Schlem's Short Report: Siren Song

The lights flash red on the backs of street signs, shop windows, the wet asphalt, a hundred shiny surfaces. Trees, poles, fences are frozen in a moment, the strobing suspends our relative motion as we pass in the dark. The siren screams high, then drops low. My hand reaches down, turns the switch to "wail", as we roll up to an intersection.

"Clear right." Any cars approaching on the passenger side are stopped. My partner returns to the map book in his lap, searching for the right apartment complex.

"Clear right," I repeat. "Thank you." Still, I double-check with a quick glance to the right. Pedal down, and we take off through our green light.

The aid car is heavy, and ponderous on corners. My eyes are narrowed, I focus into the distance for vehicles, pedestrians, any hazards on the road. Hyper-alert, I enjoy the challenges of driving priority through traffic. It's not speed that will get us to our destination quickly, but rather the dialogue of lights, sirens and the response by other drivers on the road.

A car is trapped between the median and a barrier, unable to pull out of the way. The driver panics, maybe freaks out, stopping in the road, right in front of us. Their turn signal is flashing left, but there is no left turn for them. Good Schlem is on my left shoulder, wipes off his milk mustache, whispers in my ear, Patience... I am slamming on my brakes, but I resist the urge to hit the air horn. My partner, Matt, is bracing against the dashboard. But Bad Schlem is on the right shoulder, swilling his martini, roaring, Dumbass! Move it! I agree, "Dumbass." The driver, apparently, solves this small problem, and accelerates past the barrier and pulls to the right. Bad Schlem coaxes me to hit the air horn, just a bit, as we pass the car. Let that be a lesson to ye!

Driving code, with flashing lights and blaring siren, is not a license to speed or break traffic laws. These visible and audible warning devices are our voice in the night, in the street, around the corner, begging your permission to take the necessary exceptions to the normal rules of the road, in this emergency situation. If you don't, can't or won't yield, I can't take those exceptions:
-Proceed past a red or stop signal or stop sign, but only after slowing down as may be necessary for safe operation;
-Exceed the maximum speed limits so long as I do not endanger life or property;
-Disregard regulations governing direction of movement or turning in specified directions.

It should be obvious that there's a lot of leeway for some chaos in those exceptions. Given, that all traffic has stopped, meaning: granted us the necessary permission, I can do whatever I need to do to get through or around traffic, provided, I drive with due regard for the safety of all persons. If I should cause an accident, there is no legal protection from the consequences of my reckless disregard for the safety of others. And that's the fine print in the Revised Code of Washington (RCW 46.61.035), the yin to the yang in the state law. An accident would comprise absolute proof that the safety of others was recklessly disregarded, and expect a lawsuit - against the City, the Department, and me. A fire engine weighs about twenty-two tons, an aid or medic unit seven and half tons- imagine a passenger car under that mass in a collision. When I check the speedometer, I am rarely exceeding the speed limit.

In addition to the two-dozen flashing lights and the 140 decibel siren, we have a secret weapon called an Opticom. Centered in the light bar, the Opticom strobes at a special frequency and traffic lights magically turn green for us when they detect it. This is what gets us through intersections and the associated traffic. The latest generation of Opticom utilizes infra-red pulses of light, coded to provide information about agency and emergency vehicle, but our system is old-school, just a strobing light. Urban legend has it that you can flash your high-beams quickly and trigger a detector at an intersection, but my experiments leave me thinking this is possible, but unpredictable. Suffice it to say, stopping oncoming and cross-traffic is a great tool for rapidly getting from point A to point B when shit happens.

About one hundred American firefighters are killed on the job each year. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but (barring unique tragedies like 9-11, which killed 343) the number oscillates around the one hundred mark. Of those deaths, roughly two-thirds are volunteers, the balance being paid, career staff. Firefighting is dangerous, but few firefighters are actually killed by fire. Most fatalities are directly related to cardiac issues, followed by vehicle or roadway accidents.

Arguably, the most dangerous thing we do is driving to the scene of an emergency, followed by working in the street or freeway. My kids, family, and friends worry about my safety whenever they see or hear about a firefighter getting injured in a movie, or on the news. They tell me, "Please be careful..." But they don't really understand the reality of the risks we face.

I think my department has a strong culture of traffic safety - we have the reflective vests and seat belt alarms to prove it. Every time someone gets behind the wheel and drives code, that culture is tested. Every time we operate on a busy freeway, assisting a driver, maybe cutting him out of his mangled car, mopping up the spilled life-blood of a vehicle, we put our lives on that very real line. We do it daily, and far more frequently than running into a burning building. We've been lucky, or careful, or strategic, so far. I try to keep it front and center in my brain, and both Good Schlem and Bad Schlem sit on their respective shoulders and kibitz.