We were turned around. Visibility was non-existent. The thick black smoke was no longer content to remain at the ceiling and pushed persistently down upon our heads. Already hot from battling a blaze in sixty-five pounds of gear, the room was heating up. We needed to get out. Flash-over was imminent. And if we were going to make it home, we needed to navigate this home that we had never entered before and find the door. The problem was, we didn't know if we were in the A-B corner or the C-D corner.
That's when everything became automatic. I reached up to my radio mic clipped to my collar and keyed the radio: "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Units 312 and 317 located on the ground division; further location unknown. Air at 50%. Visibility is poor." I released the mic and listened for Incident Command to acknowledge mayday. As soon as I heard IC confirm my mayday and activate the RIT (Rapid Intervention Team) my partner and I activated the PASS (Personal Alert Safety System) alarms on our air packs so that RIT would be able to locate us. The next thing we did was to feel up and down the hose line in our hands. When my hand hit a coupling, I repeated the saying in my head: "smooth, bump, bump, to the pump." With my gloved hand, I located the smaller diameter portion of the coupling and the two larger portions that would point me in the direction of the pump and thus the safety of the outside.
Following this hose line, my partner and I snaked our way through the house for what seemed to be an eternity but in reality was barely even minutes. At times, as we moved along that hose line, my partner questioned if we were headed in the right direction. But then we would remember all the times we had practiced this procedure and decided to trust our training and have faith that the line in our hands was connected to safety. As we neared the door, we saw the RIT headed our way in their search for us. We canceled our mayday over the radio and crawled out the front door and into the yard.
As I reflected about this incident and the manner in which my partner and I overcame the dire danger of the situation, I was struck by the spiritual application in my life. Just as I and my fellow firefighters regularly train for those times when we might be faced with such an emergency, so I daily train for the way in which I will respond to the spiritual crises in my life. As a firefighter, if during training I practice attempting to find my way out without requesting aid or without using a hose line to guide me out of danger, then, when I'm minutes away from flash-over and adrenaline kicks in and everything becomes automatic, I will be a needless line of duty death statistic. As a Christian, if I respond to the minor crises in my life on my own and refuse to utilize the council given in Scripture, then, when the real storm hits I will not survive. But, if I daily lean upon Christ and His word in every situation, my automatic response in the big trials will be the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment