I was a fireman this weekend

no not in a calendar...

anyway so i thought i'd share this story with all of ya'll because i know you will all appreciate it.

I was riding in my roommate's car, on our way back from golfing. we arrived on our street, and I noticed a GIANT ploom of smoke about 2 streets down. I grab my roomates arm and say "go there!"
we get close enough to observe that it indeed, is a house fire. my roomate parks on the sidewalk, and we both jumped out of the car. bryce (roommate) and i, notice that there is no one here. no spectators yet. no one. bryce looks at me and says "lets do this man" and runs into the house.  I follow about 5 feet behind him on the phone with 911. i give them the address and run into the house.

the smoke was unreal. and i mean unreal. pouring out of the house. literally. I couldn't see a foot in front of my face. the only thing i was able to see was about the last six inches to the ground. i could barely see my shoes. someone bumped into me as i was screaming into the house to see if there was anyone in it. i grab a guy and pull him out of the house. he says there are 3 more people in the house but they know about the fire and should be out any minute. i run back inside and trip on something soft. and i fall onto another soft thing. 2 people! almost unconcious they had made it to the bottom of the stairs. there was absolutely no air to breath at all. me and bryce both grab the people, pull them to their feet, and run out of the house. we then went back in screaming, for the last person. he bumped into bryce feeling along the wall, and bryce pulled him out.

we made sure that the people were absolutely positive there was no one else in the house. by now there were over 70 people outside watching. by the time everyone was out the house was completely engulfed in flames. out the front, and the back windows. it all caught fire so amazingly fast, that like i said, it was unreal.

police, firemen, ambulances hadn't even showed up yet and it was honestly the worst response time i could possibly fathom if i was a victim in an accident.

but looking back it was crazy because everyone in the house was a male ages 26-35, shirtless, tatted up completely, and very, very calm. the first person to come out of the house had a backpack. when i asked him who was in the house he told me while he was packing things into it, and leaving. he said "thanks guys" and left.

the other people we got out needed medical attention but they were breathing. very calm. i speculated they were very, very fucked up. on something.

then i started thinking about how long it took us to get on the first hole golfing. about an hour. i had to chace a ball across the road once. and all that stuff, leading up the the house blowing up when we were right there. and the only people there too. crazy. i saved people's lives on saturday. yet i bitched about waiting for golf. i will no longer think about the short term because everything happens for a reason!

well anyway. we heard the sirens in the distance and we were parked in front of a fire hydrant anyway. people cheered and we moved on with out lives. feeling a lot more solemn tho. i sat in the smell of the fire for the rest of the evening. had a couple beers, okay a few, and i couldn't help but be very proud of myself and my roommate.

the end