Posted: 1/12/2011 5:41:23 PM EDT
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Just curious as to what everyone else thinks when they hear the tone drop from the broadcasters?
This next part is for firefighters, and EMS, maybe even LEOS. What do you guys think and feel when you get the tones dropped? I remember when I first got involved in EMS and FF I immediatley felt adrenaline and it wouldn't stop for a good hour or two after the call. Its crazy in the middle of the night maybe 3am, I hear the tones drop and before I even know whats going on I am dressed and out the door when the info comes over the radio. I don't get the same adrenaline but even if I am dog tired I stay focused and alert for the duration of the call. Its just crazy how the body works. |
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The EBS stuff (which is what I think you're referring to) does nothing for me. As for the fire/EMS tones, I don't get hyper like I used to 15 years ago. If it's a "bad" run, I tend to shut other things out. Yeah EBS I appreciate the verbage I couldn't recall exactly. Yeah I don't know for you but if I hear an MVA my initial thoughts are I wonder if it is someone I know? (Rural small county). I also rehearse what I will be doing. Once on scene its like everything seems clear I don't know if its training kicking in or what but I know exactly what to do. I may not succeed but there really hasn't been a point of inaction in my relatively short career thus far, hoping to keep it that way. |
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Tones use to spike the pulse rate, they still do when the proper sequence goes out indicating something requiring an interesting run list of equipment. Always wrote the run info down on the window of rig, a dry erase marker or grease pencil worked great, in the house we always noted it on a post it that was passed to the apparatus. Getting the thrill years later only indicates a continued love and respect for the response and a continued love for the job. |
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In the USAF our Airfield Emergency/In-Flight Emergency tones would get my heartrate going when they came over the radio. We were in the truck before the end of "ATTENTION ON THE NET, ATTENTION ON THE NET. THIS IS THE MOCC WITH AN IN-FLIGHT EMERGENCY." Later, when I transferred laterally to a different job, I'd still hear the GE/IFE tones go out, and I'd jump up to leave, and then remember I didn't work Crash anymore.  |
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"DAMMIT! I was just getting back to sleep!!!"  I've noted the times in which I am bored as hell nothing to do and just working on homework nothing comes out. While this is normally a good thing as that represents no one dying, or getting hurt. When I do indeed get to bed or get busy we get slammed. I will tell you guys a story. This summer me and another fire fighter were down at the big river and canyon seperaiting my county from the one across the river. The other county was fighting the fire for a week or better and every time they got cats to build fire lines the wind would pick up and it would jump, or another fire would start in another area of the county. Any way we were just waiting for the embers to get to swirling and jump the canyon we were gonna watch to get more firefighters out there when it happened. Well we get toned out for a grass fire, but we had 3 other fire stations go in route. They were close and we were quite far way like 12 miles or so. Anyway they go in route and anyone who has worked in wildland fire knows guys get on scene and start spraying water like crazy. In about 5 minutes you hear, "xxx request tender we are out of water." another guy picks up and is bringing the tender out.We roll out from our fire watch, and we start hauling ass in our wildland truck pry doing about 70 or so, as the fire has shut down a major high way and is rapidly spreading. We pull up on the line of stopped traffic and all of a sudden he swerves left, I have no idea if dispatch heard me or not but I said "Oh fuck, what are you doing." He swerved into the other traffic lane hit the sirens and keeps on trucking. Apparently they shut down traffic and he could see that and I could not, but none the less it was scary. Anyway, it was a pretty crazy fire about 15 trucks, 3 tenders, a bunch of burn farm machinery and about 20 farmers with their trucks with water tanks on the back.
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I was born in 1973, so I grew up in the 80's. I lived in Northeast Philadelphia, but I was close enough to the suburbs that I could hear the callout sirens for the volunteer fire departments in Bensalem. This was in the days before cell phones and beepers. The volunteer departments set off their alert siren to call firefighters to the station. The callout siren sounded just like a classic air raid siren. So I'm a red-blooded, communist hating kid already then I see "The Day After" I proceeded to build a hidey-hole under our basement stairs. Every time I heard the air raid siren, I would run in the house and turn on the TV. The summer between 2nd and 3rd grade, it happened. I was outside playing and heard the siren. I ran into the house and flipped on the TV which was on a local UHF station. The station was right in the middle of an EBS test. The EBS logo was on the screen and the tone was blaring. I froze for the 45 seconds or so until the end of the test until I heard those words. "This was only a test" I was catatonic. I should have grabbed my brother and run for the hidey-hole, but I froze. I was not quite 8 years old.
To this day, EBS tones or tornado sirens give me a nice little adrenalin dump and a nostalgic feeling. |
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Quoted:
I was born in 1973, so I grew up in the 80's. I lived in Northeast Philadelphia, but I was close enough to the suburbs that I could hear the callout sirens for the volunteer fire departments in Bensalem. This was in the days before cell phones and beepers. The volunteer departments set off their alert siren to call firefighters to the station. The callout siren sounded just like a classic air raid siren. So I'm a red-blooded, communist hating kid already then I see "The Day After" I proceeded to build a hidey-hole under our basement stairs. Every time I heard the air raid siren, I would run in the house and turn on the TV. The summer between 2nd and 3rd grade, it happened. I was outside playing and heard the siren. I ran into the house and flipped on the TV which was on a local UHF station. The station was right in the middle of an EBS test. The EBS logo was on the screen and the tone was blaring. I froze for the 45 seconds or so until the end of the test until I heard those words. "This was only a test" I was catatonic. I should have grabbed my brother and run for the hidey-hole, but I froze. I was not quite 8 years old. To this day, EBS tones or tornado sirens give me a nice little adrenalin dump and a nostalgic feeling. When I was younger my town had the oldest working lunch siren in the state of Oregon. It was about 20 feet from my house in the middle of town, and my bedroom was the closest room. I used to hear that fucking thing go off and no understand why I was a little guy and only knew it was loud as hell. When I was older I got my revenge as I helped the city people remove that fucker.
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