The Strange habits of those who live by the pager

Six years of jumping up every time that horrible squeal goes off, literally at every conceivable hour and during every event in my life.  It has happened so much that the response is literally automatic; I get up, head to my truck, buckle in and hit the ignition, throw it in drive and head to the station (progressively slower I might add).  Its funny; I have times where I tell myself to hurry up now. It used to be that I was running, but hey, "firemen don't run".

When the tones drop a lot of things all happen at the same time: depending on the time of day a bunch of guys scattered out across an area either drop what they are doing or roll out of the bed.  Then they make their ways to their respective vehicles (typically pickup trucks or older SUVs).  Guys who have jobs to do and people who depend on them take their precious time off and rush to the aid of someone who they don't know.  Decisions are made in the blink of an eye ( do i have time to go?  is this something I can take care of if I'm the only one who is around or should I go ahead and call for help?and literally dozens of other things).  Trucks rumble to life, neighbors are woken up by sirens of fire trucks rolling out of the bays.  Medics are rolling from one corner of the world, firemen from every corner and cops from wherever they come from.  Within a few moments we seem to be coming up out of the ground.  

We have things that come so automatically you'd think  it came as naturally as a second basemen making the throw to first.  Like flipping the master switch most people would never find that powers up the truck.  transitioning from driving a small passenger vehicle to a forty thousand pound truck and doing so with the precision of a fighter jet pilot.  Sliding into bunker gear that when we started we could get lost in so fluidly we don't even know we did it.  We pull hose lines like they don't weigh a pound.  we move in 60 pounds of bunker gear just like we do in our jeans and tee shirts.  

When we get calls for help we have families and people who expect us to be around the next day but calculate the risk and we are people who literally cannot not help.  We have little things that we do things for luck some would say.  We get a kiss on the way out the door.  We have pictures of our loved ones in our helmets so that if we have the most unfortunate should happen we can say good bye.  We have letters in our wallets and vehicles for that same reason, letters we never want to be read but they exist because we have given our time and efforts to make our communities safer, to be there for those who can't help themselves, to be the only hand a person with no hope has to grasp.  I'll never say we don't think about it but we do things that change and save lives so we calculate the risk and reward.