It’s Thanksgiving afternoon, and you’ve just sat down to a mouth-wateringly delicious meal. You’ve taken a few minutes to express thanks over a plate piled high with turkey, pie, and all the traditional holiday fixin’s.
You’re raising a forkful of steaming mashed potatoes to your lips when … the fire alarm goes off. But instead of sniffing the air for smoke or going to check the smoke detector battery, you pull on a helmet and start running toward a waiting truck. Your dinner will have to wait.
“It’s something that happens all the time: As soon as you put your plate on the table and go to put something in your mouth, you get a call,” Santa Maria Fire Department Cpt. Leonard Champion said.
Shaun Wathen, a firefighter with Five Cities Fire Authority and instructor at Allan Hancock College Fire Academy, has a strategy for handling these situations.
“You shovel as many quick bites into your mouth as you can and get going,” he explained.
Obviously, the holidays can be quite different for on-duty firefighters—and other public servants—than for the rest of the public. On the days when most people are home with their families eating a special meal and enjoying each other’s company, firefighters, police officers, nurses, and soldiers are busy keeping people safe and healthy.
This year, Wathen is scheduled to work Nov. 23 and 24 and Dec. 22 through 26.
“So I got both holidays, and I’ll be on again for New Year’s,” he said. “But I actually like working those days. There’s a real family atmosphere at the station. A lot of times we get together with other stations or crews, and our families will come, too.”
Champion said holiday traditions vary from crew to crew. At his station on West Cook Street, they’ll have “turkey or prime rib and all the side dishes—a big spread just like the one at home.”
Usually crews just focus on cooking a big meal, out of respect to members who don’t celebrate traditional Christian holidays.
“We understand that people come from a lot of different backgrounds. We don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, so it’s usually more scaled down,” Champion said.
“[The crew] really is like our family. Even though we’re not at home with our blood family, we all cook together like a family,” he said, adding that working over the holidays is just part of the profession. “Some guys, especially the ones with families, try to take off those days, but it’s never guaranteed.”
As one of the younger, single guys, Wathen said he doesn’t mind taking holiday shifts.
“I tell them, ‘Hey, you can go be with your family. I can work, it’s no big deal,’” he said, adding that his parents and extended family, who live out of the area, are very supportive of his career.
“Sometimes we’ll take the engine and cruise over to someone’s house just to say hi. It’s a 20-minute attraction for the whole neighborhood,” he said. “One Thanksgiving, my captain at the time was of Italian heritage, so we went over to his parents’ house. They had the traditional spread, turkey and everything else, but they also had this big ol’ bowl of spaghetti. Oh, man, it was good.”
But, of course, the crew always has to be ready to head out at a moment’s notice.
“Tragedies happen all the time. The holidays are a time when you’re supposed to be with your family and having a good time, but some people lose their homes [to fire] and there are deaths,” Champion said.
Wathen said the first CPR call he ever responded to was on Christmas Day. The man ended up passing away at home, surrounded by his family.
Both Wathen and Champion admitted those kinds of calls can take their toll, especially around the holidays, but they’re part of the job.
“Firefighters are very community oriented. It’s our job to serve people,” he said.
Even on a holiday.
Contact Managing Editor Amy Asman at aasman@gmail.com.
This article appears in Nov 23-30, 2011.