GETTIN' SALTY EXPERIENCE PODCAST Ep.220 : MIAMI DADE (RET.) FIRE CHIEF DAVE DOWNEY

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.

Hella, Hella, my pal Rufie and Rosie their anniversary today, anniversary. I think it's twenty six years. Twenty six you see two carriedy eight. Yeah, twenty six years, Bro, amazing. Hope you're having a good time tonight. We got a good filling. We got the guy, the guy, the guy you might know him as a hold on, I beat you to that one.

Yeah, you did, you did. At least it's working now. That's all the master it is.

We got a Florida guy tonight. So Gons thinks that he's you know, the Cats Pajamas down in Florida, But we found a bigger than him. Bro, my friends in the Leatherhead Nation. Good to be here. There he is. He felt he couldn't get he couldn't get hello, couldn't make to get here fast enough. He fell and he bunked his head on the corner of the Yeah.

Right, he was plugging in the the A O. L. Cord.

You know, they said, uh, freak grub, free grub that at the card shock, you know for the bun the clubhouse, the clubhouse, free grubb.

He couldn't the assisted living. I slipped in the tub. When the nurses would give me the spongeban, I.

Hit it on.

Do you have six with your bathers? Just she's in the background. I'm sorry, dear.

We had a hell of a show last week. Man, good, good feedback. Right, did you get to see the whole show?

Hike, I did not yet know the hell listen. That was your job to remind me that Tom van Essen was going to be on. Oh, speaking of I got mom, wake up, wake Up, she always puts on the show. She pulled away. Wake up, Ellie, wake up.

She's I started watching your show, and before I knew it, it was morning time.

We want it now.

I was supposed to am I doing the public service announcement about why I got the bandage on.

That's later on in the show.

Fella, Okay, we'll tell you, we'll tell you, We'll see what we got, you.

Know, we gotta talk about we gotta talk about get we gotta get over to the Salty Wall already for nine to ninety five a month. Give me a little sample what they're gonna get at the Salty Way.

Okay, here we go.

And then he starts climbing up the ladder and he's waving to people as he's going. Now that picture is I think of the earlier test, or an artist version of an earlier test. But that's what that ladder looked like, assembled and up, and then you would start putting the guys up. So there's eight men in all, pretty much like that, stagged along the line of this ladder. And

Oops, whoopsie, And that's it a little tastious enough. We're gonna leave it.

Look I want to hang on it. Look I'm hanglining. I'm dead. That's what happened to that guy. Brother. That's the first time that the city was putting on a little performance for the first aerial ladder. That they had received with an aerial ladder, and don't you know, they went up on that aerial and I'm not gonna say

Telling that they're telling the listeners out there to getting the backyards, dig up the coffee cans with the communion money and a bum mis for money, and.

Let's go for yes, yes, exact yes, nine month right, the cans are rushed in the ground in the backyard, dig up the money and lening out loud.

Nine ninety five months to get all this stuff. You get this FireWire app, you get the SALTI content, look the bills. Okay, we gotta get double D in here.

Oh yeah.

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And we do have another commercial coming up for we're in the midst of I have to voice over the waiting on me. It's my bad. Yeah, so we'll get it out there, all right, So let's do Oh you know what you are, right, bro? It's not Paula Agnes and I'm like, hey, when you're right. All right, let's go up Bermuda Bahama.

You could tell that this guy's retired for sure.

You can tell you from Florida. Hold on.

Ship, I'll be ready.

Here's the outfit coordinator for the Miami Dade fight upontent.

He loves that, laughing his asshole. All right, Well, welcome to the stage everyone, I mean Dave's own retired fire chief, Chief double D Dave down.

Double D in the house. Hello, Hello, welcome to the show there, Chief double D from Florida. Thanks for having met Florida style. You got the fire trucks down there, you got the palm trees. Nice, got it all in a little Mohito ah, little Jamison and ginger Ah. Before we get off on a silly little way, we gotta get patriotic, Yes, sir, 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.

Darren p loves the shirt. Look at that shirt when you you're working your way all the way through the ranks. And the Mammy Date, Mommy Dade Fight Apartment. You get that, You get a mug. You got.

It's a share of mug. Thanks for making it all the way through the chief an apartment for trying out loud. Right, that's it all right, before we get the Chief department, we had to wind it back a little fella. Tell us about where you're from originally or raised in South Florida. Grew up in little city called Laughter Hill in Broward County, so just north of Dade County. So was there like about three houses down there when you what was down there?

A lot of orange groves, a lot of cow pastures, and you know, it's really really grown over the years. But yeah, absolutely, I've seen a lot of change.

Really.

So where were your parents from Florida to a weddy so interesting? My mom is from Canada. In fact, she never became a US citizen. She was a Canadian citizen throughout came down here in fifty eight, I believe met my dad. My dad was grew up in Louisiana but lived in Florida probably since his twenties.

And so that's was a real I knew this would be a hit. I love it's like a lightning rod, this beauty.

He's from Canada too, So you know, you guys got.

There, you go, there, you go Canada. Yeah. Uh so was your data finding or what would you know? Nothing? I had no firefighting in my family. Uh never even thought about it. Uh never. I didn't really know what I was gonna do. And uh I was in high school.

Uh I guess Yeah, buddy of mine saw something in the paper or whatever about this fire explorer program in the town we lived in, later Hill, and uh, let's check it out. And uh literally, like the first day, I mean, I was just hooked.

You know.

I was always in sports growing up, and it just seemed like it was just like sports. You know, there's a locker room, the guys are all breaking each other's balls, You're depending on each other. And I was like, this is what I gotta do, Like this is for me right here that's good. My decision had been made and it just grew from there.

So what year we talking here?

When with the Explorers? Probably the late seventies, seventy eight or so, seventy seven seventy eight.

The pre shows Hank and Chief Double D told him like, hey, you know back of the eighties, Hank was putting the rut of the table book on in seventy nine. Yeah, yeah, falling out their pockets. Did you have any So did you and your buddy do it? Did he wind up being a fireman? Dude? So he never became a fire nah?

I mean he he he went for a little while, but no, he never he never became a fireman. And I was hooked, and uh, you know, fast forwarding, yeah, but not fast forwarding. But I remember when I was promoted a captain. Somebody asked my dad if he was proud, And Dad's proud. I'm relieved that this firefighters thing worked out because you had we'll plan B.

You know some people have that they have no plan A B C.

Chief that I teach my kids plan A plan B execute. That's that if you would ask them some up, your dad, I'd be plan A plan B execute. I tell him that until I'm nauseous. There you go. So far it hasn't worked. He's doing. Think about it though, how many I told you it's to get in the fucking show? Who's fucking into that it's gonna go down? Yeah? What's that is funny? Is it? Is it down now? Or go go get it in quick?

How many guys have had the same story as the Chief where they really didn't have a plan and someone said just take this test or or or it was.

An explorer program.

The thing with the Fire Service is if you give it a shot, of the people give it a shot, love it and and and end up excelling at you know what, at the profession they've chosen.

And that's the same with the Chief.

And like a lot of guys have been and they've hit the chief shrank and they've had great careers, and back when they were eighteen nineteen, they didn't know what they were going to do.

And we had a lot of the old timers come on and say we asked them that question, you know, how did you do a job? Oh? You know, I was sitting on a stupid day and my neighbor from a Coross street came over and just end this application to take this test. I can't tell you how many times people do that.

They say that on the shot countless times on the show.

Yeah, yeah, out, all right, So what's the next step? Is it a volley? Is it paid down there? Yeah?

So, you know, I when I got out of high school, you know, down here, you've got to be a good fire school before you get hired by a fire department, a lot of fire departments. So I went to fire school. I mean back then it was only six weeks and I've been an explorer at Latter Hill, but I moved over to Sunrise, which was a neighboring community, and uh, because they had a training program and a lot of

You know.

And back then they needed two firefighters and they tested two of us. You know, now they need two firefighters. They test five thousand. But so I got on right away.

Wow, so they needed to they tested to you, bet, bro, only you two guys in that tick. Yep, that's it. That's it. So who are these guys that you had mentioned three guys, Marc Celetti, Dave Casey, and Chris.

Yeah, so you know those were the you know, everybody has those those mentors right away, right. So Mark Ciletti was kind of the advisor to the Explorers in Later Hill who went on to become the chief of Department in Latter Hill. Uh, Dave Casey and Chris Nebling were at Sunrise and have become lifelong friends and uh, and they were the advisors. They were the ones that really set the tone.

You know.

They're the ones that you know, taught me how to embrace the fire service and love the tradition and and uh, you know everything about it, you know, and I tried to carry that with me the whole time.

Yeah.

Yeah, so, uh, you know you've got in the on my left hand side is Dave Casey, on my right is Mark Siletti, and on the outside is Chris Neve. So these are really the guys that set my course, uh and helped me, you know established you know, I look back now and things even I did its chief of the Department, and a lot of it came from just stuff I picked up from these guys.

And so there's always that one guy right, it was influential. Yeah, carea you know what I'm saying. Yeah, well, when I was that one guy you gravitate too and he sets you off in a certain direction. I don't want to mention any names here, but you know, in my career there were many more.

Right when I made chief Department, I had twenty five coins made, challenge coins numbered, and I made it a point to give them out to those people that you know, were the reason why I was where I was was today. You know that that I didn't do anything by myself. And did I tell you that I collect challenge coins?

I don't. Yeah, well I might have something for you, maybe maybe when I come down in your free house that you offered to me. There you go, buddy, you can leave a challenge point on the bed. But I like a chocolate you know, yeah pillow. My wife would be like, what the fuck is that? When I give it to you.

You got to look at real closely though, because before I retired, I had four hundred coins made. And uh, I mean it's like a week before my retirement and I sent a picture to a buddy shows it to his wife and she goes, they spelled rescue wrong. R E s q U E in the challenge on this way.

I'm like, that's cana.

So I've got I've got a whole box of those that I give to you know, the foreign visitors.

And then I said something, bro, yeah it would be like design like one of those coins that have to get printeds q A. Yeah. How big was the what your sunrise? How big was Sunrise fight apartment? You got there?

You know back then it was it was a small department, three stations, probably about seventy guys total. You know, everything most everything down here, like we're gonzo is this fire rescue? So it's both fire you know, firefighters and paramedics you do every all the jobs together.

Uh.

So it wasn't a huge department, and you know it was great. It was a lot of young people. I mean you hung out on your days off together and and you know we're all kind of around the same age. And uh you know it was mostly uh mostly a retirement community. Uh and and kind of a residential community, so a lot of em oh yeah, a lot of ms, A lot of retirees you know that come down from your neck out of woods and so but you know,

You know, we look back.

I was actually just talking to Dave Casey and there's ten fire chiefs that came out of Sunrise, that little department. Ten fire chiefs have really included myself across the state. So I don't know what they did, but it was a pretty cool place.

Well, yeah, so you had seventy guys. How many firehouses in Sunrise? There were three three stations, right, and so you had you know, you had an engine each station, a rescue for us, a rescue is an EMS unit and one truck and they ran three on an engine. So I rode the tailboard backstep. You know, there was no jump seats or anything, so you rode the backstep

I remember one of the one station. The station was a drive through, and so the engine pulled out the back. The truck was there, and the rescue was there, and uh so we were we were uh the station was open for voting. It was a voting day, right, so the truck stalls are open, the voting is taking place. We get a call, fire call. So I go out to the back of the engine. I'm putting my pants on and put my coat on. You I purposely want to get everything on before I jump on the truck.

You forgot me.

Sounds like a scene in the back drafty.

Yeah, yeah, he was doing it. Dave was doing it. Doing it.

So what did you catch any work there? At least when you now, you know, a couple couple of apartment fires. I can remember nothing of any significance. You know, the construction here all you know, concrete block and cements of apartmental lives, terra cotta roofs. Yeah, some residential Yeah, yeah, that's it.

And you know a lot of fire alarms things like that, but a lot of ems, A lot, yeah, a lot of ms. And you remember what you were making back in eighty two. I do. I do. When I was going through my files, my first year, I made nine four hundred. Don't spend that all one place. Yeah? What about you, Hank? Do you remember you made your first year in seventy nine? Look, you know I did.

It was on my when you get the print out from you know, Social Security. Uh huh, I want to say, it was like, I don't know, fourteen to fifteen grand.

Right, I just thought, well his, his, Uh what did you say? It was seven thousand or nine thousand, nine thousand. Well that went a lot further down of Florida than it does up in New York, that's for sure. Right.

I remember we had lost a lot of guys to some other departments because we were so underpaid, and the city actually brought in some auditing firm and they actually said you got to pay your firefighters for and so the city came forward with a three year contract of ten percent raised per year ten. So you know, it's amazing how you're life.

Here's the apartment that wasn't Miami at that point, right, No, no, no, Sunrise was just a department, right, you know what I'm saying. I would think the bigger city, you know, I don't know what.

Yeah, they might have been making more than that to start. Oh yeah, not that it was any big number, believe me. No, no, no, I took a pay cut when I left pan Am to become flireman. But you know, no regrets. But yeah, it was you know, civil service. Listen, we all did it because we learned to love it later. But at the time it was a pension and health benefits.

Yeah you know.

But yeah, when they offered the ten, ten and ten, I'll never forget being at a union meeting. And it's amazing how your life changes over the years.

Right.

I'm the young guy a bunch of young guys, and I remember this older guy on the department saying, look, man, instead of taking the full ten, why don't we put more towards our retirement our insurance, because we're paying into the retirement young guys, you know, And of course when we got when we got the raised and I went out and bottom Mustang GT and you.

Know, alastic rookie mistake. Yeah.

And then and then you know, it's funny because my last time as fire chief at Miami Dade, you know, negotiating the last contract I was working on, we were trying to work through some things, and I said, why don't we put some towards insurance retirement?

Like that's bullshit?

And I'm like, you know, my life has come full circle. I think a little different now on the back end.

Yeah, yeah, you had the young guys say, hey, Jeef, shut the funk up, man. Yeah, that's for sure.

We're going We're still going through that with that d n Y right now. Right there's still you know, there's a big court case going on. Yeah yeah, medical insurance trying to change it. So yeah, it's a big deal.

Yeah. I heard the negotiating on the internet to give the retired guys some good internet. You know, man, I got you.

Then, you know what, right, maybe maybe you'll send me an envelope with a few shekels so I can upgrade my WiFi.

I've been saying that for three years.

I'm still waiting.

What's tomorrow. She's not She's not it tomorrow Tuesday. I'm sending an envelope out to you, bro, you're getting there. You can't use that just for the fact that I take that one away from you. Man. H So you go from eighty eight there ninety when you get promoted, Uh, hold on it, yeah, eleven in Cattle City now Miami Gardens. Well yeah, backup. So I was at Sunrise. I left there and oh I did cut that. You go to Metro Date now Miami Date. Yep, Now, how does that work?

So they there was a point of time that they needed firefighter paramedics, and so they off they gave preference to firefighter paramedics, which was unheard of for Miami Dade because usually they just open it up and it's you know, thousands of people apply. And so there was a couple of guys at Sunrise that were familiar. I didn't really know anything about Miami Dade. I knew it was a bigger city, and I knew I was kind of bored

Oh wait, we missed the pot. Wait a minute, we can't go back. We got to go back. That's where you met your wife, right, yeah, five in two she was, she was she had a year seniority on me. So she was saying, I hope she told you to get your ass in that stake, you John Bop. And then she said that she still says that today, get your ass in that sack. That's right, you met her. She was in the same fireounce as you. We were partners. Yeah.

Ring, that's only for the boat, that's only.

You put a halligan on the other side of the ring, that that's the signal.

No, I mean, like I told you, a lot of us used to hang out on our days off. And it's funny because we'd go to bars and I'd be picking out guys for her and she'd be picking out gals for me, and you know, it just this went on for a while and then I don't know, we were the last two left, so we said, let's get married. No, we just we started dating. So which was you know, that was pretty challenging because it was a small place, right, yes, same bunk. You know, we actually had bunk.

Beds there, but.

Yeah, and it was a communal bunk with a.

Big open door. Yeah, no, no, it wasn't.

But yeah, so but you know, we were scared to death right because we didn't know what the city was going to do. They'd never had that before.

You know.

It was funny because my wife was the first female, so they didn't know what to do with a woman.

When she came.

We had to put doors in the bathroom and.

You know what to do with it, right.

Yeah, So then we were going to get married, we had to go see the mayor again because they never had two firefighters married and.

Actually Chuck and Lowry. But then yeah, so that's where I too hot betting. Joel says, Hey, Joel, so she fell for you like a ton of breaks. That's what we're gonna say. We're gonna go Yeah, that's that must be it, right, So you're do anything. And she's like, you gotta have it, man, don't let him fool you.

She she being a very big wig down here too.

Man.

She really thank you for that. She ended. She just retired as a fire chief in the family.

The double pension forget that.

Yeah everywhere, that's what double pension. Man, get my wife in the fire service. That's that's my famous Freddie laf Amina story that I was. I was a chief.

I don't think I was chief of the apartment yet.

And uh she was a chief.

Neither one was chief of the apartment where she was at. And Freddie would come down here during the wintertime and and uh, we're at the dinner house. Yeah, not my house. So we're out to dinner one night, and uh, he goes, bro, I don't want to hurt your ego or anything, but you know, I was at the beach today. I saw a couple of brothers and I said, hey, you know, chief downy, And they said Yeah, she's awesome. I didn't even know who you were, so I said, yeah, she's

Did did the guys in the fire house know you guys are dating? Not for a while, not for a while.

Did you have to listen to them at all? You have to listen to Well, I got another funny story how we got discovered. Uh, oh, we were living together and nobody knew. So down in Key West, they have the same fantasy fest right right around Halloween. It's a craziness crazy. So we decided to get We decided to go down there. And this is whatever, early mid eighties, right, And we decided to go down there, and uh, you know, you're partying all night and it was like a toe

They interviewed us, and here we are sucking Dave and Julie, like are they two together? Let's go what cat's out of the bag? Out out of the bag?

Bro.

I don't know.

I don't know if I told this story, it's it's kind of similar, but not. I don't know. So I met my wife in the fire house. So she was selling double Imagy cameras and meat is to sock. She worked for a company's work say, and then she worked for Honeywell. She worked for a whole bunch of companies. So I literally ran into her and the fight. I was coming up, coming down for a run and she was visiting Hasmat and I knocked the rover right. So

I can't.

After like six months, I'm like, I can't. Well, can I please tell guys I didn't thank you? I have to listen to these assholes. I think Hank was nom kidding, getting kidding, all right, So good thing I didn't missed that spot right over there. So let's go back to Miami Day now. Yeah.

So I went there and started in January of eighty eight. So my class was all firefighter paramedics. We all came from other fire departments and uh, you know great glass and and you know, did our moving around our first probation year. And then right out of probation, I got a signed to Station eleven in Carroll City. It's called Miami Gardens now, it's where Dolphin Stadium is in the Dolphin training camp. Real busy area.

Ten thousand runs a year. Yeah, yeah, so its bus How many units in that state?

That's a rescue again, that's an EMS unit, a rescue, an aeriel and a chief.

I missed it. How many a rescue, an aerial and a chief, So three trucks, So you were on the aerial or the rescue rescue? I was. I was on the rescue, yep, and spent my whole time. Ten thousand runs was between all the companies correct correct?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the rescue did about sixty five hundred of them. It stayed busy, Yeah, which was a shock to me because I left Sunrise and they were running about three thousand calls a year the whole city.

The whole city.

Yeah, my tructure running twice that. At what point we're like, hmm, maybe this wasn't a great idea. As soon as I got there, I loved it.

You know.

The only thing that hit me hard was there was it was definitely older firefighters. So it wasn't that young. Everybody's the same age, and so that was kind of a weird feeling, but it was it was I definitely said I made the right choice.

Somebody that wants to know, was Miami burning back then, like in the eighties, like it was up here.

Just turn the riots, but you know, we would have our we would have fires. But I don't think it's the volume that you guys, and we didn't have that period that you had in the seventies.

Yeah, Chief, let me ask you a question.

It could be a ten part question, but maybe somebody go go in your chief department. But you said you got hired as a member of another department.

YEP.

Did the majority of the hiring back then into into Miami or the Dade County was the guys from other departments putting applications in.

They have their own hiring process like a civil service exam that they made a list or was it both, So they make a list, they hire both.

I even to this day they hire both. So they'll hire certified firefighters and then they'll also hire classes they call non certified that have nothing just a driver's license, and then they put them through all the training. So I know, like when I was chief of department, even when I was chief of training, we would probably do about two classes of certified and one class of non certified, just because it takes so long to make a non certified get them out on the floor. For the certified

How big was Miami Dade now compared how you go?

A lot?

So yeah, So when I left, we had seventy one stations, twenty two hundred firefighters, about three thousand employees I had, and twenty nine So it's a county department. So it covers twenty nine cities in the county and then the unincorporated areas. So there's five cities that have their own department. City of Miami, Miami Beach, High leocorral Gables, and Kiva Skiing and the rest of the cities are covered by

Chief. Do you remember the square mileage because I can't remember what the square mileage is.

Yeah, so it's just about two thousand square miles. So two thousand square miles. Yeah, it's a big it's a big place. It's it's a big place.

So here's Hank's question. Did you guys have a rescue? Well, all rescues did you have a heavy rescue, you did, so we did.

We had we called it a squad, but we had a one heavy rank you and we had three what you would call a squad. We would have three what we would call suppression unit, that's tech rescue. So we had three of those and then the heavy squad, and then we had a HASMAT one has MATT unit, and then five support units. You know a lot of the hasmack calls you can take care with speedy dry and a couple and some putty in a meter, right, so we would be able to put the units across the county.

How long was there has mat in service? Fall? Like, when did they talk? Is?

Has hasmat for us started before before the heavy rescues. Has MATT was in about the mid eighties, is when hazmat started happening here.

And that happened with fdo Y too, Hank, right, what it was at eighty what? Oh? Look at that. That's the that's the squad. That's the heavy rescue. That's the squad. Thank you. That's a mighty big rig. Hey, that's a long rig, right, yeah, I mean that's what that's what the five rescue in New York City. Yeah, I think it's a similar chats. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it.

Looks much longer.

It does look longer to me. I don't know why. It reminds me of that ones that they had right when we became a squad with that whistling terrible that you couldn't even sit in the four sea stay it was so loud, have that rate. I never wrote in that one. I was I was out at them, but yeah, I know they weren't that well liked. No, but that's what it looks like. I mean, they have one of those, and they have what other smaller squads.

So then we and then we have three uh engine companies that are like the squads rescue, So they're they're equipped with for the tech rescue and they have four technicians on there each of their units.

And what do they roll on all working fires? How do they how does it work for them?

They have their they have their response area that they're responsible for, and then they then they have a geographic area that they'd run on any of the tech rescues.

We don't.

We don't send them like you do on a on a working fire as much we're we're structured a little different like we don't have. I always said we have multiple personalities. You know, we have twenty four trucks, but

So so he could act as an engine or a truck. Correct. Yeah, we don't, Yeah, we don't have.

We have, we have we have responsibilities on the fire, but not assigned to the company, if that makes sense, and our rescues, we also use to do a lot of the truck work. In other words, they carry saw as hooks, and.

So guys on the ambulance, well what they're doing then.

They're all they're all firefighters. One of them is an officers. They have an officer and two firefighters. They have all their gear, s c b as and equipment. So they do they do primarily the search, the forcevill entry outside vent stuff like that.

What is it? What is the manning now in Miami Dade for an engine?

So every every engine, every truck has four personnel, so that'd be an officer and three firefighters, and every rescue has three personnel, an officer and two firefighters.

And what about the squads? The squads have an officer and three firefighters.

And what does this carry?

That ahead?

That that is that is an example of the most clanned, destined thing I ever did as a fire chief. That vehicle, Uh, nobody knew what we were buying. So the history behind it. You know, in Miami Dade, we're not smart enough to call a wrecker if we need it for a rescue. We have to wait for a police department police officer to come and say, yep, you got a car pinned underneath that truck, and we'll get.

You a wrecker.

And then we don't know what kind of wrecker's coming. And it was always a source of frustration, especially for our special ops guys, and I could remember in the nineties I worked half the time on the on our helicopter and I remember landing on the expressway. It was a young girl that had plowed underneath a semi. We had to, you know, somehow lift up the semi. Didn't have the equipment that was there, and uh, you know,

Scott.

He goes, we already have a heavy resk.

I said, so how much is it?

What?

So they roll it out.

At a conference here in Florida, our fire conference in January here in Florida, and of course it blows up all over the internet, right and he calls me and he goes, it's a fucking wreckor I go, no, it's not our wrecker, and I said, it's a it's a rescue vehicle, Scott. But we did as a sidebar, we had some issues and Larry had warned me, make sure you get with your your toe industry, your record companies, and let them know you're not going into their business.

And I remember who brings that bonds the squad.

The squad, so we had a guide to the squad. We trained everybody on the squad. I told him we're sending them to every school. They're going to go to Jaredan who built the truck. Uh, They're going to go to crane school. I mean, and these guys were it was unbelievable, right, I mean they were in their class, are picking up fire trucks, They're doing all kinds of stuff. I said, look, if that thing ever flips over, we're screwed.

Uh, I got such a volume for you, such a deal. I got that a million dollars, you know. And what's that? I got a share under a million dollars. No, no, sure do. And I got this shirt.

I'll tell you what. I had this commissioner. You know, they called me out to the commission meeting and said, you know, it was ripping me. You know what, I can't believe. Uh, you know you I'm not going to approve this. I'm not going to author I mean, he was screaming at me the whole time. I'm sitting there, going, we already bought it, so I don't know what you're going to do because it's already paid for and uh so, so uh you know, we just we just uh we

That's the guy you want on your side, bro, little secret.

If I'm not mistaking j Rod, did he not work for us.

I think he did. Yeah, I'm not sure I know. Yeah. Also question from the chat, can you ask Chief if he knows training Lieutenant Alameda at his department? I would hope.

So, Uh, it looks familiar. I don't recognize the spelling, but maybe maybe spelled. I had a lot of guys, you.

Know, we figured that out.

It's like John like to drink, like to.

Drink, only not spelled. You leave the light on it night, Doc. But I told that commissioner and we proved it. Right.

I said, in one year, we're going to save more lives or this truck than any of our ladder trucks because our ladders don't do what your ladders do, right, our setbacks of our buildings and Hank, you've seen it down there. You can't get a ladder up more than a couple of floors.

Uh. That truck has done so much work. It's amazing. It depends off it's success. Well, absolutely, it's a success. All right. So you visicated, so you do this, well you know what I mean.

Actually, that commissioner where that bridge collapse was that commissioner. That was his jurisdiction. So that night he walks up to me and goes now, I see chief, good job.

Anything. I think it was a great purchase. Yeah, yeah, it you know, like I said, other departments don't have challenge. It was worth the money. Oh yeah, yeah, was worth the squeeze to the other. Your other statement, like I do know down there and I have to tell.

You it comes back. He'll tell you.

Tell me when I'm married. You're back. I have to tell you that early shut down. Tell us quick quick if you got sign off, and I'll email this stuff to him. Hurry up.

I still find it hard that large city departments don't use uh, you know, a lot of companies the way we did it.

And I'm not saying it's wrong or right.

It's just very hard when you've done something for so many years and you've kind of written the playbook on it and it's been so successful that other departments don't do it.

And I realized there's a manning issue and all of that.

But it's just, you know, and I get it because they got a lot of friends all over the state and in other states with that kind of manning. Some of them do try to use use the aerial a little a little more to their advantage and ladders and.

I love I'm sure it's good stuff. I gotta tell you all right, look again, it just got forget yeah, just got get your point in quickly.

It's hard, you know, it's hard to believe that the ladder companies aren't used more for.

La now I and if Hank can hear me, I can't agree with them one hundred percent, I think. And what happens is things get missed, right. And the other thing is it puts a lot more stress on those company officers to make sure all those duties get taken care of. Where when you have, you know, people with dedicated assignments, you know that it's going to get done.

They should know what they have to do when they get there.

And that's part of the challenge when you don't have those dedicated units and dedicated positions.

Absolutely, I think we got to turn you into like an auceaneer, Hank, we gotta and we gotta te so go ahead about a lot of company, lot of companies.

Subtitles.

It's not all I can do. I paid for the high speed into that I'm on. Why it's just don't worry that Bundy's coming on Tuesday. Right, All right, let's fast Forwardally, you're promoted to lieutenant ye and you stay at Station eleven where you were yep, across the floor. I right, I go on the area. Yep. You're one of the original members of the Florida Task Force one. Yeah, and you saw a task force that was so tell us you went to a couple of deployments, the hurricanes,

So, I mean just like you know, New York Task Force one part of the FEMOAS system and Florida one is is the same thing, you know, but and ours is contained within within Miami Dade. Yeah, that's from so in the mid nineties, American Airlines came to us said, hey, we're taking over all these routes to Central and South America, and we want to kind of put together a rescue team if there's a colla crash. You know, we're thinking what are we going to do?

You know?

And but you know, we said we're interested and flew out to Dallas and met with them and talked to them, and lo and behold. Two years later, they end up flying a DC ten into a mountain in Colombia and they call us to to help with the recovery, and we sat a I was part of a ten person team that went down there and learned a lot.

You know.

That's uh to climb this mountain every day and and uh, you know we had to be off the mountain at night because they they.

Didn't know how the locals hotels.

Yes, the cartels, Yeah, yeah, they tell us, they tell us trying not to look American. I'm like, you know, yeah, American is uniform would be yeah. So yeah, but it was it was quite an experience and uh, you know, we we assisted there. That was the that was the only deployment we ever did with them.

But that wasn't the plane that had the ya Yo on it right where the hotels were looking for it. Nope, No, that was one that gond was on. I think, right, God, you you're on the Phoma team, then you know the test team we're there.

Well, I don't want to say competitor, but not a competitive All of them now he's t F one and TF two, So we we're neighboring.

Thats got to be to everybody can't be one content. You know, there's twenty eight teams, so they're all over happens We're like right here. Yeah. Yeah, it's like Los Angeles CAL one and CAL two, Los Angeles County, Los Angeles City got you.

We actually had anything in this area. Normally nine time out of ten were going together.

So yeah, yeah, and worked well together, I believe. So you were at Station eleven during a hurricane Andrew, that's the one we guys got your ass kicked down there, right, We got destroyed. Yep, yep, I mean it it leveled us. Yeah, it was.

That was one of the most powerful storms that ever hit the United States, and you know, it really impacted us. We had about two over two hundred of our guys that lost their homes, lost everything, and so one of the unique things about it was we had all these guys coming to help, all these firefighters from all over

Hurricane by you recently with it was flooded out, yeah yeah, north of him, Yeah yeah, arm wasn't. Yeah you got hit. Arma was a few years ago. But MS my cleaning lady, Homestead, that's right. With Andrew, Homestead pretty much got level level level. It wasn't.

And that was really the hurricane where Florida, I guess decided they have to help game and with all the hurricane codes, with the building there.

You go, yep, wow, yep. I mean it's as they've moved my unit down, you know. And it was interesting, right because when the storm, you know, we don't have the prediction we have now. I was on duty the night of the storm, so they're briefing all of us, and we dupped our staffing, we brought other crews in, and we thought it was coming into North Date. I mean, that's where they were showing it the whole time. And I remember the chiefs telling us, hey, look, we get

It was crazy.

I mean it was Our guys did such a good job, you know, you think about you lost all communications, all dispatch, everything, and the guys just basically had to take care of business in their area and did an unbelievable job.

And I don't remember what to take to get back to some sense of normalcy after that. God, I mean it.

I know we were on long shifts. We were doing you know, forty eight on and twenty four off for weeks. I mean it slowly started, I mean rebuilding and everything. You know, it took years, but I can remember probably.

Ten months into it.

You still saw debris piles just three stories high where they'd moved the debris. It took a long time, and but you know, it was it was craziness.

And you know, I remember I, you know, and I was a paramedic, you know. So we ran this one call.

This line worker FB and L worker had been electrocuted and we got there first on the engine or the aerial and we're working on the guy and the rescue shows up and he's burned up pretty bad. And and you know, I was I've always been a pretty good paramedic and know all I'm doing is wearing a T shirt.

You know.

So the guys from I forget where they're from. I think one of them was from Naples. Actually I didn't know who I was.

And so anyhow, I ended up putting the airway in the guy and I started the IV and we handed him off to the rescue. And afterwards, the two guys went, man, I didn't even know you were a paramedic. And I said, I'm not. I said, what I go, I've been watching these guys for years. And this guy went back, He's like, holy shit, you should see what these guys do.

Man, they're not even paramedics. But uh, it was it was craziness.

Uh you know, I mean, but all the support that came in was great, and uh but uh it was it was some crazy times.

Yeah, so you're at a level. But you get a sign to seven, you got to sign there. You wanted to go there. So I wanted to go there. We have a for us, we have a bid system. So I've heard of that before. Yeah.

Yeah, so you basically use seniority. You know, it's not you know, you don't meet anybody. You don't meet the captain or anything. It's just based on seniority. If you have the qualifications and the seniority, you can go to the company. So I always wanted to go to the fifth battalion. It's the busy battalion and and uh so seven was a good opportunity. Are you in that picture that's me on the far left. Yeah, you got the party in the in the back and business in the front.

No, No, there's no bullet there. There was a mullet going on. Maybe it's the light.

I'll like what Let's see what I got here. One other funny story though, right, So, yeah, that's me next to the guy. That's my good friend Yawn from Germany came over and visited. Uh he actually went up on the road we rescue two back in the early nineties. Came over visiting as a kind of an official visit, and we've been friends ever since. But in that other picture you see, you know, I was wearing the radio

So first they made you wear a belt clip and and our original straps were actually horse leads from the feed supply. There were nylon horse leads, and uh, we've seen what New York had, and we're like, hey, they make these leather straps, you know, and that's that's how that they had money down in Miami d We didn't know anything. Now they do money.

Of ridiculous.

I had the money's all up in Naples, bro joke.

So yeah, so I went to seven great, great company, great firefighters, you know, really enjoyed it there and and uh.

All right, so uh you developed a flash of a training program in Palm Beach and then Cols Cols Yeah, yeah, oh well I know that place. That's something that's a real rundown scum shop, gonzo right, no money, Yeah, yeah, they were we were doing some training and Palm each was really leading everybody.

They were really doing all the tech rescue training. A lot of your guys came down given the training back in the nineties when we were training all our USR members and all that, and they they built this flashover and I ended up running the program, and uh, you know, good training, you know, just really I sold it to him as a fire behavior simulator, you know, and and it was good training for for just learning, you know, be able to sit there and watch fire behavior.

That's really what it is.

Yeah, that's really what it is. Yeah, what's that the fire behavior?

You know, don't really flash it because you just kind of watch it, you know.

Talking about his his sales skills because I heard he went on to buy a wrecord later on in his career. That's what we've done as good sales skills, you know. Yeah, no, my my ability to hide things. Ah. So we started teaching a technical rescue too. So you had learned that, you said, the guys up north from coming down and teaching you guys, and you'll pass it on.

Yeah, the brothers down there, and we were also doing the training, you know, all the US our teams were kind of training in the beginning. I remember that was the first time I had met Ray Downey was it was a captain. Then it was in Montgomery County and we were doing some training there with some New York guys and other folks. And yeah, so that that all

I asked him about the pool story at the training center from Mark Hunley the pool.

Yeah, can you tell the story?

Yeah, yeah, I mean when I was you know, we uh in the late nineties, we passed a bond to build more station, headquarters and a training center. We never had our own trainings. We closed our training center in nineteen eighty and so we were using the community college and other places, and.

So we.

Got to be close to my age then. So so.

Anyhow, we unfortunately had a recruit killed in some live fire training in two thousand and three, and so we'd already used the bond money for the stations and the headquarters, but they had never done anything with a training center.

And so fast forward.

I'm chief of training and they finally decide, hey, we got to move forward on this training center. So we

It can't be done. I go, what are you talking about, Like engineers designed this. I go, no, no, you have to.

We can't do anything. Maybe we could do like a porthole or something. This is bullshit, guys, I said, I'll tell you what. Let's go for a ride and they go, what do you where are we going? I said, We're going to go over to the Miami Seaquarium and one YouTube idiots are gonna tell me why shamou can be in a tank. It's a whole blast wall and I can't get a four by eight window. And they said, okay, you get your window. So yeah, the surgery window. And

Right, Yeah? So we take a written test. Yeah, oh and here you go bank he gets his first foray here in special operations.

Yep, okay, so I'm working in special ops and uh, and ultimately took over the task force as we call it, a bureau officer in charge.

So are all of your tests the promotion tests? Are they strictly competitive written? Whether you have to pass the written.

And then you got to go for like an evaluation or anything like that.

Nope, you just you just read a bunch of books, you know, the lieutenants. I think there were eighteen books and uh and uh, you take a written test and however you rank that's back from as at seven. Okay, there no bullet there, uh.

Uh.

And then you know they rank you just based on your score.

That's it. I think a lot of small departments are surrounding you.

They have to go through like a oh yeah, most everybody evaluation, uh, which I mean could be subjective, you know. It's kind of kind of leaves itself open to a little bit of criticism, I guess.

But my agency, it's a it's a written in a practical exam, right.

They shoot scenarios at you, and you gotta you.

Have to per the union contract to actually do what they call a live scenario. So I have to take them out and perform live elements that they would obviously it's a scenario, but I have to put them through the motions, and I have to bring in outside evaluator so they try to eliminate the bias so there's no favoritism kind of things.

Favorite, could you stop making it like you really important?

He ruined it for me, He really ruined.

It for me. I'm like, this is the guy talking about movies. What line he does it? Now? All of a sudden, I got to look at him and somebody who's important. You know, I can't do it.

I'm on a small scale, man, I'm just a training guy.

Yeah, this is the guy who's sitting in my living room scratching his nuts last week, you know, and now I gotta look at him like he's somebody important. You know where the outside evaluators come from? Is there is there a business that provides them, or are they guys or what?

I don't know. I don't remember how many days does it, but it's as far as in Browwood. We'll ask neighboring, neighboring guys that usually worked at the day shift to come out and volunteer. We do it kind of in exchange. And if you help me, then I help you.

And I thought you went down to the home depot and you got a couple of guys sitting there waiting to do something. You want to work to evaluate, you want to evaluate, you.

Want to evaluate. But yeah, if not, then I have to hire people. And then you know, it's but definitely outside people. We try to get people that they don't know within their ranks, within the ranked test.

Mm hm, than Gonzo is really up on it too, man, right, right, Hank?

I mean, man, when you when you you know, when you're used to a certain way and you start talking to guys from all around the country.

There's so many different ways of testing and and.

It's different for the administrator level too. The administrator level, they could just do an interview and you're the guy, and then they could they could pick if they really want to. I mean, but they put put you through the show.

So it doesn't that lead to a little of this still like hey, maybe I'll pick you if you move something like you know what.

The chief.

I think it's more of who you know rather than you know and some of that that that the.

Scuttle has never hurt though, Hank, you know what I mean. Our higher ranks are definitely different than yours. Are not tested, you know, like by department, Battalion chiefs the last tested position, so divisions, assistance, deputy political are appointees New York is on.

There's one more test, is it, deputy chief.

But then all the staff chiefs are all our appointments because you have to take the test the deputy to get there, gotcha, okay, and.

Then it's all you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, So during this point when you're a captain is uh, you get deployed to WTC posted September eleventh, walk us to a little bit of that.

So you know, like everybody, you know, you remember where you were. So we were actually in the Special Ops office, uh, me and the chief and we got a call, uh and he's like, hey, man, turn on the TV.

You know this plane.

So of course, you know, we're watching it, and we see the second plane and we literally, I mean as soon as we saw it, we're like, we're under attack. And you know, back then you got you know, pagers and the phone rings and it's FEMA had activated all the teams. Uh, literally within minutes after that, and so like all the other teams, you know, started assembling. We didn't really know about the Pentagon at that point, but just started assembling the team, mobilizing and uh and got

Uh.

You know, I remember we we had some guys in the overhead team at the Pentagons. On our way up, we stopped at the Pentagon to uh to see what they were doing, because we were we were going to be brought into uh what there's a military base in New Jersey. That's where they held us. Uh Fort Dicks for Dicks, So our orders were to report there were to be held because they had a way of teams already moving in from Massachusetts Pennsylvania. So we were coming in behind them, and uh we held at Fort Dix.

Uh.

It was interesting because where we were all we were sleeping in the second floor of the Javit Center and the whole thing is glass, and so it's like sleeping in an aquarium, you know.

And yeah, uh but uh, you know, it was uh, it was definitely. Yeah.

I think we were talking about it in the pre show, you know, it was. It was definitely a tough one for a lot of us, myself included. You know, this was like you guys, this was very personal. We knew a lot of these guys, and I remember when we first heard that Ray was one of the ones missing, you know, just like that's not possible. You know, We've been trying to get in touch with him. He's got to be running everything, and uh so it it was. It was, uh, you know, a tough one for for

Meisenheimen was from Well, that's.

The name that came to my head. He was a big He wasn't tall, but he was big. Was a tall guy.

But uh, you know, there was some like everything, there's stuff going on, right, I mean, we had some issues with the steel guys and even with fellow firefighters.

You know, what are you doing here?

And you know, trying to just be able to help help each other out. But I know that there was some side stories about I think it was the Texas team that had made some comments in the media that really offended a lot of a lot of the New York firefighters about hey, the cavalry is coming or something, and kind of pissed guys off. And again I didn't know any of this stuff till afterwards, but I remember this guy coming to me coming down from the pile and some of the first U SAR guy he sees,

There, you know. But I was just glad to see anybody. It was so much work there to do. Oh my god. Yah.

Yeah, I was gonna say, Chief if you when you and I spoke briefly down here, you told me a little bit about the tunneling story to J Jones.

Yeah, so you know the weird the weird stories.

Right.

So the area that we were working, we were we were working down into the path train and trying up. I guess it's building one, right, is that?

Uh?

And uh?

I remember because I was kind of a sign working with whatever the FD and Y Chief was in that area. And my guys called me on the radio and they said, hey, we we found this stairwell and there's some gear in here and stuff. Nobody in here and uh, I think it's the B stairwells. I tell the chief and he kind of just chuckles. He goes, he goes, yeah, he goes. You know, the day the towers came down, we had some guys trapped in there and they didn't realize the

How long were you therefore? I think we were there a little over two weeks and then they.

Rolled us out. I remember, I know, Hank, you said you were with Rescue one. I remember we went and visited Rescue one. Obviously they were close by, so they they had rolled us off, and we had like a day and a half, I guess to Demo, and so we made it a point because we had known a lot of the guys from Rescue one, and so we took a few of us and we walked over to the quarters, right, I wasn't.

At that point. I was out of rescue one and I was in charge of the Kevin Coole was in. We were fraid. I was and squad the way the eight Cata Murphy.

Yeah, so I wasn't you know, when when the tow has happened, I was already out of rescue one.

Yeah. Yeah, So I saw Joel just post Yeah, so you know, I remember that, Joel, and you know, so it was and I was we didn't know where any other fire stations were. We knew we're rescued, Joel. Yeah, that's all I got to talk about Engine three. Yeah.

I didn't want to rush you, but I was just trying to show you. Yeah, good man, good Man yep. Uh so yeah, so that was that was kind of ours.

I mean, it was. It was quite an experience and I'm glad I was part of it. Has got it. We could help in our little way that we could help. And how many how many teams responded, Yeah, all of the team. There's twenty eight teams in the country, and all but two were deployed.

Uh Now, I think they sent the team to the Pentagon too. For four of the.

Teams went to the Pentagon.

The rest of them came to New York City and kind of in waves, and I know the teams coming in behind us, they actually had them also doing something as first responders, you know, because you obviously your special ops were decimated and trying to support whatever you guys needed on the special ops side.

I don't know how that worked or anything.

We weren't part of that, but I know they were talking about that with the waves that were coming in behind us, So it.

Was definitely an experience. Now, were you still on the job when the surfside collapse happened?

So the surfside interesting. I was retired, But when I retired, I went to work for the state because one of the jobs I've served in the state of Florida for a long time, we have a state wide emergency response plan where we coordinate like for hurricanes and stuff in your area, coordinate the fire resources and rescue. And I was one of the guys that helped build our USAR

So that I mean, because I was leading into my question, do you feel that the experience you had at the trade set? You know, I mean it was obviously a much smaller scale, but still a building collapse with numerous people trapped or killed. Oh, you feel that that experience helped you coordinate and run the surfside collapse?

Oh, one hundred percent. All all of the responses i'd been to. I remember when I when I first got there, I was talking to one of the chiefs and and you know, again they were kind of in that shock of disaster, right, and they said, listen, we've run the dogs and we're not getting any hits. You know, I think we're going to wrap things up in about an hour. I said, that's what you think. I said, you're going to be here for a month until we hit dirt.

And I was wrong.

We were only there twenty eight days. But again I had a different perspective, right, I had. I had seen their disasters like this and realized, first of all, if not you, then who, and and you know what we had to do. And you know, I'm incredible. You know it's my department, you know, I know all the people, uh and I'm incredibly proud of what they did, especially the first responders. You know, I don't think they got

Of what they did. Stuff. Man, Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I have a little show I do in the morning called a Cup of Joe and Fuego and I played somebody sent me the audio to the serf side. Man, those guys were calm and cool because they weren't going on They were going on a box for something else.

Got so yeah, forget how it came in. It was very non came in and the.

Way they responded very cool. Hey listen, we got a major collapse, hett out. I forget what you guys call it, you know, the technical rescue whatever, it is very cool. No panic, no nothing.

Man.

I was like, wow, I was impressed. So funny story with that, right. So yes, originally it was dispatched as a fire alarm, right, so it just it just went one engine and uh.

I talked to the captain and his driver's driver was one of my rookies, and they had said, look, we get alarms there all the time. It's middle of the night. Servici is not a big city. And as they're turning down the last road they see this cloud. At first they're thinking, holy shit, we got a fire, and then they dispatched a parking garage collapse. So they're literally sitting there while the dispatch is going out, so you could imagine there's all these exploitives flying around in the cap

And they bill hild them. But but the other funny part is he gets his whole size up.

And because it was just a single company response, the dispatcher said you've got to switch to the tactical frequency. So he had to do it all over again. But he did a phenomenal job. I mean he said a few things that put in the motion you know how that goes right? That that made things easier for the next days and weeks to come. Uh he didn't they all did they did?

You know?

Because that collapse had sheared off the stairs and the elevator, so all those people, mostly elderly, had to be taken out over ladders.

Uh.

And fortunately for that building, the building was right up on the road so they could use the aerial ladders. But uh, yeah, it was it was quite an event.

Yep.

Who and this is probably I don't want to say a cynical question, but not towards Miami Day. But you said the guys went in the remaining standing part of the building to make searches and they rescue thirty four people. Did they do that as before a command chief had command of that scene or did the chief let them go in and do what they had to do.

No, the chief for that area was coordinating it before the other senior chiefs arrived. So yes, that was a coordinated effort. But there were people in there calling nine to one one. There were people on their balcony screaming for help, and so they realized we got to get in there. And there was also you know, you're hearing voices from the rubble up underneath there was a two

I mean I applaud the decision. I think it was yeah, we we remember when we raised our right hand. Yeah, we knew it was a hazardous job.

Yep.

And I think, now, don't you know this is not I'm not painting with a broad brush, but I think nowadays some guys are a little gun shy and like, we'll wait until we get built the building engineers here to see whether the building is stable enough to send you guys in or ye. And I mean sometimes you just you know, there's people's lives in the balance, and if the fire department's not getting them, who's coming to get them?

And Hank, You's spot on, you know. And when I talk about this, I was just talking about it the other day. I was teaching in a leadership class and that's exactly what I said. I said, we all raise our right hand. And it's that small percentage where you say, I don't know if I'll ever have to really put my life on the line, but that's what I signed up for, and that's what they did, and they did a great job, right.

And you know that's what I said, I have And thirty four lives was saved absolutely that job.

And like I say, sometimes, you know, even as even as a guy in charge, you know, you got to remember, yes, you know, you don't want to lose any of your members, but you know, I don't want to be explained to somebody, you know.

Why if you know why they saw there. You know, they were on the phone with somebody.

And look the building collapsed, and you got to explain to them why he didn't have anybody trying to rescue them.

I mean, actually, actually one of the apartments they forced in because they checked every apartment, you know, they go into a bedroom and here's a seventy two year old guy, sound asleep, slept through the whole damn thing. They took him out in a tidy whities over the area. How many people did they lose?

Chief? Holy shit? So That's the other thing.

I'm really proud of is that you know, they accounted for every one of the people. I mean literally the last day is when they found the last remain of one of the one of the victims. And that's that's pretty amazing too, right, I mean, is trying to bring closure to these families. Yeah, and uh so incredibly proud.

To be proud, because that's how we operate when it comes to the test force deployment. If we have a list of names, whatever that may be, we're not leaving until we complete that task at least account for some way, some way to check that box or that name that might be missing.

Well, Chief, you said it right when you told that, when you responded when you told that, Chief, but he said, we'll be out here in a couple of hours.

You're not out of there until you yep, yeah, yeah, you're round in.

Then you're be going to be going subterranean. But until every bit of his buildings lifted off, you sit through all of that stuff, you know, especially if there's still one or two bodies on accounted for.

That's what you're doing. Let's shoot forward to two thousand and two. You may of two thousand, you're promoted to battalion chief.

Yep, yeah, that's that's just you know for us, every time you get promoted, did we tell you? We tell everybody. You get the city, the city bid, Carroll City, Florida City, you move all over the county and so just a relief battalion moving around filling vacancies.

So that was that. So August two thousand and three appointed Division Chief now North Operations, responsible for four battalions in the northeast part of the county, primary high rise primary high rise districts as well as residential. Yeah.

Actually that's where Surf Side is, right, so all of our cities along the coast there.

But yeah, so we're organized. We have fourteen battalions.

And then at back when I was there, when I was a division, we had four divisions, so we had a north of Central, the South, and the West. So I had four of the battalions under my division in the northeast. So you know, that was a challenge because some of the very senior chiefs, many of them I had worked for when I was a younger officer and now I'm their boss. But real good officers, and you know, I enjoyed working up in that area.

Right, So how many how many spare miles is that if you have four battalions, is that a large area covered? Now? How much would that?

You know, we're the way we're set up, that area is much more compact than other parts of the county, so our stations are much closer, our battalions are a little smaller in that area. If you get west, you get south, that's when things start getting farther apart. So let's see, each battalion had about four stations, but it is a tight geography.

Had about sixteen to twenty stations. Yeah. Yeah, that's a lot of guys. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. August two thousand and four, you get assigned as chief of EMS, so now you're in charge of all all squads or all EMS then yep.

Yeah, so that's where ours all the training, all the certification for both the paramedics and the E M t s. And uh, you know, at the time, the chief was kind of moving people around to different places.

Uh, And so I got that.

I didn't mind it, but you know, I had kind of come up on the EMS side, but I really kind of had run my course with that. So I'm fortunate you know, if you ever asked me what I wanted to do ultimately in the fire department, it was not to be chief of the department.

I wanted to be chief of training. You know, Well there it is, you says five beside, the chief of training my dream job, that's it. Yeah.

When I interviewed first for division, they go, where do you want to be? And I said, I'd like to be chief of training? And they put me in operations. And the next chief where do you want to be? I said, I like to be training, and they put me in the MS. So finally they put me in training third time. Yeah, you're in College of All Training, all fire training, all and not the EMS side, so we and not the special ops. Special Ops does their

Now do you have like a fire academy too? Is that that training center that you built?

We we didn't, I mean we were, we were building it, but uh that's that's the artist rendering. Uh it's it's a great facility. You know, I wish we had more space. We got ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag.

But always this is a story of all lives. When it comes to training, you want most space.

But but you know, and that the color of the building, you know, I learned was the architects wanted to put the different colors of flames. So that's why you have the orange and yellow the right. So that's when I learned what an architect is, and that's that they're not as they're not smart enough to be an engineer and not feminine enough to be an interior designer.

So I like that get built or was that still just nope, that's fully built. Yeah, so it is fully built.

Now.

Yeah, we actually broke around in uh two thousand and nine and in one year than higher facility was built.

Wow that's pretty big. Yeah yeah, well we grabbed that guy again.

That's one thing in South Florida. I will tell you that they don't mess around when it comes to building ship. It can built in no time.

And one of my goals was, you know a lot of training centers I see you know, they'll have a box and they'll say, okay, let's make pretend this is a house. Well, if you look past the colored building, that that building on the just past that the two story. That's a twenty five hundred square foot house. So it has bedrooms, it has a kitchen, it has a garage. Across from that as a tower. And what we did was we have a high rise side and then we

That you have a hallway.

Uh.

And we have a lot of guarden apartments we call them with terraces. So that's that side.

The other side of that building is flat like an off This building kind of to the left of that is a is a mercantile. We've got a mansard roof. We have three stores.

Uh.

And then we have in the back right corner there is a training prop for our extrication. Uh.

And next to that is a ship, a three deck ship because we do shipboard training. And then a technical rescue area.

Yeah. And on the back back right is the swimming pool there you see. So at the back right area is the swimming pool with the glass window thank you.

Yeah, with the window window was present.

Yeah.

So yeah, that's the that's the that's the facility. Where's that locking right behind our headquarters. So it's in an area called duru Uh. It's kind of west Ade Central West, right across from Trump's Durau Country Club. A.

Yeah, it's a beautiful training center. It is beautiful. Absolutely love it.

It's the best training center ever. But as guys said, you don't have a sub seller. We don't have not too many sellers here in Florida.

If you have a sub cellar, you're in the water. I've ate or sight. Oh look, if I had read to probably I would have saw that already. Yeah.

Yeah, so but I put in there right. I was part of the team. And again, like designing trucks, I brought in guys to help me design this thing. You know, I wasn't going to do it all by myself. There's things I wanted to see. But yeah, but I never got to sit one day in the office. Wait wait, you never got You never got to sit one day in the office.

Are you sure about that? Are you sure about that?

Wait a minute, That's what I was chief. That was what don't give away let the truth get away of a good story about them.

I think better without my shoes on. I sent so many pictures. I didn't know what I sent. He probably hasd some of my baby pictures too. I don't know, so some of your kids.

March tenth, you're pointed to assistant chief. I know you had your dream job. I did. I screwed up.

Yeah, I screwed I got brow beat into taking the interview for it, and lo and behold they give it to me.

So uh uh, you know, I I enjoyed it.

It was areas I wasn't familiar with overseeing fire prevention and logistics. You know, those aren't areas. I was familiar with communications. I mean I told everybody to me. Mega Hurts is a big rent a car I don't know anything about. But I had a lot of smart guys that that helped out a lot.

So you got Jim can't pronounce his last name, le dude. Yeah, everybody has the biggest fans.

Everybody's got the big ass. Yeah. Yeah, those things are great.

Yeah, they move the man. We need them in Florida.

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. I missed the deployment. He deployed Towle. You go to a lot of uh yeah, you went to New Orleans and then you went to Haiti. Yep. Yeah, I went to the earthquake in Haiti. Uh. Yeah, that's the team in Haiti.

Uh.

You know when that earthquake hit. You know, there's two of the twenty eight teams that also work with the State Department, Los Angeles and uh, Virginia.

Uh.

But when they Haiti earthquake, because it's so close to us, you know, we I directed the USAR chief at the time, I told him, you know, let's roster a team. We don't know what's going to happen here, and lo and behold they send us.

Uh. Actually New York was down there too.

It was it was uh, you know, it was it was a It was a great deployment in the sense that and you guys know this, right, how long you train.

Over and over and over again.

And every deployment we've ever been to going back to Oklahoma City, you know, you're doing body recovery, and it was Haiti where we were at actually bringing out survivors. You know, we rescued eleven people one kid, two year old kid eight days buried, and we rescued.

Several of those stories.

Yeah, unbelievable.

There was other teams, not that I don't know the teams off the top of that, would not refuse to go into certain buildings where t F one and TF two decided to go in and actually found another additional I want to say seven individuals that were in the in the market if you remember correctly marketplace, were they?

Oh, were you down there two guns?

No?

I wasn't.

That was before my time.

You're on two are you? Yes? They were there, Yeah, they were there. If you're not first, you last, Ricky Bobby.

I know you're copying that guy's fucking statement in the chat.

Shut it.

Yeah, somebody said in the chat you not first, you'll last, thank you.

But yeah, but you know, I had I had a good moment down there because it was actually the morning after New York had rescued. I think, like this nine year old boy, and uh it was, you know, suns starting to come up up and I was over there were you know, we met every morning, and uh I saw Joe. Joe Downey was their team leader. I was our team leader, and so we had a moment where Joe and I kind of were standing there and I go, you know, I think your dad would be proud man.

Yeah. Bro, Uh and then you do it again. Here we go. This guy can't help get promoted.

You wait, yeah, I'm working on him.

So that was at eleven appointed Chief of Operations, seventy stations, sport, three airports, EMS and special operations. Now the circle is widening. Yeah, well what happened and was our chief somewhat abruptly, uh retired.

There was some change in leadership in the in the in the county and the chief said, up, I think it's time to pull the plug, and uh kind of retired and kind of left us hanging there.

And not left us hanging.

But so the the guy that took over, because we're a strong mayor former government, the guy that became mayor was a former City of Miami fire chief uh and and so he brought in a good friend of his that was a former Miami fire chief, Shorty Bryson, who turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to us.

You know, he was the right guy at the right time.

You know, sometimes you don't want these outsiders, and the guy before him was an outsider and you know, who did a lot of good for us as well. But Shorty was the right guy at the right time. It was definitely the right guy for me. I was starting to be in the dumps, like I didn't feel like I was in sync with anybody else, and so he moved me to operations and we were kind of joined

Here. Somebody told me a long time ago, never take a chief.

Job unless you could leave. And I said, I am not sacrificing anything for this six months. He goes, six months, okay, I can wait just like that. So I really we never talked anymore, and I'll never forget.

It was January.

I was in Philadelphia at a FEMA meeting. I was a national representative. We talked every day. I called him and I I said, hey, you know what today is?

He goes what?

And I said, I said, from here on out, I can tell you to.

Go fuck yourself. And he goes, oh, he said, uh, that's right, that's right. He goes, when do you come back?

And I said Wednesday. He goes, Okay, you're going to meet with the mayor on Thursday. There's a press conference tuesday, and I leave February first, so go fuck yourself and.

You and he wouldn't.

He wouldn't take my call and texting them, Hey, I call my wife and I go, I'm not sure what just happened. And I get back and they dragged me down to the Mayor's office.

And like that on the fire chief. Wow, you know what I think. I think that was probably a great move for your department. I never understand what these departments that bring chiefs in from the outside.

To me, that's that's a slap to the chiefs that are working hard to get up there. And even the guy that's a firefighter who was aspiring to be a chief of department. It's like, why should I bother when they can bring some guy in from East Podum to be chief of the fire apartment.

Yeah, well, I mean that's that's kind of what I was thinking about, right. I didn't know what that was going to mean. And you know, I loved my department, and and you know, sometimes you make sacrifices right for you know, even when I studied for officer right, the old word back in the day was you either work for an asshole or you be an asshole. So I said, all right, well I'll be the asshole.

And that's always great though, hell you fucking everybody. People call me all the time, Hey can you help me? How did your interview go? And I you don't want to know how my interview?

Now?

They know, now they know, right.

So when you got on of the your first GTOG, let's see what was that when you went to Miami, Dad, eighty eight eighty eight. Did you ever think you'd be chief and apartment? Never in a million years, never, never, never wanted to be a chief. Never. No, I mean I, like I said, I I was. I was already involved in teaching, even early on in my career. I love teaching. I felt like I could impact more people in training than anybody else.

I still believe that. Uh and and so that's all I wanted I wanted to be. You know, I took I dabbled in training coming up. I was a recruit instructor for a couple of classes. You know, I just loved it.

And so no, I never I never ever thought about me in the margin. Did any of the other coworkers say, this guy is going to be something some days?

Well, so it's it's funny. I was a rookie. I was only on maybe four months, and and I'm riding Engine nine, and I had a great captain and just a great guy. And I've been on four months. I've been with him maybe a month. And a new chief comes by, a guy named Dave Brooks, who ends up becoming a very good friend of mine. But he was a brand new chief and he's he's bouncing. The regular chief wasn't there that day. So we're all sitting at the table and he looks over and he goes, hey, downey,

Really? And I said, hey, look you joy, Chief. I I just want to get through probation. You know, I'm not looking at anything else.

It was timing in here.

Yeah, hey rock, yeah, very bell. Yeah.

But so I never was able to track down Chief King or a Captain King. But yeah, and Chief Brooks ended up becoming my battalion when I went to Station seven. But you know, one of our great chiefs, and I learned a lot from him.

And but yeah, so.

Somebody saw something. I absolutely didn't see anything.

So let's let's branch off a little to the other side. Where did your wife wind up? She wound up being a chief.

So in Davy, So this town I live in, So we live in. So she she was a lieutenant at Sunrise and she had she had twenty four almost twenty five years at Sunrise and Davy, where we're at, was really exploding, the departments growing, and you know, to your Pointank, they had problems that nobody was eligible to move up. Nobody wanted to move into chiefs positions in the department, and so they had to recruit people from outside and

And I said how many? He said thirty five. He said.

They said that the chief that treats the men most like a men, most like men, is a woman, and they wanted her and he made her chief and she did.

Chief of the department. Yeah, so that was it. I gave up right. I was ahead of her as chief. And you know she had she always had said that she was she chief first. No, I was chief first to be chief. Yeah, she's in Orlando. She probably is, she is, She's still honest. She retired. She retired in February. So she did forty three years.

Forty three years, very very instrumental in the area.

Chief. Just so, yeah, here's the real chief down. Can you kiss some more asks?

Oh?

Chief?

You know what to my point, Chief, is that even you know that that's kind of the same area, like you said, they recruited. You're in Davy, you're in Coral Gables, you're in Lauderdale by the Sea.

You know, it's kind of like you're in that area. You met everybody knows each other.

It's not like they went to say, Wichita, Kansas, right right, you know, And I was like they went to the ghetto of Coral Springs and pulled somebody.

Out of the exactly what the fuck?

Yeah, well, I will say that that's not to say that the chief from which Wichita couldn't do a good job.

It's just that I undertand what you're saying. Yeah, I mean I want to you know that was a big thing. Yeah, absolutely, Why did you interview for chief of Davy guns when you know it was internal?

But I will tell you that that some agencies they have to create or make it very attractive to do those jobs. The culture has changed. Whether you guys realize it or not, the culture is changing the fire service that affecting jobs like that. You know, people don't want to go that higher. They're very happy being the show for or the engineer or a captain retiring. That's it. They don't want to go any higher.

Look at me, bro, you would have to put a stick of dynamite under my ass to blow me out of that seat.

But it's it's getting it's I don't say more of a problem, but it's it's it's a very serious thing. You guys don't want to go much higher, very.

Chief of the female chief of the provin Yet.

You know, you know what they don't want down there, cap They don't want anybody from New York doing any training down there.

I found that. Really.

You think if you had a friend down there, somebody would hook you up. A guy who was a rescue wan ghetto and I think he would help a brother out, you know what I mean?

Yeah, ok, bud.

She was, Yeah, but she was the first female, first female Brower County. And the other funny story or interesting story when she was trying to get on the fire department back in nineteen eighty, she interviewed with Davy and at the time that chief said, we will never hire a female. Ah you well, and you know and you know how the world is round, right they circle. There's a Chamber of Commerce award named after him because.

He passed away. Guess who got it? The world is round? Wow?

Wow, that is great.

Could you help out a brother who's really good at training? Maybe you could hook him up with a couple of games. I'll up got another friend that you know doesn't want to you know, extend a hand. Yeah, I'm sorry, I can definitely do that. I don't know, at least I know I got some friends on the East coast.

Know Hank for my defense. I didn't know Hank was still interested in wanting to come out and have an hour and a half drive.

Want to make it a couple of questions. Are you a chief? Who you?

Oh?

Yeah, you achieved of training? You know what? You guys don't have to talk to a guy who put it thirty years on the f d Y and special lots and get a they've seen it a fight, don't worry about They're.

Good, roomy, contact fires, working them work.

Beat him up too much? That's enough. A couple of lefts, a couple of rights, that's good? Is that good? Hey? Uh god? Do we have time to do the engine three?

Or yeah? Yeah, I was gonna make sure we got it. Don't worry. We aren't going to go without that because I know I'll let no, that's let's do it. So yeah, I'll let me go ahead and pull u up. And all the chiefs on talking about it, Well, we'll pull up.

You have the older one that's got the galleon and stuff in it.

I have that one. There you go. Oh Bobby, baby, you recognize those guys, Yes, I do. So is in the middle.

Right, Bobby Gallion and I'm not sure what the other fellows must be a young chap.

Yeah.

So, you know, like all departments, uh, you know, we wanted to find some way after September eleventh to honor the brothers that made the supreme sacrifice. And as you know, we we we're the land of Green fire trucks. And so the decision at the time by the Chief of the department was to paint one of our trucks. Read who is the chief by the time, Dave Paulis and who ended up becoming the theme administrator. And so actually an O two we dedicated this truck engine three. It's

And it's still in service.

Well so the unit a unit is in service, but over time, you know, you're replacing the engine. So when I became fire chief, we were embarking on some new units. And so there's the new and actually there's one that's replaced that sense, but that's the new big red which one's this one right here.

So it looks like a squadron.

That's Engine three and some things. Just to note, you know, we wanted to continue to honor. So you see that black stripe. So the black stripe has all three hundred and forty three names and oh and then when you hit it with a light, it looks like the memorial. In other words, the names become black and the black becomes white.

Wow.

And uh there's all these little touches. And you see that mural on the side there in the back. That's a picture from a guy, you know, Danny Alfonso.

Right, you get a little bit of picture that we should have got in the back of that picture.

I think the other I'm working on it, leave me alone.

Beat up. You see him. Hey, he's all beat up.

But uh, but when we put that engine in service, and and I did it on September eleventh. Uh that's when Joe Joel came and a couple other retired uh FT and y guys had come down. Joel said, you know, he wanted to be there, and uh so we did a whole ceremony and everything and I was telling him that, Yeah, it did a tour around the country.

In fact, the chief of fd and Y there you go, there you go, that's a shop looking rig man.

Yeah, and so that was by your fd and Y Danny Alfonso, right.

Uh.

Who I learned from Joel was Dennis boheka is the illegitimate child. Uh that he would always come ride rescue one with Dennis.

Really, I've got I say that about Gonzo. But uh, send me those pictures for a cup of joe. Okay, yeah, so I actually sent that to you a while back for a cup of joe. But it never made it, that's it. Uh. But uh yeah, but when it when it was.

Doing its tour, because they debuted this at fd C and then it went on kind of a tour and it went to New York and I remember I don't remember who the chief of department wash but but he had called me and he has said, hey, I love the rig, you know, he goes, I think you could work out a trade.

And I said, well, I've got thirty one green ones. You can have any one of those Miami.

Is that the only red one? Now, that's the only red one. The really and what we ended up doing was making the rescue out of that quarters. Again the medicuteit is also red. It's called Little Red and it is painted up as a salute to the veterans. So, uh so the guy that the station's unbelievable. If you're ever in Day County sending me some stuff, I do, beautiful station. But you know that that engine, just like the heavy rescue, is an example of I had the

That was it. Turn the guys loose. They did it. Unbelievable. They came up with all of that on their own.

You know.

I saw it for the first time like everybody else did at FD. I see and uh and the wrecker the same thing.

I knew what I do.

You know, I had a concept of what I wanted, but I had guys a lot smarter than me that could figure it out. And uh, oh, there you go. There's a little red yep. So uh yeah, so we're proud of that. You know, we're going to maintain that then, but it says down the firehouse, Yeah, well, yeah, the heroes of September eleventh. Uh and then the uh also off to the left in the front of the station, they actually have a piece of the trade center steel that they built their own. And these guys did this

There, souse no, no, no, I was gonna say, get what the program mean?

Yeah, it would not I know, I know, listen, if I start, if I started a fire department, I would never have picked green. But that's what we're known for, right. We've had it for forty years and uh. And the only thing I added to it was the gray roofs. And the reason I did that is chief is because we always when I get up, when I got on, we wore gray uniforms. We were always known as the

Very nice. Somebody asked, why is the engine's to be then eleven league?

You know, I think I don't know how that where that started. It might have been something as simple as in the very beginning that that was the unit being replaced. But they couldn't have picked a better house. I mean, that's one of our traditional houses. You know, when I got on, it literally was a home, right, I mean it had the jalousy doors, and you know, it was one of our original fire stations. And but they couldn't have picked a better place.

What area in Miami is that in?

It's called Tropical Park, so it's Bird Road and uh and basically the Palmetto Expressway. I mean just basically just a little west in south of Miami International Airport.

So you go back and visit the brothers now that you were telling, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, you know I try, because I tell everybody, you know, I miss the clowns.

I just don't miss the circus, right and uh so you know, but I missed the guys. You know, I loved the department and uh, you know, as much as I can see him, I I I tried to. It's it's interesting though, and you know. It was Freddie Alfamina that told me, he goes, when you retire, man, it's just the longer you retired, the more they forget, you know, or you you know, you walk in the station, you don't recognize anybody, and and uh, you know, it gets

I was chief. You know, I stopped at a station one day. I was famous.

The guys called him drive bys. I just show up at a station. I love talking to firefighters. I didn't bring an entourage. I didn't call the chief. I just showed up. And I stopped at a station one day and there was a guy there, a firefighter. He came on with me and we're sitting around. He goes, where are you at these days? And I go, I'm still at headquarters. And I said, hey, you idiots the fire chief. I said, you know what, I don't take it personal. Man.

Ah, that's right. I got to the squad the other day. Was it tuesday? I knew two guys dead, and nobody has one guy I knew and has been That's it. Eric It's amazing right, how fast it is. That's where I'm getting the challenge going. Oh, he's slipping it right in the hand. Brother, there you go. Oh that's one that I don't want.

Kidding.

I also got a handwritten note from Donald Trump, but before presidential stuff, when he bought Doral, I had to have a meeting with him.

Issues. I don't want to let out my political views.

We have another gentleman that he Uh, I'll just share this picture.

With Oh, great guy, I love him. What a shame right after the earth Man. He had a great free and I knew Bobby for so many years.

And and uh, we we've got a guy, Bill gust and he's are firefighters firefighters.

Oh that's the guy.

That's another guy we're trying to get. We're going to get he.

Oh my god, he'd be great. Uh, he would probably be more than one show. But anyhow, we do our annual Metal Day, nothing like yours, but but an award ceremony. And we created a new ward, the Student of the Fire Service, and we named it after Gustin. And so him and Bobby Halton were very close to each other, and so we invited Bobby down and you can you know this is when Bobby was in the midst of

You know.

We spent a couple of days together and uh, you know when they recognized Bill for lifetime achieving at FD I see, you know, Bobby asked me to be there, and you know, Bill and I have always been good friends, and and uh, you know he calls me chief, which makes me so uncomfortable because he's one of my mentors.

Know.

But yeah, so that was that was a great guy. Did you see the show with him? I did? I did. Yeahial skateboarder. Yeah I didn't know that either, with the long hand like yeah, yeah, you going after I see this year? Yeah, I actually just got notified there in election. You know what that means. I was a no one. I was a nobody.

But I actually stopped by your booth one time, and you guys are busy. There was a lot of people there. I just remember Lou going, hey, big Dave, that's all you said.

I bought a hat from you guys, But you doing you know what now you get to come on the boat cruise. Bro.

Yeah, well I'll tell you my New York boat stories. So I'm up ride. I went up to visit.

Uh.

I wanted to visit the training center, your training center when I was you know, we were designing ours. And so I went up to ride, and I was going to ride along with Joe Downey with sock. So it took me to training center, me to chief and stuff, and then he had to go buy the safety chief somewhere in Brooklyn. I guess that's where one of the fireboats are housed.

And uh.

And so the guys are like, hey, man, we're gonna take a ride out.

Go around.

It's like, may it's beautiful to go around the Statue of Liberty. It wasn't the big fireboat. And you want to come And I'm like.

Yeah, sure, that's cool. And Joe's like, yeah, go ahead, man, I'll wait here for you. If I get something, I'll come back and get you. So we go out.

It's beautiful, man, took us around stat Just a beautiful day. I see the guys talking on the radio and everything, and I'm like, what's going on? And they go Marine One's coming out here to pick you up. There's a collapse in Manhattan. The Chief Downy's going to They want you to go to Manhattan and Marine one. I'm like the odds of this man. They're picking me up in a fireboat and I'm a building collapse.

Yeah, well you know who chief, the chief down? You put yourself down, you out. You're not Downy, Downy, I'm looking for Downy. Yeah.

Well a few a few years, my daughters and I did the Father's Day run the family puts on, you know, so we always got a lot of mileage out of that, you know, because the signs always said D C. Downey, right, and my initials are d C.

Downy.

But yeah, I have excellent But now that you're out, are you doing any training or anything to keep your hand in it?

Yeah? There we go. There, we're at the right. Yeah, the kids needless to say, they run a lot better than me. But but everybody needs to caboose.

It's okay.

Yeah.

I do a lot of uh, you know, I wanted to get back to the fire service. I know we have a young fire service and and so I do a lot of leadership training.

You know.

I was just in North or Central Florida, the last two days. I do like a depends what they want. I did an eight hour leadership class and just I told him, Look, I'm no expert, but I've made so many mistakes.

I want to help people learn from those. So I do a lot of that.

And and the company I work for, we do a lot of uh leadership coaching and working with officers. I work with Gonzo, you know, I work with people all over the country. You know, I feel like a therapist. Sometimes I don't tell them anything they don't.

Know, you know, I just reaffirm it. Right, if you weren't doing that, you'd be climbing the walls.

Oh yeah, I I had, you know, I had. The Fire Service is literally my whole life. I have nothing else. I mean, I I love scuba diving. I do underwater photography. That's my piece.

Uh yeah. But besides that, you know, I don't play golf, I don't have a wood shop.

I mean, I have to do something. And I love the fire Service and I still love talking to firefighters. I love visiting fire stations.

And yeah, like you said, you know, your dream job was chief of Training, And I mean, I'm out of it for so long, but I to me, it still gives me some self worth when I go out and I talk to these young guys and they love it because I mean, they there's no shortage of questions, and it can be anything from fire house life, how they hire, how did they transfer, or what would what would the tactics or procedures for this and to me, if there's if there were young people that want to, you know,

When you go by. God's all right some of them, but you know you're right. I mean one of the things, you know, when I.

Had to deal with six suicides in eighteen months of some of our members, and a few of them were retirees, and you know, we were really trying to figure out what can we do to try to keep guys connected, and we actually created what we call the Reserve program. And in Florida, you know, if I keep your name on the books, it maintains your fire certificate. You'll never use it again. But Jesus, you know I've had it for forty years. I don't want to give it up.

You can. We give you a polo shirt. I'm a reserve.

And if you want to come in and teach a class you want to, you know, you can't ride the truck. But like I'll encourage a lot of the senior members. Hey, stop by the station, give them the history of Station three, give them the history of this battalion. You know, let these guys know where you came from. And we also, you know, we do all these recruit awards, you know, Outstanding Recruit and athletic and all this. We added a

I said, it's like, you know, now that I'm retiring, I even missed the guys.

I didn't like. Absolutely, anybody wants a guy with a welcome knowledge, a living legend. Call on Senior Dude Coobs podcast at gmail dot com. If you want to train at your fire house. Absolutely, that's what I'm saying. Put put my email up, ask a question. That's it. Put my banner up. Come on before I do it. They let me teach my Jose. Was that you went and taught by Jose? Didn't you?

Uh?

At the Orange County they have right, Yeah, they do some uh training every year in memory of one.

Again he's a good guy, Jose, he really is. Yeah. I got that to the guys in Orlando.

Actually what was his what's his fiance's name?

Uh, you got to get you know what time? The times that time, the old old old tip of the day.

All right, Well, you know I don't I watch a lot of your shows, but I don't see all of them. Hopefully this isn't being repeated, but I wanted to do something for the new people and something.

For for leadership.

So for for those new firefighters out there, those firing ones. You know what I what I when I got on the job. You know, when you go through training, you're familiar with your ups, right, push ups and pull ups and sit ups. But when you get on the floor, you know, remember four other ups. Shut up and listen up, and take the time to listen to those senior members and learn from those senior members, and spend less time talking.

So that's what I got. I like it, like it. I like to push up.

A shirt.

We have so many, we'd have so many recruit graduations. Again, my finance guy used to laugh about it because I always you I would throw the ups in and the other one would be the bacon and egg breakfast.

Right, you've heard that one. Tell everybody.

Look, if you're familiar with the bacon and egg breakfast, right, I want to know which one?

Are you? Right? The egg made a contribution, but the pig made a commitment. That's another problem. And then the last one, I tell it the promotion. Right.

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable, and wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad.

That's it. I'm done, all right, great job. We got one more thing to do. We need to explain why Hank's got a bad date on his farm.

Oh yes, we give me twenty twenty four seconds.

Here we got twenty five.

The First Responders Center for Excellence is it 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.

So Tody Tonight's old school health and safety tip is brought to you by he well Light.

Okay, well, we know that they're always preaching, and it's good preaching. We need to take care of ourselves. Nobody else is going to do that. Get checked out for a lot of things. You know, we go for our World Trade Center medicals. You should be going for your annual physicals. And as firefighters, we know that we have a higher incidence of many things, cancers and different illnesses

And it doesn't just happen to Floridians. I know, well, you're in Florida. I just read a study where I think, if you look at it, this is where the face you know, when you're wearing your face piece, where the seal is, well.

That's up against your skin and there's carcynergy of sweating and you know, the whatever is in that atmosphere, you know, the burn, the combustible products or up against your skin. So you know, who knows it could have been from having a mask on for thirty years, you know. But the thing is, if you don't get tested, you don't know about it. And skin cancer can definitely kill you. So that's just one of the many things that you need to get checked out.

Fairly. Detection seen, you, dude, that is correct early detection. Great job, great job by you tonight. Chief double date.

Double they're not double date, you know, trying to be respectful.

Yes, we have nine to eleven fastly approaching. Jose's coming up with Agnes. I don't know if Gondo's coming up. He's on the fence right now now. But as you know, everybody's welcome to the squad to eighty eight. Uh, come in and pay respects with us, and then we go back to the watering hole afterwards. Squad's watering hole. So, uh, you're all welcome, Yes, all right, and that's all I got. What do we got? We have a show on Thursday night. We have somebody but.

Don't forget we have the fire Marshal. I want to say, was it the George?

Oh, I'm sorry, we have a line of duty death. You're right, Gons, thank you.

I'm in the process of loading his photo right now.

So okay, good job. Say look, you redeem yourself tonight. I will break your balls.

Any be'st bullshit, you know, minutes at least for the last part of the show. So all right, mister George Nider, here you go. Unfortunately I don't have the details as far as it's passing. But after twenty two years of service.

Twenty two years service. I think he was a fire marshal.

He was the fire Marshal supervising marshall.

Bring him the five bells.

God rest in peace, my brother.

Yes, Chief, double date. I'll see you on the boat. Cruise Brother, I'll see you in the first Yeah, I'll be there. Oh we got you now, man. We're taking out for dinner. Numble louis giving you the Hey. How you doing?

You know what I mean?

How you doing that?

Big day? Oh, Chiefs, double day. Let's go there we go, senior dude. A great time, guys, Thanks so much, pleasure meeting your chief. You had a great career. Thank you all my buddies out there and leave the head nation. Glad to be with you tonight. Stay safe, excellent, good gods.

Hey, and I remind me date. I want you guys to roll heavy, you know.

You know what.

I stay low and go bro let it blow baby, all right, good night, guys, We'll see you night.