MovieChat Forums > Backdraft (1991) Discussion > Complete piece of crap!

Complete piece of crap!

posted 17 years ago by Manyiakk
55 replies | jump to latest

I absolutely love the way that firefighters are portrayed as some kind of wonderous superhuman heroes. Give me a break! Get real! These people have a dangerous job, and they all are hardworkers, and they are wonderful at putting out fires. We need firefighters, without them the whole world would burn away. Yay for firefighters! Woot for them! Now the part people don't want to hear... Firefighters do not save anyone. Period. They put out fires and save property. Which is really a valuble service don't get me wrong, but when it comes to saving lives...firefighters don't do it. Firefighters may rescue victims from a burning building true, but what do they do once the people are out? They just hand over the victim to the waiting paramedics...excuse me let me use fire department lingo...the knuckle dragging ambulance drivers. Ron Howard did nothing but further the publics interest that the firefighters of the world are so wonderful. Paramedics are the ones bringing people back from the dead. We are the ones reviving the firefighters who get smoke inhalation and stop breathing. We are the ones that treat and transport your grandmother to the ER if she falls and breaks her hip. Not firefighters. Sure if you call 911 firefighters may show up at your door...to help lift and to assist the Paramedics. Next time you see a firefighter, ask them how to perform a surgical cricothorotamy.Unless you happen upon the 1% of firefighters that are also Paramedics, they will look at you simply dumbfounded. Firefighters look down on EMS in general and it's not right. They have their field of emergency work. We have ours. They are nothing alike and have nothing to do with each other. If you think the crew on an ambulance are just drivers then you need to learn what EMS really is. We provide services that people WOULD actually die if we weren't there. There are skills and procedures that we do that only ER doctors can. We can give almost any type of drug that an ER has...without consulting anyone. Simply because we know that the patient would benefit from it. I cannot count the number of times I have had to stop a firefighter from almost killing a patient with their ignorence of medicine. It's so amazing how you hear all about how the fire department saved the person from whatever disaster struck, and in small letters if it's even mentioned "was transported to the hospital". They always fail to mention how the Paramedics intervened to prolong that persons life. Like I said, firefighters rescue...Paramedics save lives. All the "God Bless the firefighters" I see on the forum are wonderful. I agree, God bless them and keep them safe. Not one single person has even given us a second thought, how dangerous our line of work is. Oh, right you will think, firefighters go into burning buildings and put their neck on the line. Think about this, how dangerous is it to go into a well known crack/meth house at 3am for a 14 year old girl pregnant and in labor with no one but your partner and maybe 1 cop? Ask yourself this question, think about it real hard, and the answer may suprise you...if you were having a heart attack, or your grandmother was having a stroke, would you want firefighters on a firetruck, or Paramedics on an ambulance?

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Manyiakk 17 years ago

HA HA HA! Good point there ballero...the reason for that is simple. fire departments know that one day their funding providers will realize something, "Hey why do we keep giving these guys all this money? They haven't run but 2 calls this month. We need to really look at that." So to fix it what does the fire departments do? they make an ambulance division...not an EMS division, but ambulance. then they force firefighters who dont want to do EMS to becomes EMT or Paramedic, and they take Paramedics and EMT that dont want to do firefighting and they force them to become firefighters. i know of no agency that all employees went willingly that way. it's the fire departments quick fix to help pad their run log books, because they know that EMS means calls. fire departments dont run even an 1/8 the amount of calls EMS does. so the big bad "hero" fire departments bully their way into EMS and say they can because "we heroes!" *beep* i say to you. everything i am saying here is true. i happen to work for a fire department that tried to force me to become a firefighter. like i said in the previous post. i have nothing against fire fighters, they provide a valuable service. it's just not for me. i'd rather save a persons life than their house.

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Manyiakk 17 years ago

Exactly my point yet again thank you. :) "When it's my time, I'm actully happy about it because it save my sanity from just being at the station all day when I'm on the engine." you said. There are nowhere near as many fires now as there used to be. The fire service did a great job to advocate for fire safety in the 80's. Unfortunatly there's a downside to that as we all know. Less fires means less business. Less business threatens funding. Which leads into my previous post about why fire departments are trying to bully their way into EMS.

I'm glad you enjoy working on the ambulance. You are one of the few that are great to work with. At my department whenever I am with a firefighter/EMT as my driver, yes driver they refuse to do anything else but drive and lift stretchers. Anyways they do nothing but moan and groan on how riding the ambulance is so beneath them. As a matter of fact, the department uses the ambulances as punishment sometimes. A firefighter is late for work, doesn't put enough wax on the floor, a single trash can has a single peice of paper in it...whatever, and it's "You're on restriction from the engine/ladder/squad, go get on the meat wagon!" Followed by even more whining. But I am glad that you are your sons hero. That's wonderful. My son is 3 and when I get ready for work he tells me "Daddy, I want you to stay home, but you are going to help people?

Basically my whole point of all these posts is simple. Fire departments fight fires, extricate, and rescue. EMS provides life saving procedures, medications, defibrillation, etc after a minimum of 2 years college, most medics have their degree, and also to provide swift and safe transport. So as you can see, aside from the minor similarities (i.e. red lights and sirens), they are 2 differnet fields of emergency services.

So Mr. Fire Service please leave us alone, thank you for the offer but we respectfully decline and would rather keep our services seperate.

(DISCLAIMER) I am not speaking for all EMT's and Paramedics out there. This has been just my views, and the views of most of my fellow technians. But we don't represent our entire field.

[–] jerry4184 17 years ago

Someone apparently needs a history lesson about his own work field.

EMS, is not a seperate entity in and of itself, and isn't some magical, life saving organization that just popped up one day. EMS, started with the FIRE DEPARTMENT. The first ambulances, were frequently owned by the funeral homes. If you died on the way to hospital, because there was no pre hospital care, just load and go, you just changed destinations.

Fire Department's started to provide training in first aid, and inhalator use. This was the beginnings of EMS. When caring for an accident victim, or medical patient, started to involve an assessment, and individualized care based on the suspected injuries. Before too long, paramedics came to be. Under the supervision and orders of a doctor, medics could give bi-carb, and ringers, and start an IV. There were even defibrillators and cardiac monitors. Though, you still needed a doctor to tell you what you were looking at, even if you knew it, and he still had to prescribe the defibrillation.

Now we start to get to the modern age. Private ambulance companies had started to spring up with trained ambulance attendants. Now paramedics started to get more autonomy. You didn't have to call medical command for everything. You could prescribe your own treatment's, defibrillate when needed, interprate your own cardiac rythms, and even take a patient's refusal when they didn't want care.

so we now have privately owned ambulance companies, and fire department run ambulances. EMS started to shift more and more to hospital, and privately run systems. Fire Department's willingly gave it away, because of top of fire training, most guys didn't then want to go to medic school, and get pulled off of the fire apparatus. However, it's a mistake to assume most paramedics are privately employed, and tha fire department's contribute nothing. THere are still plenty of fire department run EMS agencies. The biggest of which is probably the FDNY, or the LAFD and LACoFD medics. In fact, the majority of paramedics are employed by... FIRE DEPARTMENT'S.

But hey, you're a para-god with an attitude. You do have a problem with fire department's. THe problem is, you aren't on one. You don't get hero worship. Take the hint, neither do most firefighters. In fact, EMS gets thanked about a million times more than fire. Get over yourself, it's a team effort. Fire doesn't save lives? Okay, resuscitate the guy I don't pull out of the building. Do it. After all, my contribution as a firefighter, is unimportant in lifesaving. So go to the guy with full thickness burns on 100% of his body, and bring him back, after all, you're the lifesaver.

Oh, adn we won't even get into the whole fact, that about 80% of all EMS runs, are BLS, and the MEDICS are drivers. EMT-B's, spend more time in the patient compartment than medics.

[–] Manyiakk 17 years ago

Well since you are obviously a fire fighter, and I see from your post history that you do nothing useful except talk about how wonderful you and your little friends are... I refer you to a post on which you had plenty to say, from the ladder 49 board, I don't think I've ever read anything more true in my entire life.

"-Have you guys ever met a firefighter? Most (not all) of them are
homophobic, arrogant, hero-complex, frat boys that save people just to
feed their giant egos."

Oh and by the way dude. Not everywhere in the world is like LA or NY. There are plenty of fire departments that have never had anything to do with ambulances and EMS. and in no way had I ever implied anything about private ambulance services. Thos guys are even more deserving than EMS or fire of recognition! Go convalescant ambulance guys and gals! Talk about hard working. They work harder in a day than you or I do in a month. I was referring to goverment (county/city/state) paid EMS. Stand alone agencies. And regardless of how many calls are BLS, even if a crew is a paramedic and a EMT. They should still alternate patients. Oh that's right I forget! Quite a few places, some at which I have worked...fire fighters are nothing but drivers. They refuse to do anything but get the stretcher and help lift. When asked why management responds like this "Our fire fighters have no business in the back of an ambulance, they don't know how to treat patients."

I tried to concede that paramedics, fire fighters, and cops are all valued public services and all are needed. But as usual the fire fighter is right and the "dumb ambulance driver" is wrong. If you had bothered to even READ what I had written you would have seen that I admit of how on a fire scene we cannot treat a patient until they are brought to us. But then again, fire is all about glory WOOHOO! The news always says "The brave and heroic firefighters saved the little girl from the burning building." Never once does it say how the paramedics has to do a surgical cric on her to keep her alive. Or how the little girl will be paralyzed the rest of her life because the wonderful firemans didn't bother to even attempt at C-spine immobilization. Why should they? They aren't excepted to know about that "medical crap" They are fire fighters! They are heroes and can do no wrong. Let's see a fire fighter, one who is not a part time weekend warrior EMT, go to the nursing home and help a little old lady who has had a UTI for a week. Nowhere no how will you ever see that done. It's too beneath the big bad fire departments.

So go play with your hose and your overpaid, overbudgeted, and over glamourized little fire trucks. Oh wait nevermind, follow us to a call. The world is in need of professional stretcher fetchers!

Look jerry! Flashy red light thingamajigs! Anyways this shall be the last time I even look at this board. Just remember if you get hurt, and I really hope you don't, but if it ever happens, who is going to care for you? A firefighter or a paramedic? Buh bye.

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] jerry4184 17 years ago

Being that I work in EMS, probably someone I know.

Oh wait, that's right, I couldn't possibly work in EMS, being I have a realistic opinion of my own contributions. But hey, what do I know, I'm one of those BLS people. Guess I'll go get my para-God, so I can feel special, and be a "real" life saver.

[–] dark-knight15 17 years ago

To the op, first of all, your first post is flawed, becasue if us firefighters didn't pull anybody out of a fire, then there would be no one for you to save at a fire. Also, most firefighters are also in the EMS, and not because they are forced to. Because they want to. C'mon show some respect. I do for EMT's, i think what they do is great, and I too am training even though my main focus is firefighting. You see, the reason most Firefighters are medically trained is so that if someone is on the brink of life and death in a fire, they can provide assistance. Also keep in mind, when a person tries to kill themself, the fire department has to go cut them down in most instances. And you're putting yourself on a pretty high horse too, for someone who says they respect firefighters...tone it down a little buddy, speak your opinion, down force down everybody's throat. and if you think firefighters have all this glory...think again. I was at the supermarket the other day with my work clothes on, and at least ten people gave me dirty looks. When I was in the check out line, the man in front of me turned around and said to me: "I hate firefighters. They are all good for nothing jerks. Who needs em? You guys never do anything." Infact, there's many people who feel this way. so don't play the hero card on us. 99.9% of firefighters aren't in it for heroics. They are in it becasue they love their job, but most importantly, they love helping people, and not for the stories about them on the six o'clock news.

"We run in while you run out."

[–] Manyiakk 17 years ago

LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I was in the check out line, the man in front of me turned around and said to me: "I hate firefighters. They are all good for nothing jerks. Who needs em? You guys never do anything."

Most truthful, funniest, and lucid comment I think I've ever heard! You should've told that guy "Thank you have a nice day. I'll go back to my firehouse and do some more cleaning, since that's 99% of my job now. With barely any fires anymore I am a maid and a professional stretcher fetcher...but I'm a hero!"

Bah.

[–] dark-knight15 17 years ago

Actually, I was at a fire yesterday, so cleaning would not be 99% of my job, and i thought you said that your previous post was your last...interesting...the way your imdb id is pronounced perfectley describes you. you're just another disgruntled ambo worker who has some perception problems of firefighters. Personally, it's a waste of my time trying to talk to you, because you seem to be in a dark tunnel with the only way out being yours.

"We run in while you run out."

[–] Manyiakk 17 years ago

yeah ok there little fella...why don't you run along now and go put some cold stuff on some hot stuff...and bring me the stretcher!

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] mishteuse 17 years ago

hey chill... you are the true hero... satisfied ??
i met many firefighters and no one ever mentioned the word hero when speaking of his work... of course, there are some who think that are heroes just because they are called "firefighter", but never really done something heroic.
i think that everybody does his work and we shouldn't argue who's the hero , the firefighters or the paramedics etc...

[–] AlonzoTheArmless 16 years ago

Anyone else think a fireman stole the OP's girlfriend?

"You're a beautiful woman, probably." -The 4th Doctor

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] jasonsmoody51185 16 years ago

Well what the *beep* do you do for a living?

[–] Havok420 16 years ago

Exactly. All firefighters are trained to do advanced first aid. You see them respond all the time to calls that sometimes aren't even fires. Plus they are not just firefighters, they are fire and rescue. It says it on the trucks.

[–] LVFD-Bowers-51 17 years ago

yeah thats exactly right buddy we worry about saving somebodys *beep* kitchen table before we worry about saving thier life and we dont just fight fires just to name a few things most fd's do at least in my country

fire supression
vehicle extrication
medical first response (not EMS Nova Scotia has a provincial ambulance service)
HAZMAT

just to name a few

and about your comment 2 calls in a month tell that to the fDNY whos calls for the year 2006 were

Structural fires: 27,817
Non-structural fires: 20,702
Non-fire emergencies: 198,202
Medical emergencies: 209,397
Malicious false alarms: 28,836

why do people on the firefighting movies make such stupid posts?

no one can make me run into a burning building im a VOLUNTEER

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] dwain_86 17 years ago

My township doesn't have a 'Fire Department' or a 'Quick Response/Emergency Medical Technician' We're all Emergency Services and most of the folks are trained at both, which means we could rescue someone from the building and then go to work on life support.

my .02

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] rob-1266 16 years ago

At least they're prepared to risk their lives for other people. How many EMT's and Para's would? Lightweights way out of saving lives.

[–] scottytoofatty 16 years ago

I find it hard to see how vociferously dedicated you are to putting down firefighters. Perhaps some, if not all take more cultural credit than what they deserve, but so what? The whole 911 system should be cohesive, codependent departments working together to do their jobs. I mean, if you're going to be this petty about excessive credit on the firefighters' part, then I wouldn't want you saving my life. It's just too asinine and immature for a supposed professional such as yourself.
Now, if it's true that the firefighters complain about having to work with the paramedics, so what? That's their beef, and not your prerogative. At the most, you should simply be enlightening us on the pretentiousness of the firefighter glory, not talking smack. And if that's too idealistic, well, just as long as you guys do your job and society will appreciate it, glory or not.

[–] xmothertheresax 16 years ago

Almost every firefighter i know is a paramedic fool
TDG