Staying Safe: Life as a Firefighter's Wife

There's a noise I've grown to hate -- the sound of my husband's pager going off. Not only is it deafeningly loud, it's obnoxious-sounding, and it usually triggers a truly frightening response in him. You see, my husband is a volunteer firefighter. Oh, I'm proud of him all right. But it's not always easy.

His pager goes off at all hours of the day and night. It doesn't matter if the entire family is in the van headed towards the grocery, if it's a structure fire, he's responding. Sitting down to our evening meal? Dinner can wait - the pager's his priority. Nine times out of ten, it's an alarm going off. And nine times out of those ten, it's a false alarm. Someone has forgotten to replace the batteries in their smoke detector, their carbon monoxide detector is malfunctioning, or they've left something to burn on the stove. In slightly more serious cases, it's dry cooking, where someone has left an empty pan on a hot burner. Sometimes it's a malfunctioning furnace.

Less frequently, it's a car accident. You really have no idea how many horrific ways a car can be mangled until you know someone working in the emergency services. Cars can bounce off trees, end up on their sides on a guardrail, be crushed with their trunk under their hood, smashed like a tin can. Some car accidents to which he's paged are mere fender benders, occurring when it's a bit rainy or a bit windy or a bit snowy or a bit icy. People driving too fast for conditions or not paying enough attention to what they are doing. More often, though, these car accidents are caused by idiots who drink and drive. I don't really care what the law is, if you've had even one drink, you need to think twice about driving. It's not only your life you are risking - it's everyone else's out there as well. As well as the first responders who have to stand along the side of the road while trying to extricate you from your vehicle.