Turnout - Second Alarm

The word "Firefighter" evokes many images in the minds of people everywhere. Firefighters are perceived as lowlifes who sit around the fire house playing cards & pool and shooting the breeze while saving kittens from being stuck in a tree and collecting undeserved paychecks. But some also hail them as heroes who are willing to give it all, including their own lives, to save a soul. As a retired firefighter of thirty years in Baltimore City, I have written these stories to take readers on a journey from the front seat of a fire engine to the side streets of Baltimore City. Readers will be transported on calls for people trapped in motor vehicles to assisting paramedics rescue a man pinned by a train. They will witness the rage and violence in the streets of Baltimore and the professionals who attend to those victims every day. Follow along with firefighters as they try to tame the "dragon". A chapter is also devoted to "housecats": civilians who hang around firehouses. Turnout-Second Alarm ends with a chapter dedicated to comrades who have died in the line of duty. Remember as you read these pages that the stories you are reading in Turnout-Second Alarm are all true. Some names have been changed for privacy though most of all the firefighters and paramedics in the book are actual persons and some of the events have been allowed literary license.