Being There on Someone Else's Worst Day

By Marcus Aronsson, Firefighter, Sweden

I have spent a lot of time thinking about what my job is really about.

The simple answer is that I am a firefighter. I put out fires, cut people out of cars, dive for people who have disappeared beneath the surface, and respond to all kinds of incidents where someone needs help.

But after many years in the job, I think there is another way to describe it.

I am allowed into people's lives when they are at their very worst.

When you see me, your house may be on fire. Someone you love may have gone into cardiac arrest. Your child may have disappeared beneath the water. You may be trapped in a car. Or you may be standing nearby, waiting while we work on someone who means everything to you.

For me, it is a call.

For you, it may be the day that divides your life into a before and an after.

The worst incident I have ever attended began as a completely ordinary shift.

That morning, I had slipped quietly out of bed at home to go to work. The children woke up and the house came to life. I put a film on so I could leave and the rest of the family could sleep for another hour or so.

At the fire station, an ordinary 24-hour shift was waiting. Training, breakfast, the day's jobs and cooking. A colleague and I were on cooking duty. For dessert, he had planned his speciality: tiramisu.

That evening, we were playing floorball, old against young.

We had barely started when the phone roared into life.

Road traffic collision.

A few moments later, the station alarm sounded and we ran for our fire kit. More information came through as we headed out.

The car is on fire.

One person is trapped inside.

People at the scene are trying to put it out.

We go.

On the way, we start planning. Breathing apparatus. Fire suppression. Cutting gear. Who will arrive first? What do we need to do the moment we get there?

Then the fire appliance goes quiet.

Everyone is focused.

Somewhere ahead of us, a person is trapped inside a burning car.

The first crew gets there before us. The fire is intense.

Soon, we can see the glow ourselves. A burning car is beside a large tree. Flames have climbed into the branches. Smoke hangs over the scene, and the orange light of the fire mixes with flashing blue lights in the autumn darkness.

I have rarely seen my colleagues get out of a fire appliance so quickly.

Firefighting is already under way. Several firefighters are working hose lines, and we try to knock the fire down and create a way to reach the person inside.

We try.

But quite soon, everything changes.

There is no life left to save.

The work continues, but the objective has changed.

Suddenly, one of the firefighters comes over to me.

"There are two in the back seat."

Two?

Then who was driving?

I go back to the car.

We look.

Slowly, the scale of the tragedy becomes clear.

There are three of them.

Three young people have died.

That morning, I had slipped out of the house while my own children were still at home.

Now I was standing in front of three young people who would never go home again.

But the work continues.

That is one of the difficult things to explain about this job. When the chance to save a life is gone, our responsibility does not end.

The fire still has to be extinguished. The scene has to be made safe. The police need to be able to do their work. The people who have died have to be cared for.

And they have to be treated with dignity.

Because there are not three bodies in that car.

There is someone's child.

Someone's sibling.

Someone's friend.

We could not give their families the one thing they truly wanted that night. We could not undo the crash, and we could not save the young people.

But we could do our work as professionally and respectfully as it was possible to do it.

It was difficult work. The car had been involved in a violent collision and had then burned fiercely. We used our tools to create space and worked together to care for the deceased.

They were very badly injured.

Nothing more than that needs to be described.

There are images from that evening that are still in my head. Images I will probably never forget.

But in that moment, there is no room to stop.

You do the next thing.

Then the next.

And the next.

When the work was finished, I told my firefighters that was enough.

Go and wash.

Get your kit off.

Put it in for cleaning.

We decontaminated our equipment and ourselves.

Then firefighters, ambulance crews and police officers gathered beside the three people who had died.

We stood together in the autumn darkness and observed a minute's silence.

After all the radio traffic, engines, pumps, tools and shouted instructions, everything became completely still.

Three young people had died.

Then the work continued.

The hoses had to go back. The breathing apparatus had to be cleaned. The lights had to be charged. The tools had to be checked and the fire appliance had to be refilled with water.

It had to be ready again.

Because someone else's worst day could begin five minutes later.

By the time we finally returned to the fire station, it was late, but the working day was not over. Fire kit had to go into the wash, breathing apparatus had to be cleaned, equipment had to be replenished and the appliance had to be made ready.

Wash. Refill. Recharge. Reset.

Eventually, we were done.

And there was the tiramisu, still waiting.

A few hours earlier, we had left the station to try to save someone from a burning car.

Now we knew that three young people would never go home again.

And yet we sat around the table and ate tiramisu.

It may sound strange, almost wrong.

But perhaps it was exactly what we needed.

We ate and talked about what had happened. Then we talked about completely different things.

For a while, the terrible was allowed to sit beside the completely ordinary.

That night, the images followed me to bed. They came back when I closed my eyes.

After a while, I decided not to lie there trying to solve something that could no longer be solved.

I fell asleep.

The next morning, I got up, hung up fire kit and put dirty clothing into the washing machine.

Then I took out a notepad and wrote down what needed to be handed over to the next watch.

Fire kit.

Breathing apparatus.

Hose.

Lights.

Hydraulic rescue tools.

After everything we had seen the night before, I sat there writing a list of hoses, lights and equipment.

Everyday life carries on.

Before the change of watch, those of us who had been there gathered together.

How had the night been?

How were we feeling?

Did anyone need to talk?

Then we handed over to the next watch and I went home.

But the incident came with me.

In the days afterwards, I thought a great deal about the young people and their families. About what we had seen and done, and whether there was anything we could have done differently.

Eventually, I came back to the same conclusion.

We had tried.

There was nothing more we could have done.

Several years have passed since then, and there have been many more calls.

I have gone beneath the surface to search for a person while others waited above. I have met people whose homes are burning, and people who are injured, frightened and in shock.

People who look at us with the hope that we will be able to do something.

Sometimes we can.

Sometimes we save a life.

Those are the best times.

Sometimes we arrive too late.

And perhaps, over the years, that is where I have come to understand my profession better.

Helping is bigger than saving.

Sometimes helping means putting out a fire or cutting someone free from a car.

Sometimes it means going down into dark water to search for someone who is missing.

Sometimes it means creating order in the middle of complete chaos, treating a person who has died with dignity, or meeting someone whose whole world has just collapsed.

And sometimes it simply means staying there.

Perhaps that is why I still feel such pride in this profession.

Not because of the blue lights, the big fires or the drama.

But because of the trust.

When something terrible happens, people let us into the most private and vulnerable moments of their lives.

They expect us to help.

Sometimes we can save a life.

Sometimes all we can do is make something terrible a little less terrible.

But we can always try to help.

Perhaps that is what this job is really about.

Being there on someone else's worst day.

When others have to get out, we go in.

And we stay, for those who could not get out.

Marcus Aronsson

Firefighter

Södra Älvsborg Fire & Rescue Service, Sweden