold's sitting there with a big bowl picking marshmallows and he's just sitting there not saying anything and I'm drinking my coffee watching him. I'm not sure what's going on. Finally he takes and he dumps the cereal back into the box and sticks it back up there and he ate every one of those marshmallows out of that big thing.
Speaker 6:That guy come in there and got a big bowl, dumped his cereal in the bowl, poured milk all over it, sat down and took about two bites and he's looking in it and he jumps up and he throws the bowl of milk, everything in the garbage and walks out of the room. And Harold's just sitting there, kind of chuckling, that's awesome.
Speaker 5:Well, you see how our podcast is set up here, so we want, let's do it. We can travel easily.
Speaker 7:Yeah, yeah, that's what we want to do. We want to keep these guys relevant too.
Speaker 5:These old cats Retired guys Retired, guys like us, me and him.
Speaker 6:Yeah, Harold is he's funny. I actually asked Harold to marry me once.
Speaker 4:What do you mean, huh? What do you mean by that, chuck and Larry?
Speaker 6:Just when I said I had something to marry. So Harold has a safety business. He's in all the Ford plants. I mean he's really done well. I know in the Louisville area he hires about 60, some firemen to work in these different places. Jim Beam Wow, but just a great guy. We went the wrong route.
Speaker 2:We got the run of the litter over here.
Speaker 6:There was a lady here in Kentucky that refused to issue a marriage license to two men. He would always talk about how he has to file his tax as a single. And we're sitting there on the couch watching this news story and I looked over at him and I said we want to check him out?
Speaker 6:Yeah, I said hey, man want to get married. I said I don't care if you cheat on me, I'm going to cheat on you. I said we'll file our taxes as a married couple. And he's sitting there and he's not saying anything and I can see the wheels are turning.
Speaker 6:He's really contemplating this yeah and finally he gets up because I have a walkout basement and he's got the whole basement finished basement. It's a pretty nice setup. He gets up and goes downstairs and I'm just sitting there on the couch and I'm like I think I just got turned down, I'm opposed and he turned me down. So I don't know, three or four years later, when I married his sister, doug's sister, he's kind of grumbling about how, you know, we never had a problem. We never. You know, you wash dishes, I wash dishes, I fold your laundry. I said you do remember that I asked you to marry me. He just shut right up, didn't say anything, and I'm like it wasn't so much.
Speaker 7:you had your chance, buddy it wasn't so much the wedding he had a problem with.
Speaker 3:It was the consummation yeah.
Speaker 5:It happens Sometimes you get dumped or don't know who's lost. All right, well, it's been a blast, oh my gosh, this is fun.
Speaker 7:We'll definitely do it again sometime next time y'all are down and next time.
Speaker 5:I think we need to get up. We need to get Harold, because I like road trip.
Speaker 7:I'm all for it. I'll have a lot more time off now too.
Speaker 6:I loaded up about four bottles of Pappy that he had down in the basement he said hey, bring it, pappy, over to me, will you? I'm like it's a couple of bottles that are missing, buddy it's like that barrel that went missing around here.
Speaker 7:Yeah, oh I remember that well thank you, alright, guys thank you, we'll catch everybody on the next one thanks guys.