This internship has been really fun and I don't want to leave. This internship had taught me so much about the world of fire fighting, and what it takes do be a fire fighter. But most importantly I have been taught and lectured about the fire field and how I should approach it using a college path. Most of these guys that are younger have not gone to college and they just went into the fire academy, and got their paramedic and EMT license. Almost all of them told me not to do that, the reason is because they don't a a degree in anything. You can't do anything else if you don't have a degree, so lets say you get hurt and you can no longer be a firefighter, you would have no where to go, and that would be a big problem. So all of them told me to get my degree first and focus on your life go out and have fun, the reason they told me that was because once your a fire fighter, you have to settle into being a fire fighter and nothing else "this job is like am anchor" one of them said. So basically yes this internship gave me a very good in site on what I would want to do after high school and past college. Yes I still want to be a fire fighter, and i'm definitely going to go to college and have fun and explore and really get to know who I am before I settle into the fire field. I first plan on going to a community college and getting my AA degree in fire science, and at the same time attend a 4 year university and get my bachelors degree in either criminal justice or public safety. Then I want to go out into the world and go explore it and who I truly am. Then when Im done having fun around the world and experiencing new things, Im going too get my EMT and paramedics license, then apply to work as a paramedic on the ambulance with the Escondido Fire Department. Once I have done that I will finally join the fire academy and become a fire fighter paramedic. Then I will slowly work my way up the "ladder" and retire as a Fire Capitan, or a Battalion Chief.
Link to my Final product (last page of my presentation) docs.google.com/presentation/d/1RsWRzje70oK3eURv9YaykRqutY0DKrcxXutoZwgmA_Q/edit?usp=sharing The reason why this project is is important is because, it shows that Fire station #1 the type of calls, when they receive the calls, average age of patient, comparison between male and female call rate, etc. They would like to know this stuff because they were trying to figure out the call ratio in different settings (the type of call and why the person called). The process that I went through to get all of this information was hard at times. The reason that It would be hard to get the data was because sometimes it was hard to understand dispatch and some of the codes that they were saying. Sometimes they can and will talk super fast over the radio which makes it harder for me to understand them. But once I was done listening to the call, I would write it down in my note book in a certain format. (picture below).
This is a picture of the back of the fire station. Now normal fire stations are a lot smaller than this one, this is the biggest fire station in Escondido where fire men do a lot of training. The building in the back is the training tower where they set up different drills and actually use live fire. There are also two 200 pound training dummies in the tower that they would use in some drills. The building in the front is where the fire engine, truck, ambulance, BC car, and brush rig get gas from. In this building there is also a air tank fill station, where fire fighters go to fill up their air tanks after fires or training sessions. These 4 pictures were taken on a training day, where fire fighters got all suited up and did a "fire fighter down" drill. What is cool about this was that different stations from different city's all came in and did the same drill. In this drill I was sitting in E131 (Engine 131). In the top 2 pictures they are gearing up and attaching hoes's to do a frontal "offense" attack on the fire. The bottom left picture is fire men carrying the downed fire fighter out of the building. The bottom right picture is inside of E131 where I sit on the Engine and where the engineer keeps his gear. In these images above, one of the probationary firefighters is practicing patient evacuation with repelling. In the top left they are hooking up all of the ropes to the back of the fire truck, using the fire truck as an anchor. The top middle picture is the ladder extending out over the patient (this ladder can extend to 100ft at 70 degrees and hold 5,000 pounds). On the top right there is a picture of the probationary fire fighter hooking up the 200 pound dummy to a harness to carry it out. On the bottom left the probationary fire fighter it being lifted up by the ladder with the dummy in his arms. The bottom middle picture the fire fighter is going down to pick up the dummy for extraction. The bottom right picture is the fire truck engineer and I going up on the ladder to get into a position where we are over the dummy. In the pictures above are all of the vehicles that the station has, all of them have really important roles. On the top left is an image of T131 (the fire truck), the truck is only used for bigger fires, car accidents, rescues etc. But the truck dose not have any water or hoes in it. It is basically a huge tool box with a huge ladder (100ft long). The picture in the top middle is the fire engine (E131), (which I am in), the engine goes on medical aids, fires, brush fires, lift assists, etc. The fire engine has all of the hoes's holds water and fire foam, and it is also has a water pump that pumps water from fire hydrants. The top left picture is (RT131) the reserve fire truck, this truck is only used when the main fire truck is being fixed, but it has all of the same tools that the main fire truck has. On the bottom left picture is the brush rig, this truck goes on brush fire calls . When there is a brush fire all of the firemen that are on the fire truck will go in this truck because the fire truck dose not go on brush fire calls. The bottom middle picture, is a picture of the Battalion chief's car (B131), Their is only one Battalion chief in all of Escondido (but there is one per shift, there are 3 shifts), because I am at the biggest station in Escondido the Battalion chief is stationed here. The Battalion chief goes on major freeway accidents, all fires (except small ones), huge brush fires, building collapses, and every big event that there is. On the bottom left is the fire ambulance, they would go to ALL medical aids, transports, and fires.
The way that I have made meaningful contributions to my workplace is that, I have helped with the everyday chores such as; dishes, cleaning up trash, and helping them make meals. I have also helped with calls that we get, on those calls I would usually help with anything that they need, such as carrying medical equipment, moving things such as tables and furniture out of the way so that they can get the patient out safely. Another thing that I would help with is lift assists (which is lifting patients that have fallen and cant get back up).
My work here as an intern has been very meaningful to my world beyond school because all of my co-workers have been giving me a little bit of insight on certain paths I should take and, as well as how I should take those paths and be successful. I have been giving a lot of thought to the different paths that have been exposed to me, and I feel very confident in my path choice now, mainly because of my internship. Some of the appertains that I have developed while working as an intern is that these firemen have to be ready to save life's and snap into that mode that they need to be in to save life's and make a difference , even at 2am. They work to their limits, and when they reach their limit they keep going and pushing through until their job is done. Another appreciation that I have is that they have to know so much about everything, such as what tool is used for what, and how to use certain medical equipment at the right time and moment, and they have to be very quick to judge what they need to use. That Is a lot of work, in the beginning I didn't know that every single person had to know all about every single piece of equipment, I thought different people were in charge of different things. Internship definitely did influence where i'm going to go in my life, I had originally wanted to be a firefighter, and now I want to be one right now, my respect for this job has greatly increased and I can not wait to graduate college and start in this field of work. Everyone has given me ideas on what to do to make my transition into this field easier and I am super grateful for that. I found that super helpful and i'm very glad that I had the experience of working here. I have definitely self-advocated for my self this week because in this field there is a lot of things that you have to learn about the field of fire fighting. For example when I didn't know where something was, what I should do on certain calls/ around the station, and things that I could do to help in general, etc. I have also seen many instances of self-advocacy from my co-workers, for example one of the firefighters in training didn't know what a certain tool was used for, so he asked his fellow firemen. In my opinion and my mentors, I am starting to become the "intern everyone remembers" because I have all ways been asking if anyone needs help with anything or if they need another hand on a call, as well as walking around with a positive attitude and a smile on my face, and also making sure that I am very humble and being respective when I talk to others and my co-workers, and making sure that I say Hi to everyone and asking how they are doing. So in my opinion it is working out very well and I have a feeling it will progressively get better as the internship moves on.
For my project I plan on taking some data for all the calls that we would go on for E131 (engine 131). The things that will be on that data sheet is; the information on the time we received the call, date, type of call, male or female, age, and how long we were on scene for. In order for this project to be awesome i'm going to have to listen very carefully to the call to get all of the information that I would need to fill out the chart that I have made. I think that I would sometimes need help just in case I don't understand some of the codes (which stands for the type of calls that we get), or if I didn't quite catch what the dispatch said over the speaker. The person that I would ask if I don't quite get the information would either be the captain, engineer, or the probationary fire fighter. But what the nice thing is, is that when we are in route to the calls we all have headsets on so that we can communicate with each other, so then I can just ask the question on the head set and everyone will hear and reply. Over all I am super exited to see what my final product will be when the internship is over because I would get to see what percentage of calls are what, such as medical, crashes, fires, lift assists, etc. As well as if either females or males call more, and the age range of people who need assistance.
Interview:
I chose to work here because its closer to my house and it is a very fun department/ environment, and all of the guys are nice and fun to be with. A typical work day is to show up before the start of the next shift (with is 8:00am) and making sure you load up all your fire gear and anything else that you might need for the day, as well as do an inventory check of the fire engine to make sure all of the proper tools are there. Then the rest of the day is just running calls and doing chores when needed. It is very important to get along with everyone because this job requires you too be humble and respectful to your co-workers and the people that you are treating out on call. What I personally recommend in order to be successful in this career is to get a bachelors degree, and to be very humble and respectful as well as just being open to critique because no one is perfect and everyone can improve. Journal: One question that I have about my internship is that how do these guys stay awake because they run calls all day and through the night!? They only way I can connect this with school is that you need to be a good communicator and our school helps us with that. There has been a lot of interesting things that have happened during my internship so far but I am not allowed to talk about them due to patient confidentiality. There mission is to protect and serve the community, and put the community first. I am starting to get the flow of the things that I need to do help out the fire fighters, like on calls and at the station. I drive myself to my internship and the commute is very easy because I live 10 min away from the fire station. The one thing that strikes me about this work place is that on matter what rank you are, everyone gets along with everyone; It's kind of like a brotherhood. What strikes me about my colleagues is that they are all very friendly and goofy (in a good way) as well as understanding and supportive. What somewhat strikes me the most about what i'm doing, is that I end up doing a lot of medical calls (which I kind of expected) but didn't think that there will be that many of them. The parts that I am most exited about is, learning more about the fire truck, fire engine, what certain tools are used for, as well as learning and seeing the many ways that fire fighters handle different situations; such as high stress situations, and what they do to manage the crowd or the person/ place they are responding to. As of right now I have no worries about anything for my internship, but something that would make me a little anxious is if there are no calls and i'm not getting exposed to the type of calls and drills that they do.
The place that I am going to interning at is the Escondido Fire Department at Station Number 1
The typical work day is filling reports, checking inventory of the fire rigs, cleaning the station and responding to calls when they get them. If your late you will get payment markdowns and a red flag will go on your file.The dress code varies; Class A uniform is for promotions/ graduations, Class B is for meetings/ special events, Class C is for going on calls/ normal uniform. The fire suit is used for fires and road accidents. My experience today was very fun and I learned a lot through out the day. I went on calls, cleaned/ organized the rig (fire truck). This professional world will be very busy as-well as being very productive. My favorite call was when I went into a kitten fire and help put it out. My first overall impressions were very good, they were all super nice, goofy, and really serious when they are on the call. In this work place they do expect you too be and act professional and give the fire fighters a good reputation in the community. Some skills that you will have to have it to be able to adapt to a certain scenario very quickly and to be able to react quickly. So for the fire call that we got, I was super exited rushing out of the station going towards the house with the kitchen that was on fire. When we got there there was a lot of smoke outside and they told me to put on my fire gear, as I was doing that the other fire fighters were going into the fire. Then I went in the fire and used the fire fan which blew out the smoke so that the fire fighters can see better. So for the second call we responded to an old lady with a reported head injury. But the thing is, is that she is very addicted to pain medications and she fake called us. But her apartment looked like a very sloppy house with old food and cat poop all over the place (it was harder to breath in there then the fire). And then we had our 3rd call (which is the last interesting call) so this guy was so drunk because of depression (being homeless) and stepped out of the bus and face planted on the curb, cracked his head open and was knocked out for 5-7 min long. So we will see what happens when internship starts!! |
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