Seconds to Spare is an exploration and intimate discussion on emergency services members, their trainings, hopes, and expectations when serving the community. Seconds to Spare shares riveting first hand accounts of the best and worse moments in an emergency carrier. I am you host Alex Fernandez.
TRANSCRIPTION:
{Music Open (:03) and under voiceover}
Elmer Bustillo
I remember man, through the fire, like trying to push through it, you know, and I couldn’t. And I tried three times. And it was, it was a no go.
Alex Fernandez
Elmer Bustillo is an 8-year career on-call firefighter at Alexandria VA station 209. He also volunteers at Dale City VA at fire stations 10 and 13 on weekends. On Aug. 11, 2019, Bustillo experienced one of those fires that changed his life. A call came into Station 10 about a fire with a person possibly trapped in a basement. Hello, this is Alexander Fernandez. In this episode, we discuss firefighting. Using information from firsthand experiences. To try and understand what it takes to be a firefighter and save lives.
Alex Fernandez
Okay, what was the most memorable fire that you’ve ever been a part of?
Elmer Bustillo
Wow. Man. August 11, 2019 was actually one of the most memorable fire I ran. I want to say because that day, we’re going to rescue company that day, started rolling out the moment we made a right out of the firehouse, the driver, the chauffeur was like, ‘oh, shhhh,’ you know, he said, you know the other word. And uh, he, he was like, ‘let’s go,’ you know, and it’s time everybody, like, looked down and it was like we could look from from afar that you can see the smoke. The dispatch came back and said, you know, ‘we’ve got multiple callers,’ you know, saying something on the verge of, ‘one person possibly trapped in the basement.’ And in that moment, game on. This is what you trained for. From the moment we made that left, you could definitely see it was three units off, right from the end unit to the other two. And we entered the end unit, because we’re, you know, that’s where they told where possibly somebody was trapped. And I remember man, I will never forget it. I remember like it was yesterday, you know, you walk in, the moment you walk in, pitch black, heated black smoke, you know, and you get low, and I closed the door right behind me. And, um, me and my officer were in voice contact. I was like, ‘hey’, you know, like ‘Sarge, I’m gonna go down. And I’m gonna come back up to do you do the search, alright?’ So I’m gonna go down and do the search, through the steps of the steps, there was like opening and each step. So I remember going down, you can, and I made a right and then went down again, you can see like, his his foot going back up, was the primary search to make sure that there was no nobody there. So once we were done with that, we came back up. And in that moment, I remember coming when I was making my way back up, I could see the glow and how different fire turn and how different conditions change rapidly. Like, in a way, I was like, ‘oh, yeah, this is just as hot, very hot. Alright, it’s getting hot. It’s very hot.’
Alex Fernandez
You know its fireproof, and
Elmer Bustillo
It’s fireproof to a certain extent, that doesn’t mean that, you know, you still can’t get burned. I remember man, through the fire, like trying to push through it, you know, and I couldn’t. And I tried three times. And it was, it was a no go. And when the third, after my third attempt, you know, and I was like, ‘Man.’ I remember, I felt like a tap on my shoulder. Like, my officer was like, ‘Yo, we gotta back out,’ you know,
Alex Fernandez
And you can’t see anything at this point, like it’s all black?
Elmer Bustillo
He oriented us because he knew he knew where we were. I mean, we were voice contact, we can see each other, like, for the most part, we can see each other. Like when we got low, right. But like, because the smoke was, you know, rising up and stuff. I remember clearly man, like when I was backing out with with him, you know, I asked him like, ‘Why we backed out?’ He was pointing, ‘he was up there. He’s up there,’ and I am me. Like, I will be thinking like, that’s a victim, and why we’re backing out? They didn’t know that our person who was going to be rescued that day was our own person. You know, our own people, you know, especially on my crew, when he when he said he was up there. The outside crew, they did their job. He threw ladders. He said he said the ladder where we’re supposed to be in my fire cam, you can really see vividly where you can see, the guy inside trying to break the window, rght? He he’s a stocky dude. short guy, but he’s not a small guy, right? Stocky dude, he was hitting that window hard. And it was just bowing. Like, it was like, just bowing and it wasn’t breaking. And we was like, ‘What the heck, you know, he kind of, what he did was he’s like baseball swing it, like, hit it so hard where it broke. And in that moment, you know? Ahhhh, how do I put this man? When he came out, man, I knew when I saw it was my guy. I know that moment. I was like, ‘Oh Snap!’ like that’s my guy. You know, like, we got up in the ladder got up in the ladder, quick as possible. And like, you know, but I heal the ladder from my guy because he was up there already. And they both came down on the ladder. And in that moment, you know, I was like, wow, like we almost had an EMS on our end hearing the intense experience and how he dealt with it when he was in there. You know? You know, in a way man, like it hit home you know? Because it was almost a near miss the fire was like literally getting him. I mean, he got transported in MedStar. He got cleared that same day, but you know, thank God it wasn’t a severe burn. But, you know, he, you know, in that moment, you know, that was one of the fires that I thought the most I was like man, like, you always hear these stories like these NIOSH reports, these, you know, near miss calls or, you know, line line of duty deaths and stuff like that, where guys don’t make it out. Right? And thank God that day that he did.
Alex Fernandez
And how do you leave a building? As opposed to when you come in? I mean, the fire is clearly taking damage to the structure, so.
Elmer Bustillo
So that’s why you got to understand the layout of the building. So you don’t you can’t see from inside. But when you’re feeling these things, and you’re orienting yourself from doing a left hand search or a right hand search, you got to understand the way you came in. And you did a right hand search is the way you’re gonna come out. So let’s say I did a right hand search, right? And I went all right, and I’m like, ‘Oh, shit, I gotta back out.’ Right. Now just turn back around and do a left hand search to the area where I was doing the right hand search. And it will lead me back to the area where I just came from, right so.
Alex Fernandez
Bustillo worked construction prior to becoming a firefighter. He says both jobs required physical fitness. But firefighting was far more laborious. So what was more physically demanding for you?
Elmer Bustillo
Firefighting, because you have to literally work every part of your body when you’re working. For example, in fire school they teach you how to become a firefighter, the whole nine yards in how to stretch a line, throw ladders, do searches, do fa-firefighter bailouts, do firefighter removal, where firefighter removal is kind of one of the hardest things because depending on the type of person’s size, it would definitely dictate whether or not you’re going to be able to or you might need assistance. So it can be somebody that weighs 185 pounds, but when they’re in full gear, they’ll be anywhere close to 260 to 290 full gear. If you’re unconscious, like anybody knows that’s dead weight.
Alex Fernandez
When a firefighter becomes the victim, Bustillo explains two things occur: An activation of their Emergency Activation button, which distributes an SOS signal to the firefighters on call and the use of SCBA oxygen tanks which aid against oxygen deficiency. What happens when a firefighter, you know, becomes the victim?
Elmer Bustillo
So two things happen right? First thing happens is emergency activation (EA) button so that happens first. What happens is when it’s clicked, it makes it makes a sound, it alerts everybody on the fire ground, it alerts everybody that’s in- in c-communications, communications dispatch, and pretty much there’s somebody in distress. If they’re unconscious, now you not only you have to do the whole firefighter breathing portion, right? Give him, in our air packs, we call it air packs, right SCBA air packs, we have things called like a UAC connection, Universal Air Connection. What you do is, right, you grab that, or EPSS is a connection where equalize the bottle so that person can have a bottle if he is out of air. And that was the cause of him going unconscious, or their just low on air. And then you- you got to hook him up.
Alex Fernandez
How much time do you have with that kind of equalization?
Elmer Bustillo
Well, they say a bottle should always last 45 minutes. That’s not moving at all.
Alex Fernandez
Bustillo describes the rush of adrenaline and raw emotion when attending a fire, the anticipation alertness and focus. For many firefighters, being called to a fire, is like footballers being sent to the Super Bowl. Talk about what’s what’s the adrenaline like when you go to a fire?
Elmer Bustillo
I will say this man. The adrenaline rush is, I don’t know how to explain it. It’s a great feeling, right? Because when you know you train for something, it’s like a Super Bowl right? You know these football players train, every day to make that play, right? For us is like, we go to a house fire, we call it a ‘bread and butter’ house fire. In that moment your adrenaline is just pumping, you know it’s like it’s like our now’s game on, you, know it’s time to go you know. And, you know, what I’d be thinking, in those moments, is like, ‘alright,’ it’s it’s not, ‘oh heck yeah, it’s time to go to the house fire,’ more so, alright, where’s the fire located? What is the people who’s there right now? The citizens who’s calling in telling the dispatch to tell us right? ‘Oh, we have a fire in the back of the house.’ Okay. And the standards for the fire service the back of the house stands for ‘Charlie’ side. But depending on if that is the Charlie side is the main access point. And we park in that shot in the backside, we’re going to make it as the Alpha side, the Alpha side is the front side of the house right? So, I’m like, listen, ‘game on, yeah,’ this is what you trained for, and this time to go.
Alex Fernandez
Bustillo details how time and speed is essential in all training variations. One of the most unique skills firefighters master is suiting up. Firefighters constantly time themselves to save and shave precious seconds to ensure quick response times.
Elmer Bustillo
When you write and rescue company, you know is an elite company. It’s from the guys who are well capable of doing pretty much everybody’s job in one, they specialize in a variety of skill sets like: tech rescue, rope rescue, confined space rescue, wire rescue, trench rescue, collapse rescue.
Alex Fernandez
All different specialties.
Elmer Bustillo
All of them.
Alex Fernandez
Which one do you train for?
Elmer Bustillo
All of them and then, you also specialize in firefighting, and.
Alex Fernandez
How long does it take you put everything on?
Elmer Bustillo
Pretty fast, I mean, when you’re going down down the road, you pretty much everything as fast as you can, but you put it fast and efficiently because you don’t want to mess up or burn yourself. You don’t want to cut yourself short. You always make sure that everything you put on is properly set. It’s muscle memory for me to always have my gloves on after I put everything, after I put my coat on, I sit down, I put my gloves on, that’s one less thing I need to put on. You know, we train a lot of hours for that skill, right? Because a lot of people don’t know how to mask and put gloves on. It’s a, it’s a unique skill where it sheds so many seconds away from somebody who doesn’t know how to do it, to somebody does, right? Like I can mask up and literally, you know my fastest time ever was eight seconds, that was my fastest time masking up. There’s guys that mask up, the standard that did teach you and recruit school like, ‘oh you could do in 30 seconds or so you know 20 seconds,’ but eight seconds is when you’re just sitting still your heart rate is not up or anything like that. So, that’s eight seconds, but when your heart rate is up, my fastest time timed was like 11 seconds. Eight seconds to 11 seconds is still faster than the normal person that is maskingup in 20 seconds, 15 seconds or whatever the case may be.
Alex Fernandez
Please tune in for the next episode of seconds to spare. I’m your host Alexander Fernandez.
Alex Fernandez
It takes a special individual to risk their life to save another when surrounded by flames. Bustillo shares his experience in the hopes others will share and know they aren’t the only ones to endure the burden of heroism. Even in adverse situations, Elmer loves being a firefighter and looks forward to many years of service. As Bustillo always says,
Elmer Bustillo
It takes a second to make a minute.
Host Alex Fernandez00:01
Please tune in for the next episode of Seconds to Spare. I’m your host Alexander Fernandez.
SHOW NOTES:
Elmer Bustillo, On Call Firefighter Station Alexandria VA 209,
Volunteer Dale City VA Station 10, and 13
American University Graduate Journalism Program
Host Alex Fernandez
Image by Benedict Rottmann from Pixabay