Always ready, always waiting

At 7 a.m., the harsh halogen light makes the pale dawn appear black beyond the glass patio door. Empty blue recliners face a blank television screen, and the rich aroma of coffee wafts from the kitchen. A glance out the opposite window, however, reveals what makes this home different from any other: two hulking red fire trucks pointed out two giant garage doors.

It is behind these doors, which look out at the many apartments along Ashland Road, that firefighters of Columbia Fire Station No. 3 spend much of their time on duty. A typical 24-hour shift brings five calls, mostly medical, but the station averages just three calls per day on which they are first responders. Being “second due” or “third due,” in emergency terminology, leaves them waiting outside as backup on many calls, often to depart shortly after arriving. Sometimes they are turned away before they get to the scene.

Despite the routine of anticlimaxes, the firefighters’ days are rarely dull. They do chores at their home base as well as two or more hours of training at Station No. 1. And for the six men of Shift No. 2 – Capt. Billy Hurt, Lt. Will Stafford, Engineers Chris Acton and Eric Pooler, and Firefighters Jesse Cash and Ben Truetken – the daily routine keeps the station maintained and their skills improving. But the heart of the life of the station is camaraderie, which is built and strengthened over cooking, cleaning and training and, most crucially, in life and death situations.

When their shift begins at 7 a.m., they immediately share laughs as they check equipment and prepare the meal plan for the day.

“Who’s going to the store?” Stafford asks. He’s sitting in an office chair he has pulled up to the creaky wooden table in their lounge, which seems to have escaped any remodeling since the station was built in 1966. When he learns the shopper will be Ben Truetken, a new addition to the department who rotates to different stations, his eyes narrow with skepticism. It was Truetken, after all, who had bought just two tiny packages of chicken tenders for the whole shift’s lunch.

No, that was Cash, Capt. Billy Hurt says with a glint in his eye. Hurt, despite being the highest ranking on shift, always rolls up his sleeves and gets right into the dirt when it comes to work and banter.

“I was thinking of your health and well being,” Cash says with mock concern in his thick Missouri twang.

“Well, the problem was that I didn’t have enough chicken that day, so my health was poor, which made my well being even worse,” Stafford says with a smirk as he peers over his glasses at Cash.

The men talk about food a lot and share many meals. On Thanksgiving, they planned to gather for a meal that would be typical for any family — turkey with all the trimmings, sweet potatoes and rolls. And like any family, they tell stories on each other, the kind that never die. Practical jokes become legend, and when the subject of pranks arises, each firefighter has a story to tell.

Stafford has a favorite from the annals of Fire Station No. 3. “They got an old siren off one of the old trucks and mounted it on a board,” he begins, already chuckling. The men put the board with the siren under Cash’s bed, attaching a battery charger and a timer to it. After setting the timer to 2:30 a.m., the pranksters went to sleep. When the timer triggered the siren in the dead of night, everyone remained in bed. Except, of course, for Cash.

As the siren wailed, Cash, the resident rookie, jumped out of bed and yelled, “What is that?” Even after he’d found the light switch, he was too groggy to figure out what was going on.

“He finally flips the light on, and he’s going, ‘What is that, guys?’” Stafford says with a laugh, hunching his shoulders and waving his arms to mimic Cash’s confused flailing.

The men cackle at the story. Sure, it’s like a high school locker room. But it also keeps things light amidst the inevitable heaviness of the work.

Today — a day in October — they sit around cooking and waiting for lunch to be ready for nearly four hours before they hear their station’s pattern of touch-tone phone beeps coming from dispatch over the station’s loudspeaker. They spring from their chairs without hesitation. Even before the warning buzzer sounds, the lounge door is swinging closed behind the men.

A call summary comes out of the printer in the garage giving the address and nature of the call. This time it is medical, so they leave their fireproof garments behind and climb into the truck. Chris Acton, the driver, learns that the call is from Phoenix House, a residential facility for addiction recovery.

Cash asks Acton if he needs directions. Acton says no, he’s got it. He starts the truck, pulls out of the station and switches on the lights and sirens.

Suddenly, people see them.

As they drive down the street honking loudly at each intersection and crosswalk, the firefighters seem unaware of the attention they attract. Cash prepares the equipment he may need without ever noticing among the sea of students the young man who covers his ears and stops to stare wide-eyed as the truck goes by. Stafford sits in the front seat and organizes the paperwork on which he will record what the crew does to help the man who is suffering chest pains at Phoenix House.

When they pull up to the small building on Fifth Street, a Phoenix House employee is waiting to hold the two front doors open for them. The paramedics have not arrived yet, so Cash asks the employee some questions, obviously running through a mental checklist: Did he have a seizure? (Yes). Does he have a history of seizures? (Yes). What is his name? (Jerome).

Soon the paramedics enter with a gurney and take command. Stafford tells one of them what they know, and the firefighters walk back to the truck. This is the routine on many medical calls: Because of the small number of ambulances, one fire truck must respond to each call. If the ambulance can’t respond immediately, or if the situation calls for more hands, they are there. When their work is done, they put away their equipment and head back to the station.

As they drive silently back through campus, they are invisible again. Driving down Rollins, a young man whizzes past on a bicycle and darts in front of the truck to cross the street.

“What are you doing?” Acton exclaims angrily into the rearview mirror, now able to see only the cyclist’s back disappearing from view. Crowds of people cross in front of the truck without looking, oblivious to the fact that the large vehicle can’t stop quickly.

Finally, the truck is home, and with a radio call to dispatch (“Engine three is in house”), the firefighters stow their gear and wash their hands. The smoky scent of barbecue permeates the fire house. Today’s lunch is grilled pork loin, pasta shells and cheese, steamed broccoli and glazed carrots. Dessert will come later in the form of an ice cream cake for a special occasion.

They sit crowded around the old table, but for once the conversation stops. Aside from the occasional catcalls at the “Jerry Springer Show,” a daily must-see at the station, the only sounds are forks on plates, Harold the cross-dresser’s shouts on television, and the sounds of the construction workers at Shurz Residence Hall.

The radio crackles, and some of the men become still as they listen, trying to judge if they will be needed soon. The apprehension does not go away.

“The first couple of months, (the recruits) don’t really sleep,” Hurt says, explaining that the fear of missing an alarm and the anxiety of the job keeps them on edge at first.

Eventually, they will run a “bad call.” It will become a story they won’t laugh about later.

Acton’s almost constant half-smile disappears as he recalls Christmas Day nearly 10 years ago. It was a medical call in Columbia. Roughly 20 family members had gathered for a holiday lunch when the grandfather had a heart attack. The firefighters administered CPR. When the paramedics arrived, the hospital doctor with whom they were speaking instructed them to order the firefighters to stop. The man was dead, and they could do nothing more.

Acton recalls the hope he saw in the family’s eyes as they watched the firefighters work, and how difficult it was for him to stop. He packed up his bags and left the family staring at their grandfather’s body, surrounded by presents spread beneath the Christmas tree. He walked through the snow to the truck, rode back to the station and cried, something he doesn’t do often.

But then of course he went back to work as he always does, as firefighters and police always must. It is just as Hurt says about balancing work and life: “When you’re here, you’re here, and when you’re not, you’re not.”

But holidays are harder than other days, Stafford says, because someone has to be on duty and away from family. Thanksgiving isn’t the worst of them. Christmas is especially hard for firefighters with young children at home. “It’s just something we have to do,” he says.

As the light fades beyond the firehouse doors, the firefighters can sometimes be seen outside, playing basketball or just sitting talking, a couple of them smoking and all of them, always, waiting.