GETTIN' SALTY EXPERIENCE PODCAST Ep.181 | BCFD LT. STEPHEN COBO

Disclaimer. We'd like to know before the start of this interview that the opinions about to be expressed by the guest of tonight's Getting Salty Experience Podcast are that of the guest and do not directly or necessarily reflect the views of the host of the Getting Salty Experience Podcast. You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience Podcast. Hello, Hello, Joe Seleki. That's right. I called on Joe Selecki from Texas. Roof, there's only steers and queers in Texas. I'm

just gonna say that. You know, hornds On Selucki. Bro, So you know what I'm saying. Bro, we already got the guy scoped owt we know he got mad. You met a girl, moved to Texas, were girl and took them with the with the triangle magnet. Bro, sucked them all the way down to Texas, left the ghetto a ball triangle magnet. Where did you pull up? Powerful pi is brother empire is It's time? From there, I can put them all the way down a thousand elephants,

that's right. And it pulled Joe Selecti all the way to Texas. Bro, he was doing it. He was doing it. In Baltimore and now he's doing it Irvine, Texas. He's a Cowboys fan now Irvine, Texas. Yep, yeah, we got how we foust in there tonight is a new name, but the old usuals. Proppaccini. You got the from Rochester checking w W two w W two girls in there. Yeah, she just came in hot last second there. Pee wee, pee wee, Hey, buddy, I love pee wee. Listen, I gotta I got a

guy today from coming in from Flint. We got twenty seven years in Flint, a Flint, Michigan guy. Bro, Excellent, that's gonna be a heavy hitter. He's a black dude, Bro, third black dude on the show. They don't like to come on. He's awesome. He sounds awesome. I know he's gonna be great. You know why he's awesome because he plays hockey. Oh that's why he's like and he plays hockey, And I'm like, you lost me there, Bro, nobody cares about hockey. You

got what what the hell do you mean? Gabe having my ship together tonight? Say hello, Tilly, I have your lunch. Gabe's continue the pictures from the other day. Bro, Yeah, bullshit you guys could suck it. Man. I got a call Tilly tomorrow. Listen, you off your game the other day and I wasn't. I wasn't off my motherfucking game. Part of my friend. What's the matter with you? Why do you know? I'm sorry? Well, I told you don't be coops, coops suck

you know we're off it again. I gotta tell you I did it again today. Remember that I told you the other day with my son, he dropped the forty five pound playing on his foot. No. Sorry, So today I wake up my little guy. He goes to my throat is really killing me. I'm like, yeah, all right, but you go to school. Okay, you going to school, but it's killing me. I can barely swallow. He's got the tears in the eyes. And dude, you did that to me last time when you had to cough. You were

coughing like a madman. As soon as your brother walked out the door to school. Where did you have like to or something? Right, he's got strep throat. You're all for two, all for two, all for three. My other my son, Lucas, when they's played football outside, he falls, he comes in. He's not that my arm is killing me for the whole week. I'm like, suck it up, man, for Christ's sake, suck it up. Cop pound fracture. Take it to the doctor. He's gotta broke it off. He's in a No, you're right,

your arm is not broken. Can you wiggle your fingers? Broken? Yeah? Man? Did you give him a free ball, a little compassion? You know what I mean? It's it's all right, you know I did. After that, I felt terrible. I just brought him some ice cream. I said, as you throw a blue buddy, come in, let daddy's get some ice cream and shove that ice cream up your asshole. Man, isn't he trying to make the kid lose weight? You're shoving calories down

the straw? What's little little little guy? All right? Yeah, he's little water, a little guy. Yeah. We got a guy off from Baltimore City tonight, bro some work you did, guy from Baltimore. It's a third guy, I think, so freshly retired too. So he hasn't had the nightmare yet. He hasn't the nightmare about losing You can't find your bunkie year when you get a run. But he knows we're talking about it. You lose your whole identity. You come just same old schnook sitting at

the long Yeah, beautiful, what is that velvet? What are you gonna play this? What are you doing? You know? What do you want to hear about? Beautiful? I don't want to hear it now here. When it's Tom cue you to step up your game, bro. I gotta tell you that much. Coobs is all over you. Listen, He's all over you. It's just a hair. It's just they all hate us out there. I mean, I can't help it. What do you want? You know? I can't I keep all the time. Are you ready?

Are you ready to bring in our boys from New Jersey? I'm ready? Yeah? Bring his son just got called for the Newark, right, I think big Jimmy, Jimmy de Guinea oh from yes he did? Yeah yeah, I mean, uh no, we got to do the ad first. Yeah, yea yeah, yeah yeah yeah from Jimmy. Established in nineteen thirty and under the current ownership since nineteen eighty seven, the New Jersey Fire Equipment

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the state of New Jersey. Find us now at www dot n j f E dot com. That's www dot n j f E dot com. Wow, we got a Gonzo fanclub. It's true you are a true hater. Well, they love you just as much I love it. Yeah, Pete's gonna do a commercial student with his first gun shop. The only thing is he's not gonna pay for it because hes got You have to pay for lunch

or breakfast. Bro, you ain't gonna pay for a commercial bit. All right, let's get that guy in here, bro, let's do this all right, coming to the day, all away from Baltimore City, Lieutenant Steven Cobo. Hey we go. The flyers are really hot down there. Roughly. I heard dude only thirty six years on the job. Thirty six years? Wow, man, you know over eighty two. That Welcome to the show, Lieutenant Cobo, Thank you, gentlemen. Is a definitely an honored,

approvished to be with you guys. He's got his old Baltimore swag back there. Look at that. You know he did get it. He didn't get the man cave totally set up yet because he's uh, you know, he just really retired retired right. Yeah, his wife is still not used to having him home at night. Bro, She's like Christ going to the five house already. Will please please him again? That's why I no hunt. My wife's like, aren't you going hunting? That's the clue. My

mother does say that. Doesn't his wife get mad that he goes away all the time. I'm like, no, she probably enjoys it. I don't know what that's a break, because if you didn't have to have little chicklets around, you'd be going away. For me, yeah, my kids are two youngsters when we go to the trade shows. That's it. That's enough for me. I don't like people with my wife. All right, All right, let we have we got to get patriot. Where is Susie been

anyway? Anybody? I'm sure somebody will, don't think Darren will probably chime up and let us know what's going on, But you don't, you know, remember her husband wasn't doing very well. That sucks. All right, Well, let's get patriotic for Susie. Here we go. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Guys are already throwing references in there, Steve, where's the pond? Soul? Throwing some shit in there? Yes, with but a rookie, they're gonna hang on your own night. I could see it. Oh yeah, I love it, we welcome it, we love it all right. Let's you know what, I don't even have to ask him ro if the guy came with a very concise maybe not as long as the other guy's timeline that we had on here, eighteen pages long, but very concise nonetheless.

So he even has a little section here it says family history with bull. I love that part. That's the part I love the best. I do too, So take it away, Steve. You tell us the grandfather was on. Tell us about how you got ut started and how your family got started. Well, it's younger. My father was in my grandfather on my mother's side, he was a battanian chief. He was actually was a captain

at six sixteen truck where I used to be stationed. They made battalion chief and my father got in in nineteen fifty six when he got out of the Korean War and he came over and so it became a family thing at that point. And growing up, you know, Dad was always was always working.

That's when they wore the brown khakis and the aluminum helmets. And there was a few times when when my dad was in Chargia night he was over eighteen engine he would actually my mother would drop me off at the engine house and I would actually spend the night sleep there. Oh yeah, Dad was in charge at night. So that was that was pretty unique. And so that age of eighteen nineteen, I did a little bit of volunteering and I

say, you know what, I can get paid to do this. So I went ahead and my father kept me a breast when the test was coming out. Took the test in eighty five, got hired in eighty seven. Old Baltimore City, guys. Oh, Baltimore City, Your father and your grandfather ever worked together, because he said your grandfather was during the seventies and your father got on in fifty six. Yes they did, yep, yeah,

they work it and I have yeah, same station. No, they didn't work in the same station, but they I'm sure they were wearing fires together. And I still have cousins down there, and uh yeah, so we still have people actually there. So did you get to work with your dad at all? I did? I did. I did. So my father moved to Delaware, Uh about five years prior to him retiring. And uh so, you know, I was doing the job and I was all excited, and of course my dad was like, you know, I want

to get home because I want to get back to Delaware. He goes, son, how about your work for me my last night in I was like, yeah, Dad, no doubt, you know I'll do it. Yeah. So that is yeah. That was him and his dad of graduation. Hm wow still around. No, he passed about five years ago. Oh and uh wow, you know that hair. Look look at your father's face though. You could tell he's like my boy. Thank god he found his way somewhere. Get the hell out of my house. Before that? Did

you go to school? Before that? You go to college? What we went to? No, I went to graduate from high school. I worked in a grocery store, and uh so I did that for actually for twenty years. I was doing both jobs. For twenty years. I did the grocery store, got in the fire department eighty seven, still work at the grocery store. And then I left the grocery store as a part timer back in two thousand when my daughter was born. And uh yeah, and then

you know fire remember always picking up by jobs here and there. Guys had the waking bulls about working in the grocery store, not like spilling Aisle eleven or something like that. Eleven. It was, it was, it was good and I was excited about getting in and uh yeah, it was good. Kevin Brown's lieutenants and then I think we got was always always yeah. As a matter of fact, I think we matter. We think, oh here this, look at this. Then moving the station lawn, that's me.

Yeah, pro to do that? What do you what are you doing out there? I would I had other things for them to do, and I would get out there. It was all hands, basically, and there was a lot of grass next to the firehouse. It's probably about a half acre, and uh so it had to be done and we would split up. Guys would trim him. And you know, Rake and I always like jumping on the miller and get it done. Doesn't doesn't the city pay guys to do that? What are you doing? Pay him? You let him

keep his job. You mentioned that down here, and people are like, oh, what are you saying? Don't we would go there? What cutting grass? Grass? Down here at the firehouse. If you guys put the dishes in the dishwashing by house, probably you gotta worry about cutting grass. They will give dish washer, so well you have to probably he's a dishwasher. Probably a dishwasher. So you go to probably school and this see let me get some notes. Yet you took the test in eighty five, you

got hided in eighty seven. What was Baltimore like back then? Because that was a little b about Baltimore because people don't know. You know, from what I know about Baltimore is you have to eat a habit there which is beautiful. You step outside anywhere right outside of it, whoa hands over there with? Yeah, it was it was probably about the same, but you could expand a little a little bit bigger back in the eighties and you than

you can now. The stadium of course came, Oriel Park, came New Yards and then Ravens Stadium, so you know, I kind of pushed out some of the old buildings and they came in, and so it became more and more tourisy. Uh huh uh so up to people coming state and from this panic counties were coming in. So yeah, it was. It was still it was pretty popular. It's not as popular actually in the harbor, in the Inner Harbor now it's other actually talking about redesigning it, but around

the stadiums is still very popular. So yeah, how far where did you live in the subwhere outside Baltimore? I did. I lived in northeast Baltimore, probably closer to Baltimore County, and I lived there tows about eleven years old, and then we moved out to the county about eleven years old. And how far is that twenty minute drive? Forty minutes far enough, just far enough now and now it's it's it's a lot worse than it was back then, right, I'm sure it is. It is. It's uh well,

you know, you see it on the news. It's uh it. It's violent real quick and right. So, did you guys go through your war years in the seventies like we did up here? You know, we were hitting in the late eighties in like the early nineties. It was the crack epidemic. I mean it was a lot of gangs from Jamaica and all that were coming in, you know, claiming turf. So we had a lot of shootings back in the late eighties early nineties. The crack is whack,

yeah, crack, the whole crack. Academic was amongst us, and that definitely kept kept everybody busy doing that. How big is the department Baltimore City. It's about fifteen hundred uniform personnel roughly human stations. It's about thirty I want to say thirty eight thirty six engine companies and uh fourteen ladder companies and close to thirty two medic units. And they got they broke it up in six battalions. Yeah, it's about ninety two square miles. Is actually

discomfort of the city. Rescues one rescue, one rescue. Yeah, I'm sorry, yeah, one rescue, and they keep very busy. Yeah, they're always running. They got to be right. They covered, they cover the whole. They covered the whole, the whole ninety or not ninety well in the ninety five south of Baltimore Bottembre Beltway. And of course everything goes into city. You know, they go on first their area that they're around.

They'll go on first storm assignments for building, vowing fires and and whatever special call that they need them. And how many guys ride on the rig and an engine and a lot of by your guys. Four so we have four in the engine and four in the truck. Four and the rescue and

including the officer for including the officers. So when I pull up, especially when you're your first in first in ladder company, you you're busy your forcefule entry because you got your uh your two step guys throwing grand ladders or your tillerman thrown ground ladders, and you have your driver getting the aerow ladder up to the roof and uh so you're it. You're you're getting the door open. You got the engine guys coming behind you. So you really got to

be on your game. You've got to be on your game getting the front end or the front door opened up. And what are they sending on a on a confirmed building fire. Well, if it comes out as a initial the initial called initial box still send out four engines U, two trucks, two Botani chiefs in a Medican. I remember talking with the chief from Baltimore, that Chief Lega. I remember him saying, you guys still have quite

a few. You know, that's one of the places that still has a lot of vacants there, right, you guys still have a lot of vacants. I think the last count I heard was fifteen thousand vacants. Now they've been they've been working to get them, you know, demolished and brought them up, you know, do whatever until they could you know, get secure the owner. You know a lot of these owners are from out of state and trying to get them, you know, come secure your property, take

care of your property. And so that's always been a challenge. Did they change, I mean, unfortunately we heard you know, we lost a few guys and Baltimore the last Yes, yeah, yeah, yes, change they did. They they changed the run assignments are pretty much the same, but

they when the chiefs assignment, they wind up given the chief aids. So the chief has aids to help them out, you know, logistically on the fire scene, second set of eyes and you know drive for them because the chiefs before then we're driving and trying to work the radio and all by themselves. So they were were they used the task saturated is the work. Yeah, that's the name of Chicago. They drive themselves too, they don't they did they change any of the sps as far as that with a lot of

duty stuff. They did. They they changed it to Now how they you have to have a companies in the rear said they want to complete three sixty, especially when it comes to a vacant, they want to complete three sixty and then the chief on the scene will make the determination if it's secure to go ahead and go and take lines. And that's two years ago. That's crazy. I know. The recent deaths were a few months ago with Lieutenant Dillon, they were a couple of months ago. But we just cell we're

not celebrated. We just had the anniversary of Paul Buttram and Kenny and Kelsey. Yesterday was two years for them for the three yea in the collapse on Stricker Street. Wow, and you guys had a tough couple of years. Yeah five and yeah five and less than two years. Well, it's vacance thought, a lot of places to drill right practice with the young guys or they just that lap again, just don't even go in them. They you

know, you can throw the ground, ladders and all that. Years ago, when I first started, you could pretty much have your way with a vacant. You know, you could maybe start saws, get something going. But again it comes back down to insurance lawyers and not too thin. Get that they when everything kind of you know controlled it the fire Academy and when certified instructors making sure that that they can see what's going on, make sure

it's it's taught properly. So so let's get back to the academy. You go into the academy and eighty seven. How long is the academy? It was thirteen weeks, that's what OZ was, right, do we do thirteen weeks? It's pronounced like ten months. I think it's what some of the guys really, I think it is now. I think we I did. I think we did like week and thirteen weeks. Thirteen weeks, yeah,

including the game. Well, you got your emt with you like two weeks and then the rest was all you know, fire Suppression, Peace Officer was like a week or some ship like that. I don't remember. I got in in October and I got to the firehouse in January or February. January, I got down in May, and I got on in July, the beginning of July. It's like thirteen fourteen weeks something like that. Started May, no, May and June it was eight weeks and then you said July,

right, yeah, on July technd. Oh all right, so ten weeks, nine weeks something like that. Whatever, So you get into uh, probably was the class. How big were you the classes? Running back? My class I had forty five four got a big class, small class competitive, that average, that was average at the time, it was average. They try to get three classes a year through if they could, you know now, you know, being the classes are like nine ten months,

they might get one through. You know. So did you know where you wanted to go? Did Dad know where you were going? Or how did that work? Now? I kind of, you know, expressed I want to go to a truck company, and so I went twenty nine truck and uh so it was good. It was a good place to start at. It wasn't overwhelming and it was it was a good place to start out. So I got the chance right November yep. Uh so you're saying not a lot of service. Yep, it was a tiller though, Yes it was

tiller, yeah right, acting pump operata. So yeah, so I got a chance to really work on those things like driving tiller and an active po because you know, there's those skills are good to have, you know, especially being a new recruit. Is that kind of keeps you off the medic unit and you help your company out, you know, if you know they've got a guy that's from the company in house that can fill in and need it, so instead of getting somebody. So you had what engine was with

you guys? Four engine? Yea four engine, four engine twenty nine trucks. So if you if you become a pump operator, it saves your ass and going right in the medics that night, got a couple of times I went across the aisle, across the the bay and go over to the engine and pump operate for him for you know a trick or two. So nice. So Uh, it says you studied for Emergency Vehicle drive up which means what like your chauffeur like to drive the ladder truck. Yeah, you it's

EVD Emergency vehicle driver and you drive and tiller the ladder trucks. That's a promotion. That is a promotion. Oh who is your bosses there that you remember? Who was your your first captain? Uh? That's going back, Wow, Captain Dalen was my first captain at twenty nine and I had uh Lieutenant Lemon and had Lieutenant Coleman were my first officers. And how long did it take you to catch your first job over that? I want to say

probably three months. Yeah, about three months to three months. Caught a lot of medics, a lot of medical assists. Uh, but the first job was about two or three months. Yeah, it was funny. At the about about a year or two was transfer. I was detailed to a different company and got to talking to the rookie that was at that company, and we were talking about my first fire that I had a twenty nine truck

and it was his father's house. So really you went to yeah, it was yeah, we went to his father's house, bro in the street. He goes, oh, that was my dad's house, and yeah, we talked about it. That was kind of unique. Yeah, so it was what kind of fun was it was? It was a bloom frame construction. It started in the first floor and it got up, walked its way up through the second floor up into the attic. So when we pulled up, we had a heavy amount of smoke coming out the attic, out of the

eaves and uh. Yeah. So it was uh in that area, twenty nine trucks area was a lot of bloom frame construction homes. So you got that a lot. So you study, you're promoted to drive, and you go over to truck sixteen truck sixteen. Ev D, what's ev D? What's Baltimore? Yeah, it was a truck sixteen was right on the west

east Baltimore line, and it was good. It was a lot of service and uh because you kind of you were kind of in the middle of the city, so you could go northeast, south or west pretty easily, and so got some good work there. Uh, really got a chance to work on some good truck skills. And uh, you know it was good. It was good, run good, love an engine there, what you do. No, we were a single house, single truck, bro truck in the middle of the in the middle of the city, back in the middle

city. That's awesome. Is it still like that now? No, they closed it down. It was I'm going to say the one thing that two things are going to happen. Either they closed them or they stuck an endy with him. Well, a truck sixteen is still around. But they closed the house and suck them to where I think in my timeline you have truck four there. So they right when they were doing closures. So right, that's right, that's right. And do what that building now? City still

on it. It was a the police originally bought it for training, like classroom for training, and then it is now I think I think it's probably I think it's like a like a civic not a civic center, like a community center. I think they use that. Now, Hey, go this truck sixteen. Here it is. Yeah, I was trying to find a better image. But the ones that were popping up are still a little grainy that. Uh no, that's not a till, is it. Yes, it is trying to find a good picture of it. Nice. So you

truck six things. You said you had a great shift. Do you guys work like the ABC shifts too, like a lot of the other guys do. Yeah, at that time I had well, right now it's ABC and D shift. We had four shifts, and at that time it was two days on, two days, two nights off, four two days, two nights off four and two days too nights and y're all four that's the best schedule. Yeah, it was seven, you know, seven to four, seven to five, and then usually got into about three four o'clock and you

work till six next morning. You relief usually got into about six and you know, get you home and then they went to the twenty four hour shifts, so we did. Now they're on the shift twenty four hours. It's twenty four one, twenty four off, twenty four one, five days off, it's five days off. That's that's not bad, all right? Rough? Yeah, bad, and you're going to fives? Yeah, that steal firehouse, right, I just wanted to sixteen at sixteen original there was original

sixteen truck right there. Yeah, now it's a it's a brewer. I think it's a brewery. Now. It looks like there's a little sign right out front there. They turned it into I think they were calling it like Ladder sixteen brewery or something like that. He might have seen it once or twice, right ever known to go about who are so many guys in sixteen truck that you latched onto him? Yeah? I had, Uh, well, Al Chaney he was the first acting guy and he was he was great.

He really really showed me around. Yeah. Beanie Muller he was a wild man, hell of a fireman, but he was a wild man. And uh, and I had I just had some really really good guys there. And Charlie la Hatt he was a really good fireman. And I had all good fireman there. It was a good house. Steve Savalla was there, so it was good and got a lot of service and actually learned a lot being there coming from nine truck to go there. How long were you

there for? Originally I was there for about two years and I went when I got in the what they call the heat team. It's called the high Rise Emergency Aerial Team. I think I have that in my lineup eighty three. So the heat team we did like high angle, below grade, confined space and we worked with the Maryland State Police to do like rooftop you know, extrication stuff like that if they need anything for the high rise fires. So the rescue was big into that. So I for you know what,

I'm really enjoying his heat team. Let me go to the rescue so I could be there with the rescue, and you know, with the heat team you kind of stemming from that. So I went to the rescue and it was good. It was a good run. I was on the Heat team I guess maybe five years, four or five years, and then kids came along and it really eat up a lot of time and I had to focus wore on always the kids, bro, you know what I mean. Well, now the rescue have their own quarters and in with somebody else. No,

they were at Steven Station, right near Oral Park. Came New yours. We caught the super house Steven Station. Uh, it's pretty big. It housed at that time probably four four suppression units to medic units. And it was across from where the they used to have the what do you call the trade show they had the Yes, you got right across the street, right, I remember, off from that place. Yeah, that's where the rescue was. Wow, that's richinally it used to set up. Yeah,

so it was a good one and the rescue was good. You got a lot of fires in the rescue. We did, we did we uh, we went to again. You were sent on initial boxes, but a lot of times they would pick you up and uh and send you out on spend any were in the city. If you got a special call, you were going and being the only rescue, you kept busy. A lot of elevators, you did a lot of elevator runs and uh so you kept busy.

It was good. What was the role of the rescue When they roll up to a fire truck work truck work, go up and help them work, yep, ventilate, uh, forcequ entry, go to exposures and that's pretty much problems. Yep, fix the problems take solves up up top, you know, go into either either side on on the exposures and you know whatever else the the once team commander needed you to do. So, so how do you get to the rescue? Yeah? How'd you get over there?

Being on the heat team? I was on the heat So I got on the heat team prior to being on the rescue, and so I put in for it because they needed a driver an e v D and uh they said, yeah, come on over. So I was when the spot came open, I was able to get in. Who was your boss was over there? That you remember? I had? I had Captain Riccado, Joe Briccado, he was my captain. Uh good good, good fire really good fireman. And uh he was a captain there when I was there, and he

was good. I had Steve Gibson, he was my actual lieutenant and he since retired. And uh so I really again we had great, really good cruise. I have I have your first show for experience for you. There you go. I was ample for that. I was out after that. Looks on the game tonight, you see that had a little smack him around a little bit. And then now all of a sudden we got the old Gonzo Vera. I missed you. Gonza was welcome back. Yeah, yeah, so the kids come, so you want to you want to we'll go

up back to the truck work. Is that lit I did? Yeah. I had an opportunity to go to Truck four. And Truck four was you know, you had, you know, a couple of truck companies in every every city stand out, and Truck four was one of those companies that stood out. I mean, great fire service, great officers, you know, great fireman and I had an opportunity to go there. There was a guy that wanted to do like a mutual swap. He wanted to go to the

rescue, and I wanted to go back to a truck company. And Truck four opened up and he wanted to go to the rescue, and so we did a mutual swap. So that happened for me, and it was a good time. It was a great time. It was a really good time. I was going to ask you, I thought, was I just gonna ask you? Holy shit? I just looked down at my notes for a second. I didn't know if you wanted to discuss because you kind of we kind of flip past it going through his timeline. But when he was a

truck sixteen, he had the job at the clipper mill fire. Yeah. Bro, hold on, I have a notable. So let's go to the clipper mill fire in September ninety five while you were in trup sixteen. Yes, we uh I remember that night, go well too well. Actually it was September ninety five. Was kind of like a night what I'm seeing out here now, rainy, foggy, was terrible, terrible night. And we get a call for a building fire and clipper mill which is kind of like

off kind of in the center of city. So we get there and it was a it was an old foundry building that they used to back in the days to make cannonballs, actually make the spilling. Yeah, and it was I would it was about three hundred feet long. It was huge. It was huge, had the big foundry stones. And since then they converted it into businesses. They had like artists in there, and they had a couple like auto shops in there. So they had that broke the building up and

the you know, different businesses that went in there. So we get there and the whole, the whole back of the place is off and we get to the front of the building and I'm with thirteen engine here and there you go, that's it. Wowow the big building man. And uh. We get there with thirteen engine and it was myself, Paul Novak and his crew from thirteen engine. So I get there. I was sixteen truck. We forcedble entry, roll up doors, you know. We make our cut.

We get inside and ten Novaks asking for two and a half. It's a lot of fire, so we go ahead and we get two and a half stretched. We have about I want to say, six to eight guys inside the building at that time, and we get about maybe thirty feet in thirty forty feet in, and we open up the two and a half and we're just trying to keep it from going, you know, more or more, and we're knocking it and then you just heard this like sounded like a freight

train. You know, you could look at the back of the building. You could just watch the building like start to collapse on itself, and Lieutenant Know it was like it was coming, that was coming right at you. And Lieutenant Novac turned around and screamed it always get out, get out its phone in. So we had been in the hose line. We all ran out towards the roll up door that we had cut, and just as we

were getting out, Uh, it collapsed right up where we were. And I remember being pushed out into the street from the debris and the big huge foundry stones that were that were making that made up the walls, and so I got pushed down into the street. When I ran out, I was actually next to air schaffers. We were running out, and I wound up

going straight eight. Eric broke to the right. He ran along the wall to the right and and then the rest of the building collapsed during Lieutenant Novak and his crew and it was it was they definitely Guy was down there watching him that day on that crew, because they were right at the door when it collapsed. So the the roll up door kind of like enveloped them. So they weren't, you know, crushed by the degree. Yeah, they were like in a cocoon, protected almost. Yeah. Yes, it was

crazy. And so this thing collapse, you know, I Uh, Captain Gnostic from thirty three engine he was there, and I'm sprayed out on the ground and he picks him out and throws him further back out onto the road because the debris still falling. So we get up and we're like, wow, you know, we got a gas leak, and it's probably a two inch main gas. It's robbling. I mean, it's it's kicking and that's rolling. It's we got hose lines busted in the street. So I looked

behind me and won of the paramedics from Medic sixteen. He calls over and says, hey, give me a hand. So we got the captain from twenty five truck. He's knocked out and he's face down in a puddle and he's actually in cardiac arrests. He stopped breathing knocked out and he was so we rolled him over and we started doing CPR. We brought him back right there before we got him back in the medical union, and then it was basically scaring the fire ground, looking, hey, you're screaming out people,

and it's funny we were screaming out we did. At this point, we didn't know where Eric was, and we didn't know where Lieutenant Novak and his crew was either, and you know, we were hollering for him, and it was something you would see out of a movie. Next thing, you know, you see this hand coming up through the debris from the building and he's waving his hand like that. You that's all you saw was his hand.

It's like wow. So we ran over to where that door kind of made a cocoon over these guys and uh moving the debris, and we got him out and him and his uh, his two guys were secure underneath that door. Was crazy. You know, they were banged up right, and it could have been a lot worse. I hope they played a lot of that day when they went home, brother something. It was just seeing his handcome it was something you would see, you know. It was crazy.

And what happened to the other guys who broke right here? Eric Eric broke right and he was on the rescue and uh so now we were looking for Eric and we we didn't find Eric until about maybe forty minutes into it, and uh, you know, it's basically just rolling debris over and you know, trying to see where he might have went and and he so we found him about forty minutes into it, and yeah, he was he was crushed by the founder stones. Wow. It was crazy, crazy, night crazy.

That's one you're not going to forget. Bro No the bosso called to get out. I mean Lieutenant Novak, I mean he saved. He shaved a lot of guys there. Yes he did, Yes, he did. Yeah, he's he's a very he was probably one of the best fireman officers. Yeah, to do the job. The guy is, he's got he's got two sons in the job. Now he's on the job A bunch after that. I want to say Lieutenant Novak left probably six seven years after that. We did, after I made lieutenant in two thousand. I think he

retired two thousand and one, two thousand and two somewhere around there. And his two boys and then his youngest son is out a thirteen engine where his dad was, and his older son is the is a captain at the fire communications dispatch. So how did you not have that in your list of Oh ships, you almost almost big. He could have went in that one, brot close, that could have been in your close call section right there. It was. How did you h just a quick thing like we've had that

a lot. I mean, I know personally guys at the trade center who were standing with guys, whether they were in the hotel, at the lobby or if they were standing in the command post, and all of a sudden everything started happening and we just yeah, one guy went one left and one guy went right. You know, like, how did you handle that? Like knowing that you were that close with him at that spot and it was just you know, obviously it's luck at that point. Yes, it was

pure, pure luck. It was I was I had an angel next to me that night, that's for sure. But you didn't really think about it at the moment. And then, as you know, as time went on and there was a lot of people that were injured that night. I mean

they the light rail was rapped by by clipp Or Mill. They were they actually took the light rail and they were loadingly injured onto light rail cars and taking him down to Shot Trauma Center instead of trying to do the whole medic thing getting out of there, so they just load him up one when the light rail and sent them down to trauma center. That way. A lot of people, a lot of guys got pensioned that night, and of course

hapened rest is soul. We lost Eric and we almost lost Kat in the twenty five truck and uh, you know that was give him back, right, I mean it was crazy. We rolled him over and he had that gray ash. He looked and it was like what they tell him, stay away from the light, little bike. Yeah, so that was that was uh yeah, great, at least one good thing came out of Yeah, Steve, sorry, Steve, this picture was from that fire, just so you know, but we went from before. I don't know if that you're

in this image or not, but I'm not sure. I just wanted to know what it was in case you Yeah, I wanted to talk about it. It was. It was quite a night. And okay, yeah, now I think they I think it's condos or departments or something. How they were, but they got a really what they did was they put a really nice plaque and a memorial to Eric Schaeffer there. It's it's very very nice. So it's it's in memory of That's good. It's nice. All right.

So let's Discovery channel. Let's switch gears a little bit. Oh yeah, fun, Discovery channel. You did a lot of stuff while you were in truck to the teen or truck four, right, trump four became truck sixteen when at the truck four was quarters correct, yes, when they closed truck four right, and then so what happened was they they closed truck four. So they came to us like, I don't know, two days before they were closed up. We're gonna your guys are budget cup, we're closing

you. So they're just going to keep the house single the thirteen engine. So you know, we were able to get first DIBs on where we wanted to go, and I said, well, I'll go back to Truck sixteen because they had an open ev D spot. So I was able to go back to Truck sixteen in the middle of the city. So I went there. And about a year later, they had a fire up on might actually might have been less than a year. They had a fire up on Utah

Place and there was no truck available to get up there. And it was about six seven in the morning. There was a woman trapped and she was in the bottom apartment and it was one of those doors. It was a great it was a bar door, but where you had had the key to open the door, and of course, you know, she was being engulfed by smoke and everything else. She'd had no way to get her key,

and she perished. She died, you know, at that door, and so the city went uh oh, so they went ahead and moved us, you know, back over to Truck Forth quarters, you know, shuffling some companies around because the councilman over there everybody and rightfully so made a big stink and the truck should have never left there. So they put truck sixteen there and so I continued as an EVD over there. All right, So what about the Discovery only you did value in truck sixteen? Tell us about that?

Oh, it was, it was. That was a good time. We were. We had the opportunity to uh there was a film crew from a part of Discovery Channel. They were from Great Britain and they came over to her and I think they want to stayed, I want to say six to nine months. And they basically they rode with us, and they rode with the meta units, they rode with the rescue, they rode with thirteen engine, and they rode with sixteen truck and I think they rode with the

FIV. So they kind of got a taste of of you know, kind of different aspects of Bournemous City Fire Department. And so yeah, it was neat to hand, you know, the whole camera set up, and they had guys following you around, and uh, they were a lot more friendlier letting the actual camera crew go into somebody's well. And I think there's a clip in there where the actual camera guys actually going in. We had a store the second get to that that was and y, let's play that video.

We got guns. I have both, so we'll play the bounce and drugs. You can write a thousand books on that. Here. It's it's it's it's a lot. There's a lot of it here. Who the hell was that guy? You want to know? You're working here? Kid? Your stunt double? Do we need to see that again? Yeah? I gotta see that. Get the stunt double with Cobo. Get out of there, Limited, Pty Limited. Put the other one on it. Here we go. Truck sixteen has one hundred foot ladders and two drivers, one at

each end. Steve Cobo is the tiller man. He steers the rear by the truck. Work I think is very exciting in itself, but being back there driving the back of the trucks exciting. It's like being on a big amusement ride. You've got to constantly watch where you're turning, and the tillerman has to turn the exact opposite of what the driver is turning. So if the driver is turning left, the tillerman has to turn his wheel to the

right to bring the rear end of the truck over to the right. And then when the driver finishes his turn, well, then the tillerman has to bring the wheel back and line himself back in line with the driver. So your hands are moving all the time. Back then line under stick. And I thought she said that she hurt the guy in there, all right, do the stick. I like the job of a firefighter. It's something exciting, always different every day, a third generation of firefighter in the family.

And I guess it's kind of in the blood. So they say, I don't know, we had a robe star here. That's a good time. I'll get your autographic later there. Run with you guys. Oh yeah, yeah, we called it. We called a couple of fires. Again, there's a lot of clips in there in the discovery. You see it on YouTube, But yeah, we call a lot of fires. And h pick that up. I know, I know that guy called his career was great. It was a great experience. And yeah, absolut It was good.

It was good. Wants to know if you missed the orange and white rags, the little pee wee wants to know. Yes, absolutely, Yeah, they were talking about that signified Bortimer City, the orange and white signified Bonimer City. You said they might be going back to that, right, we might go talk that. They're talking about going back to the orange white. They were kicking. They're kicking it around. A little birdie told me he still got you need it, you need it? Yeah, talking about uh,

now, this is when you're in truck one. Wait a minute, when did you got step We were just actually getting into truck one. Actually that's when I made lieutenant two thousand. Oh you did, all right, So we segue into this because your oh ship moments happened in truck one. So ye, truck one. So you get promoted, you go and do that thing called studying like Roof had to deal. I don't know why, but you get study, you get promoted, you go to truck one.

I had babies defeat. I had had to get studied. All right, I understand what you're saying. It's a bad thing, you know, if you want to Some guys got on a power trip, you know whatever, you guys. So tell us about the Dawson family fires a wire and truck one yeah, truck one, yeah, Dawson, Dawson family. It was.

It was killed the whole family. It was a drug dealer, uh that to the Dawson The mother kept calling the police, you know, wanting them to, you know, investigate the drug dealer was going outside in our house. She had like five kids and very concerned, rightfully so. And so the local dealer there, you know, came to come to find out that that was the one that kept calling on him. So in the middle of the night, he took it wasn't much from what I'm hearing from f

I b was like a sprite bottle of gasolet. It wasn't much. And he poured it around the front door of the house and the side door and lit it off about to in the morning and we get the call and it's the night kind of like we have now. It's very it was very fog. He's about to in the morning. It was very fog. He couldn't couldn't see your hand in front of you. So we're going up Caroline Street

and you could smell it. You can see it banking down and uh, next thing, you know, this orange glow goes past in front of the truck. One so I told my driver stop, you know. So we stopped and we got out and it was the father jumping out the third floor window close. So we did not thank god, we didn't run him over. He wind up past it anyway. But so we get there and yeah, all three floors are off and running and wind up killing all five children,

the mother and the father. Oh wow, crazy. And they took they took the house. They gutted it out, and they made it into a community center. You touched the guy, they did? They they caught him and he's in jay. Yeah. I think he was might have been eighteen or nineteen. He was a young guy. He wasn't like he was you know, in the twenties or thirties. He was a young guy. Can you imagine that someone driving down the street was that. Yeah, it's exactly what it was. Fuck is that? And yeah? Yeah, wow,

yep, almost ran overy. But yeah, that was that was a moment. That was a very interest. I had a job like that where we lost it was I think it was seven people. It was five kids and two parents. And it wasn't even two cents worth the fire. It was like a TV that was smoldering, like it was like some stupid thing that you know, the little fire in like the TV stand set up. You know, it wasn't anything. And I tell you right now, I took the girl out of that and it was at the time to say she

was about the same age as my daughter. And I drove home that morning because we got it was in early in the morning with his stomach. Oh my god, I couldn't even You talk about some jobs that stick out to you, that was one that you know to lose. And you know what screwed up was? I think it was six kids. One of the boys was alive, like the guys brought them back like, uh, there was

kids all over the whole. It was in the projects. It was kids all in the lobby and uh, they were working on all the kids. And they had one that had you know, when we were all standing there after the job, you know, they had said that one they had got a pulse back on the kid. And I was thinking to myself, is that good or bad? Like you know what I mean, Like like holy shit, man, I mean, do you even like what kind of I mean, you don't want to say that, but it took a while for

us to find those kids. And then the mother had just, you know, everything disintegrating in the house, the drywall, you know, the what was was plaster and all that, and that was an old home, but everything was on top of them and and it took a while to sift through what was material and what was you know, children and a mother crazy night, kids unsee those things, Steve. That's the nature of the job,

right, yeah, yeah, exactly. Could you answer me one question if one more guy throws up the pine sol and a check in, what is the love of pine solt? Okay, here we go. I can't probably, baby, I'm very in my house. When I was twenty six truck I I lived and died when I wanted to. I went to the firehouse clean. We got to live there twenty four hours, and I wanted the

firehouse clean. So my thing was pine sal. Pine sal kills everything, you know, along with bleach, and so I would always order cases of pine sal and make sure the guys every morning, make sure you pintsal. Make sure you pine sal. We scrub out on Saturdays, make sure you pine salt. You know, I went to bathrooms. Make sure you pine sal everything with pine sal. And if you're going to be remembered for one thing after thirty six years, it might as well be pine sal, right,

rubber or wine. The firehouse is twenty six. Truck has been one hundred years old. He was nineteen twenty five when it was built. But I tell you what for a hundred year old fire ass, it's a clean fireass. You got to live then pine. So there you go. Yeah, before before we go crazy, did you have a drive for has mat up there? I did not. I want to make sure you were whind the wheel of this story. Hey, hey, god, what's going on?

I don't know where that one video that I sent you, the last video just uh put that up, the one where he's working the tool and the uh somebody sent me that to all right, give me a couple of yeah, yeah, yeah, when you hit start your thing. Let me let's talk about the I eighty three single car action. Yeah, that was one early two thousands, your lieutenant truckle. That was crazy. Yes, So he was about you know, in the middle of the night. It's

probably about three in the morning. The bars were were cut loose out of the Inner Harbor. So one of the thoroughfares that folks used to get out of the city and get back up to the county is eighty three. And so we get a call for a single car accident up on eighty three, right around where Penn Station is up on eighty three. So truck one crew we get out there. We're going up eighty three and I see one police car. I'm like, all right, I'm thinking, okay, this signal

be bad. I mean, I see the car into the jersey wall. It was a jeep, like a jeep wrangler, and I see it into the jersey wall. I'm thinking, oh this, this think will be bad. We'll get you know, get them at medics on its way, you know, we'll get to take care of And I see you get cops standing out in the middle of eighty three, jumping and raise, you know, waving his hand frantically. I'm like, come on, it's a one car. What could be so bad about this? Right, So we parked the

truck and I go over and it's like, oh shit. So what happened was the jeep wrangler the driver veered to the right and he went up on the jersey wall with the jeep Ryant because it's you know, the big tire set of blow. So he was able to go up on the jersey wall a little bit and he hit the jersey wall and there's a fence on top of the jersey wall that separated eighty three from Penn Station from the train tracks. So he hit that at an angle to where the pipe that holds like

the chain link fence. He caught it at an angle to where it broke cleanly right at where the two connections were. So the pipe, it was about I don't know, maybe a two inch inch and a half pipe, went through the front windshield of the geep. So his passenger is passed out in the front seat. The pipe goes through the windshield, he goes into his mouth and then out the back of his neck, and the pipe lodges in the rodcage or the rollbar that the jeeps have in the back. So

I's like, oh, ship, and he's still breathing. There's still a lot Oh my god, something ship. So that I asked her to rescue right off the bat as for the rescue real quick, and asked for you know, give me an ms officer and then I I was gonna up the oxygen to the pole, but it's going, So I asked for the go team. I don't know if you guys had that New York City, but we have a uh it's a surgical team on standby out of the trauma center.

So when you get weird ship like this, amputations things like this, trains people on trains on top of people, they call the go team and they come out and do surgical procedures and and get airways going. So so I called for the go team and they said, oh, there's gonna be about a half hour, you know, And I'm like, ship, I don't think we have a half hour. So uh, the rescue got there. So we used as all and we wind up cutting about right past the

jawl line and then right behind the neck. Uh. We did a cut from the bar and then we just kept wrapping, you know, secured him, put him on the backboard, got him down to Shot trauma. So we weally we wheel him into Shot trauma, and so the shot trauma doctor and you know those guys they've seen it all right, So we laid the guy who on the gurney. So he's laying there and the shot trauma doctor

comes up. You got team of nurses, you got an steadiolog, just got everybody there, and he just kind of like looks around, walks around the other side of the h The stretcher goes around the other he goes hmm, and he takes this nice neatly wrapped a bar that we that we did for this guy at the scene, pulls it and just pulls it right out of his neck. Yeah. We're thinking, oh my, just like that here, we're thinking, oh my god, a sergeant to perceived this is

gonna be hours in the ear, you know all that. Now, he just went up and pulled him right out of his living No, he died like three days later. Ship. That was crazy. I could have done that, doc. That's what we were all thinking. We all kind of you always say, never pull anything out right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you know, we patched it real good. But yeah, that was like a you know, one of you saying you think it's routine and you you get there and it's like, wow, okay, here we go.

Is a probably good chance that that we hit a major artery in that area? Yeah, I mean they pulled it out. I mean, even if you hit him in the neck. I mean, he's got to be paralyzed or something. It was. It was really weird. Look, it was very it was. It was it was haunting looking. It was weird. Yeah, like a horror show or something. Oh oh, I remember this, you're right. So we had are was about seven in the morning. I was a twenty six truck and everybody come, yeah, dear.

Somebody comes running up and says, hey, there's a meer caught the fence, look at it. There we go and uh so right up by the firehouse is Gordon style apartments up by the firehouse. So, uh we go up there. We take a look and it's like okay, So we brought the tool up, brought the matro up. Yeah, and then we were able to spray and that was go to move. Yeah, it's great kid kids. Get the head caught and you don't know how to get the head in it, but the heads caught the thing. The mantra was awesome.

Manto is great. So we spread it and and off the off the dear put yourself in for a metal good job. He didn't know that I was on the other side in the woods. Did he did? You stop and look back at you. You know, it's funny you say that. At the time that we were trying to get it was a fun. It was a new one. It was still it was it was a fun. The mother was probably fifty feet away one, just straight at the woodline, staring and looking at us while we were doing this. And then when her baby

left, then they went off together. So yeah, so she kind of like waited there and it was kind of good old woman fuzzy with that one. He's that woman fuzzy. He's like, mister get the old ship moment? How many? Yes? One? Two? He's got one, two, three? I got three? Here was there four? A whole bottom three? Now there's three, oh ship moments. You ready? Rough, Yeah, I'm ready. Let's get him. Let's get them. Steve reel me in. Set the whole thing up. Steve a good storyteller. I

like it. Do it? Which one you want to do? The uh? Truck one and truck twenty nine? Haven Street? Hey? Oh yeah, Haven Street and Baltimore Street. Yes, so we get Uh. We had multiple dwellings off uh and have in Baltimore Street. I think we had like three dwellings off and we get there, and you're starting to put a knocked down on the fire. So I go to two doors, you know, yeah, two doors down, and to do a search in the twellings on that side. I went by myself and I get inside, and I

get up to the second floor and it smokes pretty thick. It's bank down and I get up there and they got the whole place cut up in two apartments. So I start going along and the battery on my leight goes out. Boom, there's one one thing right there going I'm like shit, So all right, So now I'm feeling around and everything kind of you know, becomes all right. Was I here, and you know, you get this orient and you got this oriented, and so I was not getting panicky,

but I was all concerned. I said, all right, I'm not really moving anywhere. I feel like I'm in the same place I was, you know, you know, thirty seconds ago it was this orient wasn't I wasn't finding my way out. So I kind of stepped back, took a few you know, took some are in I had. I was on my bottle and I get on the I get on the radio and I asked the battanion chief. I said, hey, uh, just I'll let you know. I'm a two doors down up on the second floor. Can you send somebody

over to kind of helped me from my way out? And uh, he said. The tank chief said, Lieutenant, go ahead and activate your past device. So back then, the past devices weren't in a raided in with the SCB as like they are now. Remember I think you might remember, they weren't cut It was on your belt. It was on the cliff and it had like the pool thing and it went off and if you motioned,

if you stop moving for sixty seconds whatever, it will go off. Well, as I was getting out of one truck, it came off the no my god, So I didn't have fucking past device. Lights Murphy man when he shows up, Man, he shows up, I have no light. I look around, I'm going shift and I get back on the radio. I said, I have no pass device. And there was like a tool. There was there was a pause, you know, and the chief and there was a old pause. He said, we'll be able to find you.

Hang tight and so yeah, banged my tool. I did that and you know, created some noise and uh and uh, my ev d Alex Darini. He was Uh, he came and Joe Joe Miller, the first acting guy. They came up and pull me out or you know, system me out and help me get out. Yeah, so uh, in case of beer or something after that. Well, you know you said all these things, you know, the light and then the past device. You're right, Murphy here he came, right, don't we say all the time?

Is like when you're get in that situation, don't be too prideful that you know you don't want to wait, Well, it's too far along where now you don't. Now you have no choice because it's really getting shitty out, you know, And I'm looking at the gauge from a bottom. I'm like, okay, y got time. You know, that's a good way to do it. Hopefully some guys out there they could you know, you could word it delicately like that, so it doesn't sound like you're you got some

time, but help get there, get me out. You want to avenue or do you want to do Northeast Baltimore fire? What was he knew? What was it? The Avenue North? The other one is Northeast Baltimore. That was Pineer Avenue. I was at I was a twenty nine truck and uh we had a report of a fire dwelling. It was a run home and it was into the group. And it was that again two in the morning, one two in the morning in the morning. Everything happened. Nothing

happens good every morning. So we get there. We got coming at the front door or the front door. We had a forst entry where we have heavy smoke coming at the second floor, first floor, and uh, they confirmed that it was a they had a basement fire. So I get four sm entry in. I got forty three engine behind me with the line work, the work, the bar, get the door open and start going in. I immediately start heading up to the second floor, and I got guys

strong ground ladders. I got my driver throwing the aera ladder. So immediately start heading up to the second floor. It's two in the morning, whereas usually everybody at during the morning up in the bedrooms. So I start heading up to the second floor and I get up there and then forty three engine comes in behind me and I'm going to start breaking off search the bedrooms, and I just feel this tremendous amount of heat. I mean it was it's

a tremendous amount of heat. And I looked behind me from the stairway coming up you could just see that rolling flame just coming up your you know, coming right up your ass. And I've got forty three engineaire, I'm like, crack the line, cracked the line. But they cracked the line. No water, they had a dead hydrant and Murphy again, Murphy again. So I'm like fuck, So it's getting tremendously hot. So I turned around the guys with forty three engine. I said, go go, go,

get down, get down the stairs, go go go. So they went ahead and went down the stairs. I was right behind them, like really fast, right behind them, and we started heading back out towards the front door. And what had happened is the first four collapsed into the basement, so that's where that tremendous amount of heat got released as soon as the first floor collapsed in the basement from the basement fire. So forty three engine gets

out. So I'm coming in behind him, coming going for the front door behind him. So the house was a had all hardwood floors, so the shellac that they had on the floors has now become liquid because of the heat. So I go to go out the front door, I'm slipping. I can't get out the front door because of the sillac on the floors. So now I'm falling down into the hole. I'm at the front door and I I'm actually going back. I'm falling back down into the hole, and I'm

like shit. So Chief Campbell was Mike Campbell. He was the tank chief in the side a front of the building and him and Wayne Brubeck for the four engine. They physically came in and just reached in, grabbed my arm and just acting like and pulled me out that step, which, oh, hold on a seconds. Ah, there we go, you go. Look God is on his gate. Buddy's leaving. My mind went back in. See God's good job. I didn't know for it was time. I believe

we're going like this, Steve going like this. I guess he was holding you. Oh my god, I was. And it was just having those guys. It was, you know, lucky that they were able to grab me before I stroll that in there and couldn't find out the the folks were on vacation, so there was nobody inside. Listen, we're making fun of that, but you know, when you're when you're when you're dangling going into

the basement. It's it's when when you're slipping slide you were. It was the Sillac from the damn hardwood floors, and it was in fly Away and we had I think the same one. I had one twenty nine truck another one which one we talked about. Don't these Ultimore fire Northeast Baltimore. That's uh you had like nine lives this guy. But I tell you it was like I said, Murph short and follow me around. And uh so we had fire in the middle of the night and I get up, get forced

entry. I go inside, and I start going up to the second floor to my search. So I get to break I break off to the left. I go into the bedroom to the left and I start my search. Got my tool coming around, you know, right hand to the wall, doing my search, and I'm coming around, coming to the front door so I could go to the next bedroom. And I searched the bed, under the bed, all that stuff and smoke. You can't you can't see anything, and everything's by field, and uh so I get around and I'm sure

I'm going around this room a long time. You know. He was like God, damn. The front door was rap. The door was right there. So I go around again, no door. I'm like, shit, I can't get my way out of here. Where the hell did the door go? So my first acting man, Aaron Edwards, so I kind of called him, like nonchalantantly on the radio. I said, hey, yeah, can you come up on the second floor? Man, get me right. So he comes up on the second floor and you know, I'm banging

my tool and he comes in. He's able to. He got the door and came in, and then after we got out, got the scene cleared up. What had happened was when I went into that bedroom, there was a forty five pound weight bar bench bar that was in the corner of the room. So when I went around and did my search, that bar fell against the door and shut the door. So I couldn't from a way out because that door became shut from the bar, And of course, you know

you can't see anything from you. I'm looking for the window, trying to open the window up with my tool, and uh yeah, So that was another yeah, thanks fucking got murdered. The whole idea is he didn't wait until it was really getting to the point where it's too late. Yeah, that's the key. Yeah, yeah, and you know it. I used to say every once in a while I was in a pickle, I'd be like, Freddy, where are you or whatever? You know, get your ass up the scream. Didn't want to make a big deal. Yeah,

Aaron, I know, Aaron was close by. I know he's plenty of time to scream. We have plenty of time to scream. Steve, what is this? And after all those close calls of fires an old watch deest that took him out of thee thirty six out at thirty Oh yeah, oh my god, yes, so I get uh. So when they went to this twenty four hour shift, twenty four and twenty four off twenty four, so they came up with this what they're called impact days. Have you heard

of them? So they do him like Houston's. So since you get that five days off, they wanted to make up those hours the city does, so they schedule you. You basically worked free to get your hours back up to a full ninety six hour work week in a two week period. So they put an extra day in each month, so it was a it was an impact day. So it was at thirty six engine on West Baltimore. I'm not familiar at all with it. I don't even think I was even

station there at all. Was a fireman. So I get there and we had a call and I get back. It was a car accident. I'm gonna turn out pants and everything on. And I step off and there was a a an old old watch desk, so I had the old concrete floor that was there, but the watch desk was since gone. The walls and you know everything else that went with it. So I step off the wagon and down I went. I cut down crazy and I got up and I was like, and I went to move my shoulder, and I went,

that ain't happening. Ain't happening. And uh he had tour rotator cup, tour rot cuff. You guys, slip slide on your thane lacker. That doesn't do nothing. Tour to watch that that does it? Bro. It was probably pine sole on the floor, so probably put how much slacker did you put on that thing? That was a hell. I'll tell you what that's that's a hell of an injury, pulling, tearing your rodtar. I had that. That's what I had. Yeah, rot partial, I had

a partial and a labor that sucks. Man, it's probably ten months loom something like that. Oh yeah, oh, no doubt about it. It was a year that was finally did you in. No, you know, I recovered from it and the back. Yeah, I went back. Yeah, I was. I was cool. You know, I had kids in college. It was like, okay, you know, I gotta I gotta get back, you know. And uh so I made it back and it was good, real good that somebody on the end of the career. No

one is that. The latter forty nine was while I was a truck one is lieutenant. All right, good, so you're good. So Hollywood came to Baltimore and we had John Travolta, We had Joaquin Phoenix, we had Tim Guinea, and we had a couple of whoa, whoa, whoa was Guinea? What t Guinea? It was Guinea. He was one of the actors. He actually was played the character of the captain went to Bolt to me chief, so so we uh they they brought the crew to Hollywood crew.

They brought him in and they had like Joaquin and a couple of other extras like Tim Guine and all that go through the fire Academy kind of getting, you know, wearing an s c B A because they were going to be wearing s cb as while they were filming. And so they put Joaquin with ten truck and they put Tim Ginn with us at one truck to ride as you know, get some experience, you know, get some firefighting experience,

see how it's done real real time. And so one night, Tim Guiney or not Tim Guiney, Joaquin was going to ride with one truck. So he stayed for like a half hour, and it was about seven o'clock at night and he's like, nah, I'm going back. So they stayed at the Marriotte Inner Harbors where they ever put up. So Tim Guinny, the one actors, said I'm staying with you, Steve. You know,

We'll stayed the whole night. So about midnight, we we catch a fire up off of Greenmount Avenue and we wound up pulling like two or three people out of that house. And Tim Guinny, the guy that was the actor, he woind up helping us pull people out. It was it was pretty pretty weird. So you know, of course whya Que misses this. You know, he's at his hotel room all snuggled and you know whatever. So

we we get downe to fire. We clear a fire scene. So I said, you know what, let's ride down to the Marriotte in a harbor. So it's about like smoke like smoke. So we go back two three to morning. We go down to the Marriotte into harbor. Waquen's up on the tenth floor and so we bang on the door. We kept our turn at gear on. So he opens up the door and uh we go in and tackling, and you know, told him what you know, how much you miss you basically smelled my ship and he missed a rescue and uh yeah,

yeah, I mean that's a that's some job to miss. Holy ship. His face, it was great. It was good time. It was a good time. How was How was John Travolta? Guys want to know how John Travolta was? Man, He was great. John Travolta was great. He very He was great with everybody, very you know friendly. Uh wasn't snobbish at all. You know, want to know about everybody, like, you know, hey, I many kids, you got your personal life,

how long you've been doing the job, you know? He uh, he was great, He was really really good and enjoyed, enjoyed being around him. What the firets did they film that? Out of thirty three and which was on Gorsage Avenue. It's now closed down, but I actually was closed down. Why they were using They used that closed firehouse as the uh as their prop. So they had construction crews go in, get the firehouse up, you know, get it to where they could film and uh yeah,

so that was where they filmed it out. I saw that movie once or twice. I gotta watch that movie again. Yeahs, don't you don't have a cameo in there, do you, Steve No. It's one of the big the big scene they had down at the the Inner Harbor with the the the green silo on fire. They had guys like us running in and out the scene. You got paid over time. And let me tell you, guys, they fed you well. The caterers that come from these Hollywood

uh movie sets. I mean they they feed eighteen wheels there. I mean, whatever you want to stay, shrimp, lobster. I mean it was like, whatever you want, and they paid you well a lot over time. On over time. It was good. You know how many times, how many opportunities you get a chance to do something like that, so not too often, but a movie like that that was pretty iconic too. I mean that's up. Yeah, you know, I mean, yeah, a good movie, very good. So yeah, way quin he was. He

was a good guy. And you know, all the actors were great, great with us. They showed a lot of appreciation when they left. And uh so it was it was good. It was good for the city, good for the fireman, and good for Hollidwood. So that's two things. You gotta watch that. Watch that again at forty nine. And we got to watch him on the year was that two thousand and four? I don't even know it. Yeah, it was after nine to eleven, I think. Yeah. One another picture. Gosh, where's that picture with the no

shirt? Where's that picture? Whoa look at Steve's face. He's like a ship. There's a lot of little birds. Steve sending me stuff. I gotta tell you. With the ovenproproved, I am, I am the other clean. My house is very clean, guys, I wouldn't say so. Man. Yeah, no judgment here, but why just just gonna throw this out the white cleaning with no shirt on? Just I'm curious. It was

hot. I'm going to say it was hot. Yes, Hey, you know that guy that's sitting down, he doesn't look like he has any interest in looking at that stuff. Steak coming out of it. Yes, I was gonna say so, but he might know. Yeah yeah, yeah. One other pictures that I have guns. What was that from moving a car from the scene in an accident and they were tied up and we had to get the medic unit in there, parked on a hydrant. Again, I said, hey, you know, give me your keys on move before the

wanted you wanted to feel how it felt for a second. Yeah, let me just give the guys grid out of his face. He smiled away. Topological indicator right there. Yeah, you got more. Yeah, I got this one. Ah. There's my man right there, that Jason Stevens. He's he he grew up in the Bronx. He's uh, he's a lieutenant in Barniber City. He grew up in what's that Highview Towers? Is that so right off of the university and in the Bronx. Yeah, he uh.

He came to Baltimore when he was about twenty and he was my first actor. That great guy. You know, I love him like a brother. He's uh studied hard. He made lieutenant little over a year ago and he was a fifty two engine and then uh, we kind of timed my retirement to where he had a year in grade at fifty two engine as a lieutenant because he wanted to come back to truck twenty six, and I timed it to where his year came in and then I left and he came at

the spot. Yeah, I tell you what there is that is a great fireman right there. The guy's diamond class and they don't make them any better. Now, look at that definitely there roughie, I've seen a couple of ye there's a two that twenty six. Well that's you know what I wanted to talk. So just uh after you you got we're in truck one as lieutenant for seven years. You went back to twenty nine truck where you were where you first got on the job. What was that like? It was

good, it was you know, going back as an officer. Of course, nobody was there, you know when I was, it was a fireman. So it was good. It was good to get back there. And that's because they were still in grammar school when you were five and there. Yeah, exactly. I te you're older. I'm just telling you. I'm not saying thirty six years. There was a good friend of mine who was a captain there, Captain Gregory. He's a tank chief now, but Captain

Gregory was a captain thereon. He was a good friend of mine and they had a spot come open and he, uh, you know, he asked me, said, hey, you interested about coming back up here? And I was like, yeah, sure, I'll come back up you know. And uh so it was good and that's you know, spent spent many years. There's wear a lot of couple of these incidents with the uh the the old ship moments. Uh yeah, there it was good house. It was a very good house. So why did you transfer to twenty sixth then?

Because he finished from sixteenth to twenty three, which is a decent amount of time. And in twenty sixth truck twenty six truck, it was uh something different. It was a straight truck. It wasn't a tiller truck. It

was a straight truck. So he had kind of like everybody up front, two guys on the step and then your your officer, and then your driver and uh they were getting a brand new truck and had an opportunity there and you know, go a little bit further east, a little bit closer to home, you know, coming off ninety five and uh so, yeah, so it worked at you know, be a little bit closer to home. So it worked out good. I knew at that point that was going to

be my fine. It was a Swan song. Twenty six was going to be the swansong. Twenty six was going to be Swan. Good guys, great guys. I gotta tell you, they treated me well. We had a great cruise, good fireman, Captain Burgette, uh you know, great fireman. Just you know, everybody there. I had had a I was very fortunate to work with great fireman like I did throughout my career. And what made you want to pack it in then, Steve? You know,

the kids were finished college. It was thirty six years and I was turned at sixty, and it was a good time to die. It was it was hard, you know what I mean. Everybody always time they say that, you know, if I would if I would have stayed like another year, year and a half, it would have made maybe forty five hours different. So when on your pension each month it wasn't a whole lot, you know, and uh, you know, it was trying to do something.

It was time to start that next chapter of my life. And my wife was like, you know what, you pulled the tiger's tail a lot of times and yeah, yeah, man, hell yeah again. Yes, now you get up, you make breakfast for the wife. And yeah, that lasted, guys, I gotta tell that lasted about two weeks. I would so I would get there and uh, I would get there and and she my wife works out of the house. She's a nurse, and so she

has an office here set up in the house. So you know, I would get up in the morning knocking the door, Hey what you doing, and she would look at me a glass and drop down. I'm working. About two hours later knocking the door, Hey what you're doing. You want to get coffee? She's like, no, I'm working. I'm like, damn. So about the second third day into that, she goes, you got a job, you got different, you know. And so I had a great I had a great opportunity. Guys, all kindside. I had

a great opportunity. There is a you went back to the supermarket, No, didn't. I wind up? I wind up. Had a couple of guys approached me that that worked for Harbor of Grace. We called home. It's called Harbor Grace. What it is, it's a wellness recovery center for

police and fire and UH first responders. And it was, uh, it was a great opportunity for me to go there and you know works and I kind of, you know, I said to the owner Ken, I was like, you know, what what could I you know, possibly add here?

You know, you know what could I do? And he said, Steve, all your time that you've had in the fire department, all the situations you've been in, and and the way you dealt with different circumstances and events in your life, you know, you can help these young guys out know, and any older guys that come through here and uh, you know that need help, you know, navigating their way through. And so I got a great opportunity. It's the place is awesome. It's a Harbor Grayson.

It's a wellness center and it's uh. People come from all over the country to uh to come there, and uh it's it's a great place. And I'm very fortunate. Yeah, it is. I'm about three days a week, so it's good time. Yea on yourself. Yeah, right, exactly, it's nice. It's it's good time. And uh you torture and your wife. So no, no, no, I'm up out of half. I'm not knocking on the door. And uh oh Jonathan right here he is, Okay, you had you had to grab your last day, my

last day. Isn't that something? It's like, what holy ship you forgot about that? He's like, yeah, oh yeah, a couple of grabs. You can't you can't write this ship. I'm telling you can't write that up. That's incredible. So it was my last day, I mean my physically, I am retiring, my last day. You know, they're talking

about having a dinner for me that night. Well they were having a dinner for you that night, so so they they they, So we get about six thirty in the morning, seven o'clock in the morning, we get a call for an apartment fire up off of Sinclair Lane. And as we were going up the road, you know, communication comes back and says, you

know, companies b vised, we got poor to people trapped. I'm like, all right, so you know, lean over the guys in the back, I said, guys, we've got people trapped, you know, you know, have a shit ready, you know, we got people trapped. And so we get there and it's a three story guarden apartment and we pull up. We don't see much from the front at all, so we make

it up to the second floor. We kicked the door into the second floor apartment and a lot of a lot of smoke, not a lot of fire, a lot of smoke, some heat coming out of the the kitchen area. So I'm prowing in and I see a pair of feet and we had truck third He was in there as well. Uh Sampson. John Sampson from truck thirty UH got in there with me. Actually he got He was the first one to get in, so he crawled in. I crawled in behind him, and you see these pair of feet hanging out the uh the kitchen

area, and so he's down. I was like shit, and John's hollering, you know, the attendant's over here, is over here. So we go to pooling. John picks him up from behind. I get him from you know, underneath the uh you know, his knees. John picks him up from the uh from the front, and his skin just keeps calling up, coming off in John's hands, and I mean he was you know that kind of burn. He's picking him up again, drop him again, pick

him again. So finally we just drugging over to the uh the uh the apartment door, and then uh, Lieutenant Hagley, Vince Hagley helped us grab him down. We took him down to the front lawn. He was not breathing, so we started bagging and we brought him back and the medic unit got him and uh we had him breathing all the way to the hospital. So, yeah, it was grabbed my last day. Crazy, you guys es, No, he was I think he was seventy two years old,

and his whole upper body he had probably a lot of inholation burns. And he was third degree. I mean he was thirty. You guys get the metals for when you make grabs or you guys write each other up. It all depends on the chief, you know. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, you know, most of the time they do. I'm not sure on this one. You know, again, it was my last day, so I guess I'll find out, you know, when they announced metals day.

But yeah, whatever, you know, it's all good and uh no, we had last day, grab crazy, make that ship up and went back and you had some shrimp palms and a couple of tails, right, yes, yeah, they had. I'm a steak spaghetti guy loves spaghetti. They had a spaghetti dinner for me, and uh had invited my family down and there was probably guys, I'll say probably that fifty sixty people showed up the fire house at night. Again. Captain Burkette the cat in there.

He he really put on a show for me and all the guys there. And I was very far. I'm very fortunate to work with such a great crew. And yeah, very very fortunate, Sean to have you on the show here, fella. It was a great Korea. It's a good time. But you know, you learned, like I said, you learned a lot of things on the way. I can tell you a story where I was a sixteen truck and you know, just going showing you know some of the the older you know chiefs, the older guys that were around when I

was, you know, learning the job. That kind of you know, kind of brought me along. We had a chief Maritz, Mike Maritz, and we had a report of a fire on riggs Avenue and Kerry Street. So we get there to wind up being a pot of food. So I was on sixteen truck, but we had to fill in officer. He was from another company somewhere, remember his name. So we had a filling officer. And you know, you always take ladders off the truck, you know, I mean, whether you're going to the front or the rear, ladders

come off. And that was Chief Maritz's big thing. I don't care what you do, you better have at least two ladders off, if not three. So we get there. So the officers saw, you know, first company in the first truck company in ten truck say, you know, it's pot of food. You know, we're going to handle it. One and

one, And so we go to get the ladders. We're taking the ladders to the back and lieutenant that was working that was filling in, he goes, now, now we don't need them, go ahead and throw them back. Throw them back. We don't need him. I was like, okay, you know, boss said put them back. So did that. So Chief Merits and I'll tell you what that guy there, hell of a fireman, I said. His two boys were in the job in the FDNY and he uh, he comes up to lieutenant and he says, lieutenant, what

the what the fuck? Where are my ladders? And he said, well, you know, it was a pot of food. Chief and goes where are my ladders? And he just bringed him in the ass. And he told all the companies to leave after it was done. Everybody leaves sixteen truck, you stay right here. So we took every ladder off the truck and ladder deb building twice, not once, but twice. So we're talking to thirty five foot and thirty foot, twenty four foot, sixteen foot, the

comb ladder. Okay, you know, the attic ladder, the the attic ladder, and the comb ladder. Every ladder, every ladder had to come off that truck, even the little giant you used it like for inside, like a closet or something like that. Every ladder came off that truck. Then he made us put it back on and we're like, okay, you know, I'm embarrassed at this point, and he's like, all right, do it again. Off comes the ladder again. And I like this guy.

He was. He was a hell of farm. He moved wind up, moving up to Manhattan and his boys are or word, did you have to think I know that last name. I definitely know that last somebody just said that they're on the job A great great chief. That was guys I got you learned from, you know, that was guys that and in you know Chief Lego, you know my last battalion chief when I was a twenty

six truck I mean, awesome guy. I worked with him when he was a lieutenant at thirteen truck and uh, you know, just those guys you learned so much for and I was, you know, I was fortunate enough to learn the way that you know that they were teaching, and I was able to you know, pass it on to my guys like Jason Stevens, who's uh, you know, he's an excellent, excellent fireman and uh so

yeah. So if I have anything to say at the end of the day, it's, uh, you know what these guys, you know, got some go some good knowledge that will hopefully carry them through and that they themselves will pass it on. You know. Uh you know Timmy Kletch kid, he's in Baltimore, right, I think no, it was they have oh yes, yes, his sons and Captain Yeah, good guy. His problem was I think a lieutenant rescue three. Does that sound right? Oh?

Yeah, t Carago. He was captain captain to fifty. Okay, he was a captain, and he wound up moving down to the eastern sure Maryland. I met him a few times. Oh that's right, that's where he was going, right right right? Yeah? He uh talking to that guy. I mean I wish I had ten to fifteen hours a day to talk to that guy. I mean, just the wealth of knowledge that We'll go back to the episode that we had him on. You can listen to him

for two hours. Yeah, he was, you know, just sitting there helping at the times that I have met him, and uh yeah, just a wealth of knowledge, you know, just just wealth knowledge. And his his son's a hell of a fireman, health an officer. So he did him pray out, he'll do well, he'll do real well. Steve. There was some one what was the question that Jeff head Pope, Yeah, thank you guns ask him. Uh if he was working there during the freight

train fire under the city that burned a few days. I was that happened in July. It was hot. I remember the hot July day that was probably I can't remember what years in the nineties. No, I was off. I was in vacation at the beach. Nice better than you don't be no freight. I will tell you about that train. Can I tell you this story about that train tunnel. Yeah, this was after the incident with the with the train car in the tunnel, so this was probably maybe a

year or two later. Right, So we get a call for that same train tunnel for smoke in the tunnel. I'm thinking, oh shit, here we go again, you know, here's train tunnel. So we get there. I'm on sixteen truck and we get down. It's like two in the morning and it's a single, single, single company called Just Truck sixteen in the morning again. Yeah, two in the morning, just investigat you know, smoke smoking the tunnel. Right, So we get there and the officers

with us. So we look up and we looked probably about maybe one hundred feet into the tunnel. You could see glowing hate. You can see a glow of fire burning. I'm like, all right, so, uh, we go ahead, we get our tools, get our bottle, we go in. We go in, we start walking in. Next thing, you know, you see this light coming at you. It's getting bigger, bigger, running out of the taxpayer. There's no train there's no train tunnel,

I mean the train tunnel. There's no you have nowhere to really no clearance, yeah, clearance, there's nothing there. So we turn around. Oh ship, So we are running full steam ahead, running out of this train tunnel. Why this train light is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And we were we were able to get out of the tunnel before I would fire

wind up being some some debris or trash that was burning. That's funny, my boy, John Johnson, he says, what I like about this podcast is everyone is always on this podcast is always talking about that guy that helped him through the years of service. Yeah, that's what it's all about.

Man. Yeah, I had I got to listen names here, guys, I mean you know, I had to answer names of course, Uh, Chief Mike Ritz, you know, Rick Lego, Jacksoppo got rest his whole health of fireman, great guy, Jerry Smith health a fireman, he's an e v D. He's a good and of course you heard me mention Paul Novak and uh you know, a great great lieutenant and him and Cole Carter, he was my officer on for truck. You know, just you know, you learn from these guys, and you learned a really good way of

doing it. And and they held you accountable, you know, they it's they held you accountable. And uh so it was good. It was it was fun. It was a good time. What was that other question? Guns? It was they were asking about on the job? Mm hmm uh No, there was well, lieutenant Novak, captain I'm not sure which twenty's talking about. I don't know which captan he's talking about on that one. I know the fib captain retired captain from the rescue. He's retired. He

moved down to Florida. But Paul Novak, he was a lieutenant thirteen engine he was. Guys, I do have one more for you while we're we're not out this last question. Somebody wants to hear about the raccoon around Duncan Dune. Yeah, we had a raccoon. It was rabbit. It was a rabbit raccoon. So we in the morning always made a tradition with the guys, you know, you kind of you know, my thing was in the morning with the guys. You know, you get checked in, you

know, get your stuff together. Everybody you know, has their stuff together, go through the payroll, kind of like morning routine. And then we would always go up to uh Duncan Doughnut took the road, Yeah, just a little us time, you know, coffee, tea, you know whatever. And uh so a lady comes out. We were in the Duncan Donuts. She comes in, she goes, there's a raccoon running around the parking line. So we go out there and it's, uh, it's it's rabbit.

It's got itself up against the wall. It's like rearing itself up like it's going to strike at you. So we, you know, we get a couple of ceiling hawks and we kind of there, we kind of you know, shooting away and the meantime among the film communications calling up, you know, get the animal control here, you know, kind of get this animal out and off the street, because there was like it was like a little shop, little storefront shops right there, and uh so you wind up

running in the woods. So yeah, that's you need old raccoon. Yeah, I think it might be that time for him to part some words of wisdom on our young I think, so, well, you know what time it is, Oh, let's let's do it. It is that time for of the day. Day, all right, I'll see folios. All right, old school tipp of the gay guys. Here we go, Tip of the day. Check your ship, you know, I want to. I say that to uh the guys. Uh, you know, and anybody that's

listening now. You know, check your ship when you get in in the morning. You know, Uh, folks tend to take things for uh. You know that that everything's okay. The night shift before me didn't have any runs. You know, I don't need to check the air mask, I don't need to start the saws. I don't need to check your tool,

the medic you know, those kinds of things. And I got to tell you a few times, you know, I've seen companies, along with myself, have gotten caught to where you know, you go to get the tool, you go to start saw, you go to put your SCBA on, which happened to me. You put it on. We had a fire and it was uh, it was stuck in the free flow position at something very avoidable. If I would have taken a moment and check it, and I usually do, but that morning, I for some reason didn't. Something else

was going on. So yes, so if I had the tip of the day, check your ship, make sure your tools are right, make sure your gears right. You have everything, and check out s C B A man, that is your that is your ticking home. Uh, make sure you check that. I can't I can't emphasize that more. So, yeah, all right, you know it's funny they say that what I I found and it happened to me was I used to just put the bottle on right, shut the bottle off, purchase the mask, and that was it right

right. And then but I never put the mask on all the time I got you know, you get into habits. And then one time, I'm not going to say, but I was working in a different firehouse. Of course guys checked my bottle for me. I watched them checking the brig. But I always checked my bottle, even in the different firehouse, obviously,

And I did the same exact thing. And uh, I had a kick asstra I was first do second alarm, and I went to put the mask on, and there was some type of apparatus in the mask that I couldn't put it forrally to my face. So I had to actually I had to turn it around and use it as it was because it was all part of the face piece, so I had to actually hold it. It was actually like that allegully, and you know, I lost my eyebrows. I came out looking like this microphone and uh, you know, I couldn't do the

job. And it was pretty shitty, you know what I mean, like really scary, like I thought. You know, I actually tried to get a face piece off of one of my My company ended up responding that I tried to get the face piece. Now again, the guy who that was apologized up and down to me. But in the end it was my fault, I mean. And from that time on, from that time on,

get into your case. From that time on, it did matter. I always put the fake the mask on, took a few breaths, made sure it was good, took it off, shut it, purged it, and it was right, you know, put it in a position that I wanted and I knew it was ready to go. You should have done was check your ship, check your shit, shit check your ship. And it's agath alright, God, we gotta do the health and safety tip, please sir, Yes, yes, we do. Let me get the by stand by.

I don't go nowhere, you're ready, Here we go. The First Responder Center for Excellence is a not for profit organization dedicated to protecting the lives and livelihoods of first responders. Their education and research initiatives aim to bring greater awareness and understanding the challenges to the health, safety, and well being of firefighters, EMS, personnel, and other first responders too. They are an

affiliate of the National Fallen Firefighter Foundation. This one's very near and deed to my hot guns. Ready here is the health and safety tip of the day. Firefighter health and wellness is critical to ensuring the safety and effectiveness of firefighters. Do not underestimate the power of sleep. Assistant and adequate sleep helps maintain alertness and cognitive function. I will be cuddly, waterly under my blanket and about fifteen minutes, bros, so nice, That's what I'm saying. All

right, don't forget put that up too. Guns will come out and see me and Louis on the second, third, and fourth of February. You got your little finger guns. There is second through the fourth that's at Colisee and we are in booth one four to two. We have people come by all their laws and heavy hitters come out and see us. We may have Paul Hairshagging out there signing his book. I will let you the next show he's gonna make it and he will be signing his book, one hundred Years

of Vour. Just post up that go fund me. Somebody said this to me. I don't know much about it. I just figured guys could take a look at it. Okay, yeah, I'm good. I'll just get there's something for you in there in the private chat as well. There, hell me pull it up for me. You guys can read it. I don't know if you want to touch on it. It was just what I have, what I did for you guys. I have this and then that was the actual So it's on go fund me. Shoulder the weight for Tim.

Just check it out. I'm not sure exactly what the situation is, but it was sent to me from one of our listeners, so I just wanted to throw it up there. Okay, yeah, I know the thing is, but there was a picture of I don't know if you guys wanted to talk about I'll pull it up really quick. Not a big deal. It was this pick right here there. You go, oh, look at that there go, yeah, Italians Dallion. That's where I first met him at the at the show, the trade show, the well Alan show.

He was with Timmy Klett. Okay, yeah, I think he's he works for Niosh now. I think that's what he's doing, since he knows how to do it. There you go. He's a good, great, great fireman, great leader, just all around great. I mean, you don't make them like chief lay guys. What do we have on Monday? Bro, I didn't even look, you know, off the top of your head. I have so many guys, I know, police so much coming on. I got a lot of big guys coming on. We had a lot

of big shows. The Rescue documentary is coming out. We got some big news possibly coming down to Captain Silvino. Oh, Captain Silvino. Bro Louis he's the real deal. Bro. I love his email Italian something right to eighty three. Got a lot Oh yeah, goals, All right, don't forget to come out and see us booth number one forty two, second third, fourth of February. Come on out. Maybe we might be drinking the booth. Maybe we won't. I don't know. We'll see what happens.

Oh right, guys, great job, man stories. It was, it was, it was. It was a great run. And I wouldn't do it any other way. We do it any and now we have your story for posterity. We got to hear it in the files in the bank, in the can back for the old poop of the back of the Rolodex days. Yeah, then we say not show getting salty. You talk about Rolodex. We men, you Rollodex with the academy. Look at me, funny like, Oh, I just mentioned something the other day about the library,

the Dewey decimal system. My sounds like what draws box? Nothing? No box assignment cards that used to be in the firehouses. Oh yeah, yeah yeah when you relocate. We used to relocate you to get that card. Take your cards. Yeah. Listen, I gotta get into bed because fire in neat sleep. You know what I'm saying, bro, even retired, fire in neat sleep in the can in the can. So we'll see you on Monday night. Thanks for coming on, Steve. Until then, stay

low and go peeps. All right, everybody will see it, the big one. Thanks you. He's gonna see the big one. Saddle up, gentlemen. Sounds like work and ladies. Sorry forgive me. I'm gonna keep our name going. I'm gonna all the ones that you guys have done. Thank you, John Ze. Alright, guys, stay safe, you're next.