I had a firefighter who was brand new on the job, and I sent him to the store for ice cream or something. The store was only a block or two from the station, and it was on the main thoroughfare too. I told him that if we had a run, he would hear us leaving the station and when we got across from the store, we would stop and let him on.

Well, sure as heck, we got a call for an automobile accident. So we went down past the store and the engineer asked, “Do you want me to stop for the firefighter?” I said, “Nah, it’s just a car accident. Let’s just go. It’s probably just to wash some fuel away or something anyway.” So we kept going. He saw us go by as he came out of the store and was worried about missing the rig, missing the run and all of that. 

At the car accident there was a TV crew who was riding with the Highway Patrol. So that night on television, it showed the car accident. It showed us rolling up to the accident, getting off the rig, getting all of our equipment and putting the fire out, basically doing our thing. It was supposed to be an interview with the Highway Patrol, but it ended up mostly being about us. 

That night, the girlfriend of the firefighter that we left at the store called him up and asked, “What station are you at?” He said, “I’m at Station 39, why?” She replied with, “39 went to that car accident fire today but you weren’t on it. Were you there?” And he said, “Yeah I was here.” So she asked, “Why weren’t you on television?” He said, “Because they left me at the grocery store.” She half-way didn’t believe him, and thought that maybe he was actually off-duty doing something else. Anyway, I talked to her and told her that we did, in fact, leave him at the store. Everything worked out, but it was too bad he wasn’t able to go and be on television that day.