August 20, 2009 - Firefighter Fantasy

After another full day of grammar classes, this afternoon we had a voluntary excursion to the local firefighter station. Firefighters being right up there with park rangers in my fantasy life, I figured this would be worth the effort just to see what some Czech firefighters were like. A group of about 20 of us went, including my Czech teacher as a translator for the 2 of us attending from her class. Almost before I knew it, I had been volunteered for them to demonstrate some of their equipment, including a neck brace and an arm and shoulder brace. They then pulled out some sort of pump device, the use of which was not clear to me initially. Fortunately, it turned out to be what they used to inflate the arm/shoulder brace.



Full Restraints

Am I Having Fun?

Then my Czech teacher was strapped down onto an inflatable transport mat and that was pumped up.

The Stretcher

Next one of the firefighters brought over a jacket and helmet for me to try on and model. This started another round of picture taking, including sitting in one of the fire trucks in uniform.

On the Job

Feeling a little entitled by what had already happened, I went over to one of the pump trucks and detached a little of the hose. This led to another volunteer round, as they turned on the hose and let me shoot water at an old bus they use for extinguishing practice. At first the hose was quite managable, but then they turned up the pressure and I actually had to brace myself to keep the hose from throwing me over backwards. After I was done, they let other people try the hose.

The Hose


The Hose, continued

They had a 3 story wooden tower they use to practice ladder climbing from floor to floor, an event for which there are time trial competitions among the Czech firefighters, and one of the four men on duty is the national champion in this event. He "modestly" agreed to show us his skills, which involved running 30 meters with the ladder, using it to ascend a floor, pulling the ladder up to the next floor, climbing another floor and doing the same thing to get to the third floor - a rather amazing event to watch.

The Tower

A few people who were better about heights than me (and not wearing sandals) climbed the ladder to the first floor.

The Group

There were a few group photos taken and some more time for mingling. I also tried something like a balance beam which had a ramp like those going into a chicken house and a beam about 6 inches wide, 20 feet across, and four feet from the ground.

Not a good idea in sandals!

Once I got up there and most of the way across, I was regretting trying it with sandals, but did manage to get down the down ramp without needing the neck brace for real!

It turns out that the men thought that my teacher and I were such fun that they invited us to come back with the rest of our class for another private session during their shift this Sunday! They would like me to teach them American slang. (I will certainly be there if this works out!) The local firefighters also put on a party for the whole Dobruška group which is tomorrow evening and involves grilling, unlimited beer, music, dancing and general rowdiness - the mind reels!

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