The Checkup with Doctor Mike - The Harsh Reality Of Being A Firefighter | Fire Department Chronicles

Episode Date: June 14, 2026

I'll teach you how to become the media's go-to expert in your field. Enroll in The Professional's Media Academy now: https://www.professionalsmediaacademy.com/Huge thanks to Jason Patton of  @FireDepartmentChronicles  for joining me on the pod!00:00 Intro01:55 Becoming A Firefighter15:37 Paramedic vs. EMT vs. Ambulance Driver24:10 Danger Of Firefighting44:27 Advice For Firefighters51:49 Firefighter Shows / Myths59:28 Cause Of Fires1:10:15 Strangest Encounters1:28:40 Saving Obese Patients / Cats1:38:35 Private Firefighters1:41:00 Life Story1:49:36 Volunteer Firefighting / Coffee1:55:00 Airplane Rescue2:02:35 The FutureHelp us continue the fight against medical misinformation and change the world through charity by becoming a Doctor Mike Resident on Patreon where every month I donate 100% of the proceeds to the charity, organization, or cause of your choice! Residents get access to bonus content, and many other perks for just $10 a month. Become a Resident today:https://www.patreon.com/doctormikeLet’s connect:IG: https://go.doctormikemedia.com/instagram/DMinstagramTwitter: https://go.doctormikemedia.com/twitter/DMTwitterFB: https://go.doctormikemedia.com/facebook/DMFacebookTikTok: https://go.doctormikemedia.com/tiktok/DMTikTokReddit: https://go.doctormikemedia.com/reddit/DMRedditContact Email: [e-mail] Producer: Doctor MikeProduction Director and Editor: Dan OwensManaging Editor and Producer: Sam BowersEditor and Designer: Caroline WeigumEditor: Juan Carlos Zuniga* Select photos/videos provided by Getty Images *** The information in this video is not intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content, including text, graphics, images, and information, contained in this video is for general information purposes only and does not replace a consultation with your own doctor/health professional **

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Oh, yeah. So you're never running back in. Don't run back in the house. No, once you're out. So what if your child's in there? Look, when we say touch the door, if you touch the door and it is scolding your hands, like it is so hot, you can see flames coming out from underneath the door. When you open up that door, you're going to die. Like, there's no way you're going to make it out to that hallway.

If flames are that bad. Wedding towels, putting them at the door. door jam, covering yourself with them, all that's useless. No. Smoke inhalation is that big issue. When you go out there, those fumes are extremely toxic. You're inhaling all the polyesters, all the whatever lithium stuff is on fire. I have two air purifiers in my room.

Bad idea to turn them on? I mean, because they would suck air into the room. But they would also be cleaning the smoke. They would be. So I don't know. What is the strategy? You're going to die. That's, yes.

Welcome back to the Checkup podcast where today I'm speaking to Jason. Jason Patton, otherwise known as Fire Department Chronicles. He's the most followed firefighter in the world and for good reason. You probably know Jason's viral and hilarious videos recapping bizarre encounters he's had out in the field as a first responder or from his series on YouTube where he greenscreens himself into firefighter shows and calls them out for their BS face to face.

He's easily one of the most charismatic people we've had on the show, but also rich in substance. He's not just some comedy influencer. He's an actual multi-year veteran of fighting fires and treating patients on the front lines with an incredible amount of insight into the profession. We touched on juicy topics like how much firefighters actually get paid, how to stay safe during a fire, controversial topics like private firefighters for celebrities,

and even silly topics like the pain of sliding down the fire pole. Oh, and of course, the basics. Just to set the ground rules straight off to jump, if I catch on fire mid-episode, is it stop, drop, and roll, or are there different strategies now? Stop drop and roll, but, I mean, how long do you want me to let you stay on fire?

No, no, minimal, because I don't have the fire suit on it. Oh, okay, okay. I didn't know if this would have an epic video. Dude, I still think about the training that I got when I was in middle school in Brooklyn of dare, stop, drop, and roll. Has any of these things been upgraded or is it still the same tried and true?

Because I think about it from a chest compression CPR standpoint. Is there anything new that folks need to know about personal safety? No. Stop job and roll is great because you're doing the basic things. You're rolling on top of the fire so you're hopefully able to remove the oxygen from it. It's funny because you're right. In the medical field, things tend to change constantly every four years. They're finding out something new.

We're adding one extra compression in now. But firefighting, at a constant basis, we're trying to make things as efficient as possible, save as many lives as possible. You look at old firefighting pieces, or at least when we were training, we do forcible entry, we're moving into a structure.

And there wasn't a huge emphasis on once you open up that front door with whatever you're using, make sure you close it as quickly as possible until you're ready to go in with a nozzle. It was just open the door, get in there, fight the fire. But we started to really dive into things called flow path. So, you know, for, yeah, if we're opening up the front door to go inside of it,

we just leave it wide open. If that fire happens to be starved of oxygen, then it's going to get a nice influx of oxygen. And then fire really loves O2, loves oxygen. So it's going to start moving towards that as well. So you create what's called a flow path. So we know if there's a viable victim in that area. We got to make sure we're opening the door, closing it until they're ready to go in with the fire hose or the stretch a line in there and then go from there. Yeah, what does it take to become a firefighter because, you know, kids frequently say top three jobs, doctor, firefighter, police officer, maybe cowboy thrown in there or astronaut. But those are the top ones. So what does it take to be? First off, I've learned what it takes to be a cowboy and an astronaut. I'm good, bro. Yeah.

No, no way. I thought you just didn't like the zero gravity. No, I would love that. I always say if I could, if I ever get that chance, if it ever becomes affordable and I'm not going to die in the process, or if I do, that would be an epic way to go up. You and Jeff Bezos. Just floating around hanging out, man. It depends on where you're at. So where I'm at, in order to become a firefighter, you need to be an EMT first.

The reason is a lot of the calls that are going to be run to, about 85% and we're going to be medically based. Really? Yeah. So this is breaking news. Firefighters, 85% of the time, are not fighting fires.

Surprisingly not. You would think, well, it's amazing with new building constructions, especially down in Florida, smoke detector, I'm sorry, sprinkler systems, people finding ways

to be able to put out fires on their own, whether it's through extinguishers, but people have found a very good way to be able to prevent fires through proper construction. So, and then obviously, in Florida, for us,

space heaters, we don't have anything like that. Most of your fires in Florida are going to be kitchen-based or cooking-based. So for us, you're going to go to EMT school first. Then you're going to go

fire school. So Florida, every place is a little bit different. With Florida, you actually have to put yourself through fire school and EMT school, then apply for a fire department, and then you can be hired for most of the departments are going to be there. Places like New York, you can be picked up just straight off the street. So a citizen can apply. And then FDMI will put you through all of their processes or the surrounding departments. Is that because it's more in demand here? No, it's just the way that they, that they're different strategies, there's some ways to do it. Every place is going to have their own way of doing it. I'm curious because in medical school, you go through medical school, you pay your way so expensive. And then we have something that's known as the match where you

rank certain programs and then they rank students that they like. Yeah. And sometimes you don't match and that's heartbreaking because now you have nowhere to go and you spend all this money. Does that happen where you put yourself through the schools and then no one picks you up? Yes. No way. Oh my God. Yeah. So I get hard. I was hired in 2008. It was during the hiring freeze. My mom still talks about this today. So I get through fire.

I put myself through EMT, through paramedic school, then through fire school. I graduate fire school at my closing ceremony. This incredible guy comes up. He starts, it's a chief. He starts giving this a speech. He's like, ladies and gentlemen, it's 2008. This many people, this many firefighters have died in the line of duty over the last year. And you are in the worst hiring freeze that we've ever heard of.

Good luck. Was this meant to be in? I don't know, bro, but like all of us are like, oh, no. That would have been a good orientation speech to weed out people who are on serious, maybe. Yeah, yeah. Oh, so what are you thinking in that moment? Crap, is this? So I, my instructor, a great guy named Carrie Weiss, he's, the day before our graduation, he says, hey, listen, I work for a department, or I'm retired from a apartment in Rivier Beach, and they're opening up their applications.

They're actually closing the day after we graduate. So if you want, I would apply. And at the time, they were actually one of the lowest paid in South Florida. And a lot of people were like, I'm not going to go work for a place. It was $37,000 a year to be a firefighter, not going to be paid a lot anyways. 70% of firefighters are actually volunteers. So most people are doing it for free. So I was like, you know what, man, I'm going to work anywhere and everywhere.

So I applied. I actually got picked up. No one else in my class got hired for another five years after that. Is it because you had the best grades, did the most push-ups? What are they grading you on? All the above. Really? Well, I don't know.

That's what it's like in medical school. Is that way to medical school? By the way, the match thing, what is that? I'm curious. What does that feel like if you're like, I want to be a cardiologist or I want to be this? And they're like, no, you're going to be a podiatrist. So you pick the two fields that don't necessarily participate in the match. Okay.

Specifically the two. Because to be a cardiologist, you first have to match into internal medicine. Okay. And then once you finish your internal medicine residency, then you can do a fellowship in cardiology. And podiatry, they have their own medical school altogether. You picked the two that don't participate. So any other ones, like plastic surgery or surgery.

What's another simple example? OBGYN. Okay, okay. So if you want to go into those, generally you have some sort of sense when you're putting names into the match process of who you like, where you did your electives.

So they know you, you know them. Okay. There's kind of an understood boundary of, we can't tell you that we ranked you, but we really like you. Okay. And you already kind of know. Yeah. If you're not well liked and you did a really bad job on your electives and people are like, oh my God, I don't want to work with you.

You can get into a bad place. So that's scary. Yeah. Because then we have something known as, God, is it called the Scramble? I forgot the name of it. Clearly I didn't participate in. The craft show. where you have to then try and find spots

because just like students can go unmatched, spots can go unmatched. So programs that perhaps pay less, less desirable specialties, sorry family medicine, will have openings. And then you can try and scramble into those openings. So literally program directors are calling students

who didn't match, students are calling program directors, presenting themselves, and hopefully finding a situation where they can get into a program. But if they don't, off year, you have to go do some research, maybe take a long vacation and hope you match

the following year. That's crazy. Yeah. And imagine now you're like 300,000 in debt. I was going to say, holy crap. With us, like, so that's a lot of the issues right now with places where you have to put yourself

through the schooling in order to get picked up. Because, you know, EMT school's $5,000, you know, depending on we're going to fire school. EMT schools, somewhere. between three to six months. It depends on if you're going full time or part time. I was three months. Fire school is somewhere between three months to six months, again, full time or part time. And then for medics school, a lot of programs are going to be a year. You can do accelerated programs that are nine months, but some people do two year long programs. So the whole length of it is about

two years plus minus. And the first part was five thousand. What's the total amount for those two years? I just, I was, so when I went, it was about $8,000 to go to medics school. I just happened to be looking at some of that stuff recently. Some places are $25,000 to go to medics school. $15,000 is about your average. And to go earn $37,000? Like, yeah, nothing. I think the starting pay here for a medic is $43,000 a year or $45,000 a year.

I mean, that's nothing in the state of New York. It's not, I mean, when I became a medic, I was making $12 an hour. So there's... How many years ago is that when you started? That was 19 years ago, 18 years ago. Do you know any idea what that number is now? It's still somewhere around like the $18 to $20 range. It's not a lot of money for what they're doing.

You become a barista. It's similar pricing. Yes. And you don't have to risk your life. Yes. Wow. Yeah. And then, okay, so I was saying it kind of jokingly,

but is it serious that they grade you based? Like, how do they decide who they're taking? What is the logic? So what's great is that most of the processes are going to be relatively long. So you're going to do an application process that's, all your basic stuff, you know, your name, date of birth, all the fun stuff, your certifications that you're going to have. We require something called a CPAT there to make sure that you're physically able to do the job itself. I do those in my hospital. Yeah. You really? Yeah.

That's awesome. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. So, hold on. You mean like it's a physical. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I performed those physicals on firefighters. It's a candidate physical ability test. Yeah. So, well, no, no, no. That's different physical. Okay. I do the physical where I listen to heart. Oh, yeah. We do that later. Yeah. T's and all that. Which, actually kind of bothers me to some degree because a lot of it is a corporate contract with the city or town or fire department and I end up doing tests

that I would never do on a young person. Yeah. Because it's a legality. Like I'm doing stress tests on young folks and I'm like, dude, you exercise. That isn't, but you have to do it based on the rules. Did you have to do any of that? Oh, yeah.

So you'll do that, you'll do the application. You'll make sure that you get your CPAT. Then when you put, that in. What's new now is the social media piece of it. Because they're doing full background checks. Are they trying to see who has the most followers? Yeah, I mean, yes. Could you imagine? No, a lot of times they're like,

I don't want that person. No, they just want to make sure there's nothing ridiculous going on. I mean, if you are... So they request your social handles, or they find them on their own? No, they're going to request them. Tell us that there's a department, I won't name it, but a department that I applied for while I was waiting to hear back from my

department, it was the application, then I did the physical piece of it where, I'm sorry, a written test. And the written test, I was surrounded by, mind you, this was the hiring freeze. There was nobody around. So I was surrounded by about 3,000 other applicants. It was absolutely insane. How many positions? Dozens?

20 positions. Yeah. It's crazy. It's worse than medical school. Dude, it was, it was one of those where you sit down, you're like, holy crap, this is. So you're the best or the best. Like, you're the finest. You're the Navy SEAL.

I'm a medic. I wouldn't call me. Anyone watching this is bad me, but you're not a neighbor. But so you go to that process. And this is for, again, a different department. But once you finish that piece, then you go through a physical test,

which is it took you about two hours to get to the full physical piece of it. It's search and rescue, finding a victim, stretching a line, knocking down hoses, extending a ladder, like all these different things.

Once you pass that, they put you through a lie detector. Yeah, the lie detector to make sure. And what are they asking? Are you afraid? No, no. Like, have you ever smoked marijuana? Yeah, yeah, the basic stuff. So they'll ask you that. Which now they're probably not asking that question. No, Florida still. Yeah, you can get your medical marijuana card, but they just-

Well, in New York is crazy. Like every corner, it seems like. I saw that. That was crazy. It's still crazy for me. We'll talk about that. But once you did that, you had to do another interview panel, then you did another lie detector test to make sure that you didn't lie on anything in between there. Like, it's just huge. So some places really want to make sure

that the hiring the best of the best, which is obviously great. My department was an interview with an interview panel. They went to through a bunch of questions. Then I had to do an interview with the chief, make sure that I was good for the job and then they signed me.

Wow, what a multi-step process. Yeah. That's incredible. Did you worry about any of that application process through it? Not really. I mean, you were just like,

I am who I am. Yeah. Thankfully, that's kind of the way I've lived most of my life is just I am who I am. I've tried to grow. I've tried to become a little more focused internally

and make sure that I'm taking care of my own mental health. And then as well as other people, my wife is about to get her master's degree in family therapy. So it's very cool. Okay. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Activia. You might already be eating yogurt,

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TD's new small business banking accounts are built for how your business moves. It's how we're making banking more human. What is the difference? And this is my lack of knowledge, so I apologize on that being. Paramedic EMT, people say, don't you ever say ambulance driver? But then in some places, they have someone dedicated to drive the ambulance. Yes, yes. What is the difference?

how does one understand the difference and take me through that journey? No, of course. So ambulance driver is just, or they call stretcher fetters, that's my favorite one. So amyel and driver is going to be a basic transport company

to where there's no real medical knowledge needed. Maybe just a first responder certificate or something like that. They're just picking up patients and bringing them back to maybe a nursing facility or something that have absolutely, they're literally putting them in a wheelchair and putting them in.

EMT, three-month-long course, very basic parts of, I keep looking right at that camera, by the way. So the audience knows. But your real basic knowledge. So like how to help someone administer oxygen or help them use an epipen, stuff like that. And then for paramedics, you are now, we're always operating under some medical director,

but we're now administering medications. We are innovating people. the advanced level. So basic level and advanced level. There's an intermediate, an EMTI that's in between there. That's in some states. I'm not sure if New York is one of them, but Florida, we don't recognize it.

So with that, you're still able to innovate, I believe, and still have a basic host of, like, cardiac medications that you're allowed to give. But it just depends. Like, we're able to crank people. We're able to, yeah.

How many times have you cranked someone? Zero, and I'm good with that. Okay. I was on a plane scenario where there was a medical emergency, and I was worried that if the Epipendent didn't work or the epinephrine didn't work, I would have to, and I didn't do one on a human yet,

only on the little models. So I'm like, oh, I don't want to do this with a pen. No, dude. Because there's nothing to start on the point. So when you finish, so you go through pedramac school, then you get hired, and then you have to go through a preceptor program,

depending on what department you're working for. It could be a year long, but they essentially run you through their own protocols, they make sure you understand their stuff, and then you have a preceptor that follows you the whole time. At the end, you talked to a medical director, and you just ask you some basic questions. questions, make sure you're good. And went through all mine and then he says, hey, what's the

hardest part about criking somebody? And I was like, like, I started going through all stuff. He's like, just making the decision, bro. That's the hardest. Yeah. That's good. That's like the tricky medical school question of like, what's the biggest risk factor for a heart attack? Me? Yeah. What do you think? I don't know. I don't know. Having a past heart attack. Oh, look at you. Yeah. Well, that's what it's always like some obvious answer. I was going to say like, I was like, like, diet. No, but that's what we always say. We're like smoking, diabetes,

high cholesterol. Yeah. Like, all those things are important, obviously. But if you just had one, that really raises your risk for having it. Have you seen that guy he's on TikTok? He always starts off as TikTok. He's a double board certified cardiologist.

And you would enjoy it. If I find him, I'll send it to you. This guy is hysterical to me because we were talking for where you got on here, like people that like start talking and I'm like, I don't know. I'm in the medical field. zero clue you just said. But when he talks, bro, he sounds like he has just been punched in the face by stupid people

that don't, don't listen to- Med-life crisis? No, I went, it's like Dr. Blitz or something like that. Wow. I thought I knew every doctor on social media. You probably know he's like, he's like, hey, what's going on? Double-Bort certified cardiologist, Dr. Blitz, here. And like, every time he's just like, and he's always like, all right, Jesus, I can't

believe I got to say this again. Like, he's just so tired. I see the guy, I wish I knew what his position was. I think he's an exercise physiologist, maybe PhD, and he discusses topics surrounding exercise and fitness, but he says describing it as if I have CTE. Okay, okay. Have you seen that?

Yes. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. That dude is so funny. You need sodium? No. Yes, yeah, yeah. Honestly, sometimes I watch, I go, okay, yeah, yeah, this is how I learn too.

It's true, though, in order to understand complex topics, you have to break it down something. Yes, 100%. If you could do with a little humor, that adds on to it. Dude, that's all ideal in is humor whenever I'm teaching people anything. I've been lucky enough to be able to make some good CPR videos. And you and I got to talk about that Guinness Book World Records you just took. Was it yours?

No, dude. I can't you imagine. No, that was very cool, man. So I own a comedy CPR company. No way. Yeah, I teach people how to do CPR, use AEDs, basic first aid, all through comedy. So it's all through stand-up comedy for an hour and a half, two hours, depending on how long the classes.

Wow. And it's so much fun. I started teaching a long time ago. And I just watched these people like as I'm like, so you're going to push on so much chest and you're going to feel a lot of crunching. And they're like, what the, no?

So just removing all the fears and everything. It's just such a good time to be able to teach people in the right way. And it was very cool that I'm sure you made it a blast. I would love to see how you do that because we did a live tour. And part of our live tour is kind of an improv variety show. Yeah. And one of the sequences was teaching people. if they can keep the 100 beats per minute on average

for a two minute span. And you bring up kids on stage and they all have their mannequin that counts and then we see who won and we give them an award. But it's like people are so way off. They underestimate what two minutes is. So I'm running around with the microphone while they're going.

The music's playing. It's kind of a vibe. But I'm curious how you do it. That's so funny. I just try to interject as much humor as possible to be able to remove the fear. Yeah. Because I say, So 20 years I've been in the medical field.

Last week we have a code. This guy, we believe he vagled out, passed out on the toilets. We pull him out. What does a code mean to you? It's cardiac arrest. Wow, okay. What's a code to you?

Well, because you guys, because you're in the hospital. Code blue, code red. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, we just called a code. Yeah. We only have one code. But wait, so he vasovagled and then his heart stopped?

We believe he vagled. Or they thought it was. a cardiac arrest, so they called the code, but it turned out he just vagled. No, no, he was, I think he vagled out, fell off the toilet, hit his head. Then, yeah. And he actually had a history

just three weeks ago of being cardioverted going in and out of stable VTAC, yeah. Oh, VTAC, okay. Yeah, so he, so we get there, we pull him out, we start doing CPR and he doesn't have a pulse, but he still has agonal breathing. He still has agonal respirations.

And put him on the monitor, and he's in VFFB. We have to defibrillate him. But I can tell you, 20 years I've been doing this, man. And 20 years in, it is still uncomfortable for me to see somebody doing something that is normally a life sign.

Watching that and being like, I was like a shock. Just well, within two minutes, he had a viable rhythm and he was good to go. But, I mean, now imagine teaching that to someone who has never done this in their life. Like, they've never pushed on someone's chest and hurt ribs cracking

or dislocating from the sternum however you want to look at it. And Matt, like trying to remove that fear is so difficult. So I do the basic stuff. Like their heart's not beating and they're not breathing. What are they? Yeah, BLS. Yeah.

And everyone says, do they get a certification of? Oh, yeah, yeah. Wow, that's so cool. It's a blast, man. I love it, dude. And then the, it's so funny you do the trying to keep people on beat. Because I always say the three biggest things people do wrong is,

is one, the trampoline effect. They like bounce off their chest. Or the rabbit effect. It tends to be just men. They go way too fast and not deep enough. Like, uh, even when I teach that, There's still a guy that gets on there. He's like, I got this, bro.

Oh, my God. Slow down, bro. Also, the guys love to do the tricep flex. Yes. So they're doing like the tricep extension. I'm like, bro, this is not a close grip. Like, who knows how what this is? Yeah, I would say those are frequently.

Obviously, if I was your chief that was interviewing you, I would say the real mistake that people make is they don't do it. Yes. Yes. Yeah, you're so good, man. This guy's media trained. I'm telling you. Okay, so then EMT, well, transport, EMT, EMT, EMT, I, paramedic. Is there anything above?

No, not for us, not in our field. Yeah, once you become a paramedic, then that's... And then you become a paramedic, how does the firefighter angle kick in? So in Florida, if you want to do first response, at least in my area, South Florida, you need to be a firefighter and a paramedic. Just because of the response models, it's the only thing that's really going to make sense in that area so we can have that that dual response and as a firefighter we're not just i know i say it's only 15% and obviously depends on the day but 15% uh what i said yeah for fires and so on and so

forth but that 15% would be like active structure fires or car fires but for that fire piece of it we're also doing extrications we're doing gas leaks water leaks we're doing pretty much anything that do you ever have to bring like the jaws of low yeah oh yeah yeah tell me about that yeah dude i got a at some point time man i can get you out to this place but We'll do extrications. We'll put you through full firefighting stuff. We'll let you do it all, man. Oh my God.

I spend a day as a firefighter would be a great video. We'll do it. Yeah. Comment down below if you want to see that. Okay, sorry. It's just going to be yes, yes, yes. But you're the number one tag in most of my videos. They're like, Dr. Mike, Dr. Mike.

Like, this is about prostate issues. What is your tagging Dr. Mike? Dr. Mike is going to come in. So anytime someone's in a motor vehicle accident, a lot of people don't know. With modern vehicles, they have crumple zones. They want vehicles to compress. Yeah, we want to limit the amount of inertia that's moving into the patient itself.

So when we roll up there, we have to be able to, a lot of people think we just start ripping open doors, but there's a huge process. We have to do a full 360 around the vehicle, make sure there's no gas or fuel leaking around it. If there is, we pull an inch three-quarter line out or a fire hose. Then we're going to stabilize the vehicle.

So we put blocks of wood underneath the vehicle itself. So it doesn't collapse on someone. I saw that happen here in New York, not too long ago. The one that was on its side? Yes. Yes, that's a whole different. I'm just talking about basic.

Like, yeah, we're putting up struts and different stuff for that. That, I saw that video. That's, that is crazy. So scary. It really is. But for that, we'll throw some wood down. We pop the fires. You know that was on this block.

Was it really? Mm-hmm. Holy crap. Yeah. I think everyone survived that one, right? Do you know which video I'm talking about, right? Well, no, no, not the building. It was a car flipped over and it was sitting on its side.

And then it was falling on the fire. firefighter. Maybe you can Google it and see if you could find it. Yeah, I think I saw. I think he was good. That, everything, everything we do is firefighters and paramedics. There's always some inherent danger within it. And those situations are super, super dangerous.

That's why when you see us pull up, people want us to move as fast as possible. They want us to get in there, get the person out, but we need to make sure that they're safe. Yes. Do you have any good taglines? Like I know in racing, we do like, slowest, smooth, smooth is fast. That's exactly. We say that,

if I think 100%. Yeah, 100%. We say that, like, just please don't die. That's good for anybody. Don't die. Okay, so you have to stabilize the scene, you have to do all this.

But like, what's the actual process like when you do cut someone out? Is it, does it feel good? Oh, yeah. I mean, dude, working with probably the biggest tools you're ever going to work with in your life.

It's an incredible process. You created what's called a purchase point in the door itself. So you can use Halligans or whatever you would need at the time. You could even use the tips of the tools. But we need to be able to open up that door enough to where we can get the spreaders inside of there and spread it open. There's a bolt inside of there, a bolt that's holding that door on.

And we can't just spread it off there without making sure that we're doing it properly. Because if we just catch the outside of the door itself. Yes, exactly, just mingle it worse. But we'll do what's called delamination. You just start peeling the door off. It doesn't get the person out. We have a relatively short amount of time that we need to get that victim out. 10 minutes is typically the goal that we're trying to go for.

When you arrive at a scene like that, obviously you're evaluating the scene for safety, you're doing all these check list factors in your mind. Are you ever worried about your own life? Not, I mean, we always make sure, it's something we tell lay rescuers, like the most important on scene, most important person on scene is you.

Like we always want to make sure that we're as safe as possible when we get there, not because we value ourselves over other people. Because when you become a firefighter, Well, you do. Yeah. No. You should.

Yeah. We value ourselves not getting injured or hurt because if we become a victim, we now have two victims there. Exactly. And it distracts everybody from the scene. That's something we have to tell new probationary firefighters. Like, dude, like, don't just kick a door open, introduce oxygen, do you have a backdraft or, you know, create a flashover environment, stuff like that. Make sure that whatever we're doing, we stay safe so we don't have to divert people to make sure that. you're okay now.

That's like the main reason why when the governor will come on and say there's a state of emergency, don't go on the roads, because now you're putting first responders at risk if something happens to you, right? That's the same logic. Yes. Yeah. When you sign up to be a firefighter, none of us want to die. Like, we're not suicidal.

But we have the understanding that if you have to make the ultimate sacrifice, make sure you're doing it in the way that makes sense. You didn't just do it because you made a stupid decision. Is that actually discussed in the classroom? Your job is to save lives. And you need to do it the most efficient way. Make sure that, because like I said, if we're going into a structure that's on fire,

there's an inherent risk. There's an inherent risk that entire structure may flash over you. The floor collapses, stuff like that. So make sure you're making the proper decisions that you don't put yourself in a greater risk where you will get injured. But if you do have to go in there, you are putting yourself at risk,

but just make sure you make the proper choices to go in there. What are the most common reasons or scenarios that a firefighter gets hurt? It depends on the situation. It can be lack of training or a poor decision in the moment. But there's a lot of times we just don't see something that's, you know, an object that's in the house that's on fire that we're not aware of, a chemical that's in there that we're not aware of.

But it just really depends on the situation. A fire deteriorates a lot faster than we thought it might have. So people get injured. But building collapse is a big one. roof collapses are a big one. When you go into a burning building, what is the mindset and what is the equipment that you have to protect you in that moment?

So obviously our bunker gear is going to be the number one thing that's going to stop us. That's like the big jackets. Yes, the big jackets, everything that we're wearing to go in there. So that's fireproof. It's not fireproof. It's fire resistance.

That's what we're going to call it. Yeah. Anything can be set on fire because you're ordering. So there's a time that you can, experience a fire and it's not gonna burn your skin? Direct flame impingement is what we would really say. Again, it depends on the environment, how hot it is, how fast it's moving,

but it depends on the situation. A flashover environment, that's when all combustibles in the house have set on fire. A lot of people don't know this, but smoke is just unburned chemical or unburn combustibles. So flashovers, when all of those combustibles have now set on fire.

So you go from, we'll see an average of 500 to 800 degrees inside of a structure to now it's upwards of 1,500, 2,000 degrees. So thermal layering is what happens in a fire. So the hottest environment's going to be at the top. And that's why we tell you people when we're escaping from a fire, stay as low as possible. You're going to stay away from the smoke. Most people that die in fires, they don't die from the flames of the heat.

They die from smoke inhalation. Really? Mm-hmm. And they tend to die. Is that because they're spending a lot of time in that environment? They're trapped there. They're trapped. They're trying to get out.

I mean, you're, that's why smoke detectors are so important, man, like early detection. You're sleeping in your bed, close before you doze, like the basic things. If you close your door before you go to sleep, especially with your children, if there is an environment where there's a fire, smoke has now spread throughout the house. They're saying a fire is now producing 200 times more smoke than they were 60 years ago because of polyester, lithium batteries, so on and so forth. But if they do happen to wake up and there is smoke alarms, going off, the door is closed.

The room is not filled with smoke. So they can feel the door with the back of their hand. We always feel with the back. We don't want to feel with the front of our hand. If we burn our palm, then it's going to be a bad situation for us. So they feel if it's super hot, then they can shelter in place when they call 911. We'll do what's called a VES. We'll assume no matter what floor you're on, but we'll break the window.

We'll go in, grab you, isolate the room, and then we'll get out. But in those situations, it's just making sure you stay as low as possible so you can avoid the smoke. But for us with firefighting, again, the gear depends on how old it is or what's going on. But it's designed to keep the heat from hurting us, allowing us to get as deep as possible. And then there's some schools of thought that saying our gear is so good now. It lets us get too deep into pockets of fire. Too deep. Wow.

So are you going in with an oxygen canister as well? And are you using that the whole time? Yeah. It's an SCBA. It's self-containing breathing apparatus. So it has just regular, a regular air in a 21% oxygen. and all the fun stuff. How long does it last?

It depends. Ours are 4,500 PSI bottles. So they're roughly somewhere between 30 to 45 minutes. If you're like an absolute stud, you're in the greatest shape ever. You use less. You can use less, yeah. You'll be within that range.

But some people will suck a bottle down like that, 15 minutes. It's good. Wow. Okay. I would definitely suck it down. That's my fine. I'm oxygen hungry.

No, no, no. I'm oxygen hungry. This brain be used. I know too. But yeah, we'll go in with that. So there's typically two people that are showing up to fires. I mean, with firefighters, we are, there's multiple different types of roles that are showing up. Command officer or someone that's going to be there running the entire scene,

giving people their tasks or their jobs that they need to perform, letting dispatch know what's going on, given updates on how we're doing. Then you have someone that's going to be forcing entry if the front door is locked. So that's where the halogens and the axes come in. We can bust doors open. That's exciting. We can let you do that if you be a firefighter for a blast. Yeah, it's fun.

And then people that are on the nozzle. Then you have people that are 316 in the building. Is the nozzle as impossible to control as they make it seem in movies? No. Everything in the movies is... Everything. Not everything, but... So it's controllable.

Oh, very controllable. You can one-hand the nozzle? So what's great about this is the techniques that you learn, learning how to advance hoses properly. We don't hold the, you see where like the hoses have a little pistol grip on the bottom where they hold that. No, no, no one is holding that. Okay. Why?

It's, it's, it's, it doesn't make any sense. It's, uh, completely uncomfortable. And what it does is if you're trying to hold the, the piece that has the most push back, the most pressure back on top of you, eventually as you're moving your way into a fire, because we need to advance that line in, it's going to start to force its way back. So now this is, this is very uncomfortable and it's not appropriate for me to be able to, to rotate and spray and do whatever I need to do. So what will teach you is how to keep the nozzle out in front of you.

And then you can just hold the base of the hose itself. And that becomes very, very, very manageable. And then you can spin it or do whatever you need to do in the process. Does the person who's in charge of the nozzle have their own? Yes. Like, oh, this is mine. Don't use my nose. No, it's not there.

That would be freaking awesome. Mike, did you use Jim's nozzle? No, it's on the truck. So most of our, most of your engines are going to, have what we call pre-connects. So you'll have a front bumper line. Then we have two pre-connects that come up the side and then larger diameter hoses that'll go from there. But

yeah, the nozzle guy that goes in, he is in charge of that nozzle. Typically, I have someone backing him up. The joke is that everyone wants to be on the nozzle. Because that's the most exciting part. You'll understand if you do it, man. You're going in. You are when you become a firefighter, that's what we want to break stuff

appropriately to help people. But we want to go in there and slay the We want to fight fire. Like that's what we're here for. We're here to stop fire from spreading and save lives. And with rookies or new probationary firefighters, they'll get up there.

They have to put their mask on so they don't hail any smoke. And they'll put the nozzle down. And that's a big no-no. We're going to take that from you. So another guy will run up and take it and run outside. So, okay, let's run a training scenario. I am on the second floor of my home. I smell fire.

There's smoke everywhere. Maybe not so bad because my door is closed. Dogs are loose. Okay. I touch the handle. It's hot. Back of my hand. Do I open a window and run out?

And like fall, take the, take the... You're on the second story? Yeah. You're going to call 911. Okay. Do you have an escape ladder? No. You don't have an escape ladder. No, but I can tuck and roll.

You can tuck and roll. No. Have you ever fallen from a second story? No. Don't do that. You're going to call 911. You're going to shelter in place. You're going to, if the dogs are out,

I have a dog of Yorkie. I love him. man, he's such a cool though. He wakes me up every morning. He's a stud. I actually think he expects me to rub him every morning. He's like, come on, let's go. And it would be very hard for me not to run out and try to find my dog if he wasn't in the

room with us. Pets are really good, man. They understand danger. They understand where they should and should not be. So they will do their best to find a place where they can survive or at least be good enough until we can show up there. If the dog is scratching at the door, open up the door, get your dog inside. and then we'll go from there.

But if you don't know, don't go venturing off, there's a good chance. We've had people escape from fires and then go back in to grab books and they perish in the fire. Yeah, books or personal items? Yeah, oh, yeah. No way.

Yeah. And it's obviously, it's super unfortunate. And is that you were already on scene when that happens? No, we arrived on scene. They had already self-extricated. And then we get there, they had gone back inside and now we're going in to get them.

Yeah. Wow. So second story. So you're never running back in. Don't run back in the house. No, once you're outs, so whatever your child's in there? Is your child in a room by themselves with the room locked?

Look, when we say touch the door, if you touch the door and it is scolding your hands, like it is so hot, you can see flames coming out from underneath the door. It doesn't matter how much you want to save your kid. When you open up that door, you're going to die. Like, there's no way you're going to make it out to that hallway. If flames are that bad,

but if your child's door is closed, we've called 911, hey, my child's on the backside of my house, second story. We're going to immediately pull up. We're going to get ladders or if we can put an aerial out there, then we're going to try to get your child as quickly as possible. Wetting towels, putting them at the door jam, covering yourself with them. All that's useless. No.

Again, you're not going to die. You're not going to, in that situation, if there's flames blowing out from the door, the end yet, it's going to be bad. But smoke inhalation is that big issue. When you go out there, those fumes are extremely toxic. You're inhaling all the polyesters, all the whatever lithium stuff is on fire. I have two air purifiers in my room. Bad idea to turn them on?

Because they would suck air into the room. But they would also be cleaning the smoke. They would be. So I don't know. What is the strategy? You're going to die. So don't even think about that. So here's what I'll tell you.

Average response time for my area is six to eight minutes. Sometimes we're even faster than that. Your average response time for most places, assuming you live in a city, is going to be somewhere between six to 10 minutes. Fire spreads extremely quickly. If you're in a room by yourself, or if you're in a room and you are safe,

stay in that room. Do not try to get out of that room. Open up the window. We're gonna get ladders there. We'll get you out. So opening up the window doesn't create that pulling in effect? Once, wait, obviously wait until we get there.

Oh, okay, I got it. Sorry, yes. But I mean, too, towels underneath the door is totally fine. Take your sheet on your bed, put it underneath there, so no smoke's making it in there. What if there is a, already so much smoke in the room, can you then open the window? I would open the window. Do we have a balcony there? Is there something, a roof I can go on? Like, if you're starting to choke,

then yes, let's get outside of that. It's really hard to make like concrete. Of course, because there's so many variables. Yeah. Yeah. It's like me saying, my chest hurts. And you're like, well, what do you mean? Do it telemedicine. Dude, there's, I can't imagine being a physician during that telemedicine piece, man. It's, it's really hard. And honestly, the private equity world that we live in, they're like, oh, we should just do telemedicine for all of it. Like, why do you even need hospitals? Dude, trying to evaluate someone's pain virtually. Yeah.

It's like, oh, touch this. Yeah. Okay. That person has never touched 2,000 stomachs before, you know, or abdomen. So it's really difficult. That's fine when you say it like that. Yeah, I'm trying to make sense. I'm touched 2,000 stomachs.

I'm trying to think how many patients I've seen. I think to graduate, you need something like 5,000 encounters. outpatient. Oh, wow. Yeah, the numbers are huge. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah, you need a lot of... Well, I would want that.

Maybe not that. I would want you to be very... Yeah, there's competency standards that these organizations set for us. But it's thousands of patience. Yeah. And this is my 12th year, so it's a lot of patience. How old are you?

36. You're 36? Yeah. I must be nice to not look 36. You don't think I look 36? No, dude. No way. I was going to say, I think I'm falling apart.

Maybe I just feel 36. Why? How old are you? I'm 40. I just turned 43. Oh, okay. So same age. Yeah. I woke up on my 40th, I swear to God, I had my 40th birthday. I wake up and my ankle was killing me. Or my heel was my heel. My heel was killing me. And I was like, I didn't do anything.

I didn't like exercise excessively the day before, nothing. Did you rest it on something hard? No, I was just sleeping in a bed. So you went to bed, no pain. Yeah. You see, he's trying to diagnose. No, but I like to make it anywhere. Interesting diagnoses because I'll sometimes develop weird stuff.

And I'm like, oh, it's because I laid my heel on something plastic for an hour while playing a game. And I go, never put my heel on something plastic because like bone on a hard surface doesn't like that. What game you play? Overwatch. Oh. You know it? Yeah. Really?

Wow. No one knows the game. What I say? I also sim race. And on the sim, the thing is really hard. So if I'm lazy and I don't put on a shoe, oh boy, my feet hurt the next thing. There's old people problems. Yeah.

Okay, so we have this scenario for me. Luckily for me, my house is a sprinkler system. So my townhouse does as well. Okay. So does that mean like I'm good? You should be good, bro. Spinklers are incredible, right? That's the purpose of them is to stop the fire from spreading into additional areas.

So if that pops off, then 100%. And when a sprinkler system pops off, does it pop off everywhere? No, that's a, that's the, that's, that's the, Those are just like deluge systems, is what those are called. You just don't see those anymore. But sprinklers, no, they're just, there's a bunch of different types of sprinklers or at least the heat that they go off at.

There's a little glass file inside of there. Once it reaches at certain temperature, it expands. There's a plug inside it pops out. The fun part, though, is what's inside of that sprinkler system. What? Water? Is it gross, you mean? It's every other one has gasoline. I'm just kidding.

That's like that. No, it's water, but that water has a metric ton of sediment in it. So, like, when it goes off, it's just straight black water coming out of their black and brown water. Because it's been sitting? Just been sitting there and stuff coming off the pipes, which obviously in a fire, who cares? Everything's getting, like, it needs to be put out. But I've had multiple people put their hangers. They'll go to hang clothing up.

Oh, I see that in the hotels. They always have the sign. Yes. And there's so many people. I mean, this is. Call to action. Do not put a hanger on this. Please.

Do not put a hanger. You're talking, it depends on the sprinkler, six to 12 gallons per minute coming out of this thing. Your house is destroyed. It is flooded. Wow. Are you tearing the house up after that? We're not doing anything.

But I'm saying like, as a person. Yeah, it depends. Yeah. If it's flooded through to the floor below, depending on what's going on, absolutely. How can working out your local Tims take you further? Sure, you can level up your teamwork skills. You also get a chance to receive a Tim Horan scholarship award.

Ready for what's next? Apply today at careers.timhorans.com. Okay, so we talked about the trajectory to become a firefighter, a paramedic, EMT, EMTI. You have a child. I'm speaking in hypotheticals. You have a child or you are a child and you're watching this. And they or you want to become a firefighter. Are you going to try to say, don't do it?

No, do it, man. Greatest job on the face of the planet. Really? telling you, it's, I was a mechanic before I started doing this. My father was a mechanic. I told him I want to be a mechanic. He said, please don't become a mechanic. Not for two reasons.

One, he's like, it's not as lucrative as it was when he was a mechanic and he managed to move his way up. And he's like, you don't have the attention span to be a mechanic, which inevitably became true. But when I went to EMT school after being a mechanic for two years, it was incredible. I'm sure it's the same way that you felt the first time you really started learning about human anatomy and the body and just the way it works. I was like, this is incredible.

This is so cool. And then fire school is the same thing, just on a different level. This, like, dude, I get to break things in half. And I get to hang out with some of the greatest people I've ever met. I don't know how it is in the physician world, but like, we show up on ship. We're there for 24 hours. There's a bunch of different schedules, 24 on 48 out. Some do 48 on 96 off, that kind of thing.

But you get into this job to save lives. and you stay in it for the brotherhood and the sisterhood that you get. Some of the greatest guys I've ever met, I get to sit around a table. They say all the world's problems have been solved around the firehouse table. Like it's amazing.

It's such a good time. I would tell anybody at any point in time, you get to save lives, you get to interact with people, you get to find real human interaction. Sometimes the greatest medicine in the world is just holding somebody's hand and saying, hey man, what can I do to help you?

And that I've loved every single second. It's been so cool. Do you guys slide down the fire pole still? I do. You have it? We built two brand new stations. It's kind of falling out of favor. Yeah, because it hurts people.

You guys end up needing to give care to your own? What happens? Do you twist it ankles. Like, yeah. So the first poll I ever got to, a fire pole I got to go down was in Shreveport, Louisiana. And I want to say there's his 30 feet up. I want to say it's three stories or something like that.

Dude, I look. I looked at, they're like, you want to slide down? I'm like, sure, we're on it. They open it up, I'm like, well, I'm good. Are you gloved up when you do it? No, you just, yeah, you just slide down. Yeah. So I'm like, I'm not a huge fan of heights. I have, and when you're in fire school,

and when I got hired to fire department, that we have a 75 foot aerial ladder, and they put it up at a proper climbing angle roughly 70% and, or 70 degrees, and you have to climb straight up it. Would no, like, safety hook attached? Do you, you'll have it? You'll have it, but when you get to the top, you hook in. Got it.

So if you fall prematurely. It's been fun. Wow. Okay. So you're going down this dirty foot pole. So I'm going down Thursday. It was one of those like, and I got like 12 guys watching me. It's a huge fire station.

And they're like, come on. See you like, I can't trick it out. Yeah. Oh my God. I was just, you're supposed to be somewhat relaxed. And I just like, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, glistering your hands out. Oh, no. So terrifying, man.

Okay. So, lots of injuries. from the fire pole. We still do it. It's much faster than going down the stairs. How much faster? You're probably talking to 10 seconds. Yeah.

But it's probably also real estate-wise a good choice because stairs require a lot of room. Some people do in fire slides. So instead of the pole, they'll just put a slide in and you just slide down. That sounds more fun. Oh, my God. I would be asking for calls.

Jump in. And how many calls on a shift do you normally yet. It depends. I've had calls where we call them goose eggs and have a single call the entire shift. And then I've had calls where we've run 26 calls in a 24 hour period. Wow. Yeah. So because a lot of these are not fire, what are the calls? EMS based calls. So chest pain, shortness, both seizures, cardiac arrest, all the fun stuff. And then car accidents, like I said, the no fire species is just structure fires are diminishing at least in South Florida because of the, a lot of areas.

But again, when you move into the winter periods or you go into places that are wood frame structures, a buddy of mine works or a couple of friends of mine work for a city called Rockford, they'll have three or four structure fires in a day. So yeah, it just depends on the area. But for us, it's going to be mainly those EMS-based calls. And I'm sure we have a lot of manufacturing facilities.

Those probably are very high risk and huge probably when they happen. So the area that I work in is, everything million dollar structures low income housing highways uh I told you before we got on here we'll go with the coast guard every once in a while on a three mile trip out to a cruise ship

which is a blast every single time those guys are nuts bro really oh my god because they're so they're just so comfortable on they're good they're very good at their job and they're so comfortable on these on these boats and it's always 3 a.m. whenever this happens we get toned out we're half asleep we get on there like all right guys you're ready we're like yeah sure six foot waves we're just jumping over this stuff and they're like we're good

for a very long time we would um we would get the boat the coast guard boat right next to the cruise ship and we would have to time the waves and we would jump onto the cruise ship and uh wait so you're doing fire rescues on a cruise ship we're not fire rescue we're going out for medical patients yeah they'll call us because we have to bring them in because they can't come in so they'll they'll treat the patient then we'll get them and then we'll bring them in and bring them to a local hospital. So currently we're in the midst of a hansa virus outbreak on a cruise ship. What were you called to a cruise ship for? A couple cardiac arrests I've had.

A lot of, you know, either broken bones or minor injury, stuff that they can't treat, something major enough to where they can't treat it or stay on the ship. So we just need to bring them to a local hospital to be able to get checked out. What if there's a fire on a cruise ship? They have, dude, they're, their entire. crews are trained to fight fire. Wow. So they have fire extinguishers, hoses, the works. And I would imagine there's levels of it, but they have

rescue teams on there that that is what they do. Let me tell you why I don't want to fight a fire on a cruise ship or on a boat. How come? Those are horrendous. Think about it. There's water all around. Yeah, yeah. Once it gets in the boat, that's a big problem. It's, uh, you're surrounded by metal. You're, there's nowhere for that heat to go. It's just a big hot box. And then And depending on where the fire is, so like I said, the thermal layering, heat's always at the top. If I have to go into, we don't have basements in Florida, but a lot of guys around these areas, they fight basement fires.

They're walking through. Why are there no basements in Florida? Oh, flooding. Water, yeah. I lived in a townhouse that had a basement. They just built it really above grade. They called it in a little bit of our basement. I'm like, I'm on a hill.

This is not a basement. This is the first floor. Yeah. But, yeah, they'll, they have to go through all three layers of the heat before you can get to the fire itself. so it's super hot. So same thing on boats. Those are super dangerous. Wow.

Yeah. So you mentioned earlier that a lot of what you see on TV is wrong, especially when it comes to the nozzle. What do we know about firefighters that is not accurate? Oh my God. That's a great question, Mike. I have to circle my answer to that. You're like, because I know everything,

so I don't need to deal with that. I don't know. So I'll say this. And I don't know because you review a lot of the medical shows and stuff. there is that line where it is a show. They need to dramatize it. They need to create, they need to explain what they're looking at

and dealing with, even if it's really outside of the way that a normal paramedic or two doctors would talk to each other, so the viewer can understand what's happening. And they need to dramatize stuff like fires or whatever it is. The only time that I'm like,

what are you doing is when they get the information just completely wrong, Like, or they use the absolute wrong word for something. Like, they're like, look at his knee. It's really bad. I'm like, Jesus, guys. The patella is this okay. So I think, or the, God, my absolute favorite,

lava in California or wherever it was, there's a volcano that explodes or something like that. A piece of magma shoots out and lands on this guy's chest. Oh. And it's melting through his chest. I'm not sure if you saw this one, but it's melting through his chest. She grabs the McGill forceps and tries to grab the lava and it melts.

It melts the metal. And I forget how they solve the problem. Oh, she used the laryngeoscope blade because laryngeoscope blades have a, you know, 50,000 degree melting points. It's melting on the sky's dress. I'm like, this dude's dead. His heart is literally cooking. He's got a hot pocket for her heart right now.

But it's those things where I'm like, God, this is so. It's absolutely insane. Which fire medical drama is the most and least accurate? Tacoma FD was a comedy that came out from the guys from Super Troopers. Okay. Perfect, bro. Like the perfect, yeah, just really good in-station humor. And let me tell you, it's really hard to get in-station humor to be acceptable.

That was the only thing that kind of allowed me to gain any kind of popularity within the fire and EMS service was, I didn't take what we say in the station. Because I know you when you're around your physician buddies, like you say stuff that if you ever said on this podcast, they'd be like, ah. Nursing humor is some of the darkest humor ever. Yes. You walk into a nursing station,

you're like, what the hell am I hearing you here? But it's how you deal with dark moments and stress all the time. Dude, I'm telling you, you don't, you get in this field. And the one thing that we've, I think we're doing so much better on the fire in EMS systems. And I think just as humans is we are putting mental health on the forefront. When we're talking about it enough to where it's normal for,

I had a probie, we go to a call. It's a deceased person. He walks in, he sees, and the guy's been deceased for a few days. It's something that's most people should never see. And back in the day, when I started, if you saw that and someone was like, you're all right, bro, I'm like, dude, that was really weird. They're like, book up, buddy.

Like, if you don't know what to handle this, screw you, like, Jesus, dude. So for us to be able to say, hey, to be vulnerable with someone and say, like, hey, it's okay. Like that's no, most people will never see a dead person in their life, let alone that type of dead person. So putting that at the forefront, we now have a class when it comes to talking about mental health and just talking about the things that you feel and hear. And it's being really well received, which I think is very cool in the fire and US service. What was it like the first time you lost someone in the field? I think, so my, my first call was a woman who was in a car accident.

she got hit on a highway and her she had like bilateral femo fractures like you want to talk about like green dude I ran up and grabbed the door she was she was crushed she needed to be extricated I grabbed the door and started pulling on it and with the one of the guys I didn't have my coat on like I was just like let's go we're saving lives

and one of the guys like what are you doing bro I was like I'm so sorry I'm just excited so we uh we ended up extricating her but she ended up bleeding I think her pelvis was fractured as well. I think that was my first, like, real experience with, oh, crap, we can't save everybody. Like, that's weird. Like, that's what we, we believe, if we're there in time, if they're still breathing when we get there,

we should be able to save them and get them to the hospital. But that was an interesting experience. And then I had two kids who flipped over in a car and ended up in a lake. And we had to swim down and grab these kids, which I learned that day. Wow. I can hold my breath for eight seconds. That's not enough, dude. Do you have that self-contained airway breathing kid?

No, you're just swimming down. So you're not scoobing. No, you're not scoobing. No, you're swimming down trying to break windows and get people out. And we got them both out swimming to the shore. And we got back to the station. One of the guys I work with, he's like, he started crying, man. He's like, both those kids were my teenagers age.

It was the, like, that's what he saw. He immediately identified with his kids. And, you know, we talked. We took our pants off. It was a great day for both of us, but I'm just kidding. I'm taking your pants with my own. You know a little mal bonding. I get it.

Sona session. It's more worse than he doesn't laugh at that. It just makes me look like a weirdo. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate that. No, I get what you're saying. Every time you experience loss in the healthcare space, it reminds you how vulnerable human life is.

But then at the same time, because you're seeing sick people all the time or injured people all the time, you're realizing, wow, the body doesn't. does bounce back and has an immense capacity for healing. So it kind of puts you on these two extremes where you're like, everyone's dying and no one's dying. Dude, 100%. That guy that we shocked the other day who was in Fibb

and then he went right back into a viable rhythm. I was like, that is crazy. Because we talk about that. We teach people that we tell people that as lay rescuers, like if you use an AED, they have a really high chance, what should they do of surviving? But you see so many cardiac arrests that don't end that way. And you're like, man, I need a win here.

And you're right, dude, it's, it is that fine balance between everybody's dying at all points and times. And people can actually come back from this. Yeah, because it's like you're one inch from death and a thousand miles away from death at the same time. Yes. Because the human body is just like, to me, I get so excited talking and thinking about the human body when it's like there are, everyone says, oh, we're so fragile and they lose someone. And I get why they're saying that because they just lost someone that was healthy a few days ago.

But if you look at it, amount of threats we face on a given day from bacteria and things that would kill us just a hundred years ago, that now it's like, oh, my throat hurts and I'm annoyed. I have to take Advil today. So it's interesting how far we've come in handling acute disease and acute threats to our life. And now we're dealing with the flip side of it because we're helping people survive these acute deaths moments. They're chronic health patients. Everyone's like, why is everyone chronically unhealthy? Well, because we've prevented them from dying. So now they're chronic health patients. That's so funny. We see that a lot in our current health sphere where people say that,

why is America so unhealthy? Part of it is a problem of success. Another problem of it is like a societal issue and prevention issue and lifestyle issue. So it's a lot of things all all bounced together in one. That's easier access to things that they would need to be able to extend their lives is big. And that's kind of the same thing. Cheaper products for fires. That's why they're spreading so fast, man. Because back in the day, it was just, you know, cotton. There was, you know, your basic combustibles that are in some of these things, woods. Now everything is polyester. Everything is plastic. Everything lights and lights. So does that light up faster? Yeah. But then you also were saying some of the building materials are slower. So building, building construction has gotten

better. But the actual things in the home are gotten worse. And then just, but then also less people smoke. Less people do smoke. That's probably playing a role, right? Because the drop, right? I don't know. That's what I learned. They're like never smoke while sleeping. No, well, never smoke while sleeping. But then the other risks that are now coming, more things have lithium ion batteries. And then people are using. Charging banks. Yeah, charging banks. They're not using the right charging cables. They're like they got their one from their laptop. They're plugging it. Yeah, that kind of thing. Allowing their cell phones or other things to charge while under blankets. They're overheating and causing fires. Space hues are a big one. Extension courts, man. Extension. They have a, is that the deadliest thing

in a home? No, no. What is the deadliest item in a home? Humans. Second deadliest. Yeah, got them. That was a good cheap answer. The biggest cause of fires is going to be cooking. That's going to be your number one thing. So don't cook. I mean, if you look, if you could afford it, man. Cook, just cook safely. Don't leave cooking unattended. If you're cooking with grease, make sure that you're not overheating the grease so it can bust.

If you do have a grease fire, do you know what to never put on a grease fire? Water, my man. Look at that, yeah, good. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, water, dude. Obviously, the first thing you want to throw on a fire is water.

But when you throw it on there, it spreads it. You have to think, The grease moves around, basically. Because it sits on the top of the water. Not only that, that's good. This guy's the doctor. Also, it immediately converts the steam.

And that could... It essentially explodes. You're throwing it on there. It's converting to steam. Now we're throwing fire. What if you throw a really dense droplet because the nozzle... Sorry, go ahead.

You're going to be a billionaire if you invent that. It's just the one droplet. Oh, it's so funny. It's okay. You throw it. There's steam. So, steam.

converts and now we have flames everywhere and you've also gotten burned in the process. But covering, oh, you just cover it. If you have a lid, put it on top, fire blankets work really well. ABC extinguishers are good. That's, what is that, is that a type? ABC is just different types of your extinguishers. I don't even know there were different times. So if I'm buying one, which one should I buy?

You buy ABC. So ABC will say that it's going to combat. Airway breathing. Yeah, airway breathing. Circulation. You sprayed in their mouth and they come back. That is not how you want to use. Dr. Mike has killed 43 people.

This video gets taken down by YouTube. I lose my doctor certification on the bottom. Please don't spray the people's mouth. So A is going to be for your normal combustibles. So wood, paper, that kind of thing. Your flammable liquids are going to be for B. And then C is electrical fires. Your average person, they want them within 10 feet,

one on every floor and then one within 10 feet of 8 to 10 feet of a cooking surface. But if you're doing that, just remember pass. Pull, a squeeze sweep. So you're going to pull the pin. You're going to step back. Make sure you're, again, far enough to wait where you can spread it properly.

You're not going to spray anything on yourself. Then you're going to spray and you're going to sweep back and forth. And you're aiming at the base. Aiming at the base of the fire. There are different types of fires. Grease, electrical. Yeah. And grease is going to...

Is it just based off the ABCs? It's not the ABCs. but it's it's it's just the type of combustible so solids liquids and electrical no that's uh solid man we're gonna get deepener now yeah yeah about birolysis all this fun stuff um but uh it's just the type of combust the a is like again like your normal things this wood but how is electrical fire different than a grease fire because it has electricity involved the the grease fire is going to be the actual liquid that is on fire itself the electrical fire is going to be a it's an electrical source that is setting something else combustible on fire.

Oh, so even if you put out the fire, if you don't stop the electrical source. Correct. Correct. But it's safe to spray it on that thing that is around that electrical issue. So you're, but we obviously want to shut the electricity off. If you can't shut the electricity off because it's, you know, coming in from another source, then just get out of your house and we'll help from that. Another dumb guy question.

Have you ever been burned? Yes. How? Multiple times of my life. It's like, the firefighter. Fire burn. Badly? I've only been burned on a fire once.

And that was, we were fighting a fire as a shed fire. And we get there, it's a big shed. What's on fire in there is a bunch of crazy stuff. It's, you know, lawnmowers, a bunch of different fuels, diesel, gas, like big things of gas. When fire touches a gas tank, does it explode like a dozen the movies? It doesn't? No. God damn it.

So you got to think, in order for something to actually light on fire, it needs to be converted to a gas. It's through something called pyrolysis. So once it's converted to a gas, that is the state of matter that can actually be lit on fire. So when you put gas, that's why when people like pour a ton of gas and then they talk to their friend for a second and then they come back and they're still pouring, that's just off gassing all of that.

And then that's where you see explosions happen. Okay, got it. Yeah. So car accidents don't explode. No. God, I feel like every movie I've watched has been a lie. Like Man on Fire. I'm thinking of Denzel Washington walking away from the car.

Oh, actually he had C4. So I guess that's a great movie, by the way. That's my favorite movie of all time. Is it? Yeah. Dude, Denzel is one of those guys. I'm positive. He's a little bit like that in real life.

Yeah. Joe Pesci is supposedly just like that. Really? Yeah, supposedly. I could see that. that too, just being angry. What's your favorite Joe Pesci movie? I mean, I know I'm from the Goodfellas vibes.

I say Goodfellas is really, I do. I love Home Alone, man. I just, I love that version of him. Like, it's, it's really, really funny. Home alone is kind of how I view the United States still. Yeah. Because when I came to America, that's like one of the first things I was out at the time. And I was like, wow, this is America.

Like, strange people come into your house, but you could beat the show. You move Florida. Safety. Yeah. He was standing his ground. Yeah, he's standing his ground. How long would you move to the United States? I was six in 95.

That's so cool. Do you still actively speak Russian? Mm-hmm. Yeah, with my father, it's our primary way of communication. I learned Polish at one point in time. No way. Yeah. Who learns Polish casually and then forgets it?

Yeah, it was the longest. I was married before and I learned Polish to speak to her family. Got it. And I became conversationalally fluent. I went to Poland twice for three months for each time. Call him. Yeah. Oh, do you know what Comje means?

You love me? Okay. Well, I figured because you said it was for your loved ones. I thought you would know that one. Yep, Dr. Michael loves me. Got a little p-oom. And then I got a lot. Oh, yeah.

Let's go. I loved speaking it, but it made me have such an incredible respect for anybody that learns another language. Not only just learns under language to be able to be, conversational fluent with other people, but then learns like a whole new, like medical terminology. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's insane. Like, they should have a name, like a sub-language, like music. Should be another language. Yeah. Like, if you play music, you speak another language. Yeah. You are a lawyer, you speak another language. You're a doctor, engineer, whatever. You speak a different

language. So I think that's definitely true. How did you learn? I started with a Rosetta Stone. And it worked? It worked enough. It works. You have to be in the environment, right? You have to, man. What I learned was because Polish, I imagine Russian is very similar, like everything is so dense or like so complex. Like you can say the word two like 22 different ways because it's got to change, male, newer, neuter female, that kind of thing. But what I learned was that I went through Rosetta Stone, learned enough. Then then I eventually got like a private tutor, which was fun. And I went back and read my notes from Rosetta Stone.

Dude, none of it made sense. Like I understood nothing. I was saying, dude. But he was such a cool experience, man. I met a guy who was from the Ukraine, the Uber driver that brought me here. And the guy's been in four years and we're just talking.

I'm like, that's crazy, man. He was talking to you in Polish? No, in English. Yeah, yeah, that'd be cool too. I was like, hey, I learned Polish. He's like, good job. I speak English. He's lovely.

Yeah, I would not be able to learn Russian had I started now. There's no way. It's too complicated. It would take too much time. Spanish I picked up. from the medical world and also past relationships. So I don't understand what that's like.

You speak Spanish too? Not well, but enough to get by, especially medically. Yeah. And the population that I take care of being in a community health center is so grateful that you've even tried. Oh, yeah. So to them, it's the effort that you're putting in that is a blessing to them, which I love putting in that effort because I want to be a better communicator.

Right. That's like part of the biggest part of your job that requires success. right connecting to another human. That and I think a lot of people lose that. And don't get me wrong, man. At 3 o'clock in the morning for a toe pain, I'm like, what am I doing? But buck up.

But one of the biggest things I've learned is looking somebody in the eye and then getting some kind of human touch to them. Especially if they're freaking out. They don't know what's going on. A buddy mindset to me a long time ago, he goes, I was probably five years in. I was probably five years in. I was starting to get that burnout feeling.

And he's like, just remember, bro, what's an emergency to you is not, or what's not an emergency to you is definitely an emergency to them, man. Like this is the first time they've ever seen this. They've never had a call 911. They've never dealt with this before. And I think the best phrase I ever say to people that seems to work really well is it's going to be okay. Like we're going to do our best to help you. And for 80% of the time, man, that's at least enough for them to say, all right, cool.

I can take a breath. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's going to be okay. Wow. And in connecting with all these folks, Are there any encounters that stick out in your mind as, whoa, that was an interesting one, or I can't believe we got through that?

God. Because I know a big part of your channel is creating these stories of, there were these patients or these cases. When Flaka was around for a bit, that was insane. What's that? Oh, you guys didn't have Flaka up here? Flaka, no. You have three nose.

You should try. Not kidding. Is this the gentleman known as Waka? Fuck, fuck. Yeah, he just ran through my area every once in a while. We're like, oh, we're like, oh, go. No, it was a, it was a street pharmaceutical that people were consuming. They were smoking it.

Is this like bath salt? Not as, um, didn't seem to be as violent. It was just very, they were all naked, uh, every time. Um, but they, like, were no longer attached to our reality. The weirdest thing, dude. the weirdest thing is everyone, every time I ran on someone that was on there, they said that they were being chased by wolves.

Every one of them. I was like, are they actually going to another reality? Like what's happening here? You don't have wolves in Florida. No, no wolves in, God,

that would be a whole new one. That's in Minnesota. But a few of those, and you get there and they're legitimately, they're looking through you. They're no longer. I think that's the scariest patient you ever deal with.

Is someone, I don't know if you've ever had that, but... I mean, of course, to some degree, especially someone's sundowning who's older in the nursing homes. So we spent time in the nursing homes. Those people forget about it. Dude. Yeah.

They're so sweet otherwise. Yes. Which is why seeing that flip is, whoa. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But I, uh, but they're looking through you. They don't know what's happening. They're scared because whatever they smoked is, is detached them from reality.

And those are the moments where you're like, crap. Because if this could go south really fast, they could hurt themselves. So we give them some sedatives. I've had a couple of them. We give them some sedatives and boom, they're right back and they're like, hey, what's going on, bro? I'm like, holy crap. I've never heard of this flogness in area. This is years ago.

Are you seeing more substance abuse cases now? No, it's actually decreased a lot in Florida. Really? They used to call us the Narcan crew. The Pilt, the Narcan crew. Dude, that was bad. Wait, wait, you had a time with Narcan. Oh, my God.

During the peak. of, they called it the pill highway. There were so many physicians, pain clinics down there that were prescribing medication or opioids to people. They were coming down from other states going to multiple doctors. They called a doctor shopping.

Go to multiple doctors and then driving back up. But we had a point where I don't know what type of opioid it was, but this, we would show up on overdoses. There'd be two of them. Two people at one time, which we had never really seen in our area. And

they're right next to each other. We were giving them 8, 10 milligrams of Narcan. And I mean, it had to be fentanyl. It, dude, I've never seen anything like this. I've never seen, you normally give... Like they didn't touch them. You normally give somebody 0.5.

Yeah, they wake up screaming. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or you like just slowly titrate them. I actually, I don't wake people up anymore. I just get the respiratory drive back to normal. Yeah, comfortable. Well, yeah, you bring them to a safe place. Yeah, because I, dude, you watch people

slam two milligrams of that stuff. And you're like, this is not good for anybody. Yeah. They have now vomited all. all over all of us and they're not happy. So, but yeah, that was two milligrams, two milligrams, two milligrams. Nobody's waking up. Supposedly, I don't know if it's true or not, but I teach CPR.

A lot of my clients are treatment facilities. They do CPR so much that they need some difference than someone coming in. Yeah, the press on the dress. So supposedly there was someone who got busted in the Miami area and after that, that's where that, because it was like overnight, dude. It was overnight. It stopped. Wow.

Well, that's true. I don't know. What's that's true. The amount of differentials you have when you go to a key, like, what do you know when you go to a call? Like, for me, before I walk into an exam room in an outpatient setting, I'll know the name of the patient, the age of the patient, the reason for the encounter. And my nurse will grab a, or a CMA, we'll grab a brief history along with the

vitals and present that to me. Now I can go in with knowledge of what's going on. What do you know? So we'll get the basics. We'll get the address, whatever the type of the call is, if it's, chest pain, or chest pain, so you'll get a complaint.

Do you call it a chief complaint? Goal it, yeah. Yeah. Which I don't really love because it's like your heart stopped. You're not complaining. Well,

we don't walk in and go. His chief complaint is cardiac arrest, guys. Yeah, we'll get just the basics of what going on. But it's funny, bro,

because you take that with a grain of salt. At least for you, they've gotten a set of idols and kind of an updated stuff. For us, like you said, especially we tell them,

medicine, you know, for you, they're describing something. They may not understand how to describe it properly. Or if you don't ask that one right question, like, is it radiating or anything like that? You don't know that their aorta is currently tearing in half. So, God, how would you get vital signs if you needed? Would you just? Yeah, if there's a dissection of the. No, no, I'm saying like, during your telemedicine piece. If like, if, oh, you don't. There is no vitals for a telemedic piece. There are now companies creating devices where if people want to, they sell them the device and a membership to this telemedicine service where they could put on the devices and the doctor can use those vitals.

And some of those devices actually allow you to look in their throat and ears and things like that, not widely adoptable, but they were being sold at best by at one point. That's well. Yeah, I love my own little blood pressure machine at home. Amran? Yeah, it's a great machine, dude. I'd gone through two or three of them and some of them were just wildly inaccurate. Oh, really?

Was it the size of the cuff that was issued? Because you have big arms. Gotcha. I think it was, or it might have been, I tried different placements of it. And then I learned something I never knew, dude. I didn't know that your blood pressure is the highest when you wake up in the morning.

I didn't. Well, is it the highest? It's supposedly higher than normal, I would say. Yeah, like from the cortisol spike of just waking up. Yes. Yeah, I wouldn't ever say, like, wake up a chicken. Well, that's what I was doing, Dr. Mike. I was waking up.

I was like, I was like, Jesus, why is my blood pressure so high? But yeah, that was fun just being able to, I developed type blood pressure out of nowhere. Just like personal note,

I started getting headaches at the base in my head. And I worked with this company called Detack Together, their cancer prevention for firefighters, and they have a two-week rule. If you have any symptoms for longer than a two-week period,

you should get a checked out. So for two weeks, I was having, yeah, it was great, great, great messaging. I had just pressure headaches at the base of my skull all the time. So I was like, I think I have a tumor. That was my first thought. Well, you went on WebMD on symptom checkers. Yes. But I started, I was like, let me just check my blood pressure. And it was like

155, 160. And then my diastolic was closer to 100. I was like, I work out every day. My pulse is naturally in the low 50s. I was like, this is not normal. I was eating these pre-made healthy meals. Sodium rich? They were so sodium rich, man. And I, I don't eat any sodium. So I ended up going a low sodium diet. End up working itself out and it's good now. So yeah. And were the headaches related to that?

Yeah, that's what they was. Because it's very unusual to have a headache from blood pressure unless it's really high. Yeah. I mean the 100 diastolic now you're getting into that number. Yeah. But I had a patient the other day came in for bilateral leg swelling.

And obviously whenever you have leg swelling, especially in someone who's older, you're worried about a clot. She's not moving around much. But it wasn't the type of a swelling that you'd have from a clot, it felt like pita lema from congestive heart failure. And her heart had some issues, but not to the degree where I would say, oh, we need to implement diuretics. And her echo did not show congestive heart failure to that degree. I said, look,

look, this doesn't make sense. Are you eating anything really salty out of nowhere? She was, no. Like, I add no salt. I don't do this. I'm like, do me a favor. Keep a journal. We'll do an ultrasound to rule out clots because, like, you want to be thorough. there's no radiation, low risk test. But keep this journal. She goes, there's nothing obviously on the ultrasound, messages me on the messaging portal and goes, so the perjudo I started implementing in my diet

actually is very rich in sodium. And I'm like, wow, I thought that was pretty common knowledge. Oh my God, it is not, dude. It's so funny. I worked for a physician's office for six months before I became a medic. I was actually, I think it was just an EMT at the moment. I was getting ready to go to medic school.

And I was doing what your nurses do. The patients would come in. I would do my basic stuff with them, check their vitals, all the stuff, and wait for the physicians come in. So I had this patient come in and they had CHF. And they were like, I just feel really dehydrated. And I was like, just drink more water. Just like, you got to drink a lot more water if you don't want to feel dehydrated. Uh-oh.

They can't breathe. The doctor comes out and goes, hey, you tell that patient to drink more water. go, yeah, he goes, Jesus, bro. You're just sort of guys exact words where stop giving people advice. I was like, I'm sorry. That happens a lot from well-intentioned advice. Yeah, yeah.

I've even seen this with residents where this is a hyper-specific case, but if someone has a thyroid cancer that's been treated, sometimes they would give additional thyroid hormone to really make sure that your levels are super low of TSA so that you don't reg. grow this cancer tumor. And because of that, if you check just the TSA, you'd say, oh, my God, we're giving them

way too much thyroid hormone. But it's being done purposefully so that we don't regenerate this cancerous tumor. And then the resident will start adjusting it. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're going to regrow their tumor. Please don't do that. And sometimes in health care, you learn very quickly that, why it's so humbling. Just because something makes sense, it might not be the right move or just because you have the right intention, it might not be the right move.

And very, very tricky to figure that out. That, that's what I love about, like, physicians and people that are just truly good at what they do. Like I was saying before, when we, I watched certain TikToks or whatever and you just listen to that, that double board certified guy. Like, I listen to him. I'm like, dude, this guy is incredible. Well, there's a new genre.

It's called competency porn. Where you just watch people who know what they're doing. It's why the pit, I think, is so successful. Do you watch that? Yeah, I don't watch it, but I've heard nothing about incredible things about it. Because it's just like watching people who are really good at the thing that they do

because we kind of live in this era where on social media, there's a lot of people who claim they know what to do. When push comes to show, they don't know shit. Yes. Are there people spreading misinformation about fire safety? Not really, man.

Most people are pretty good about it. Thank God. No one's selling like a miracle rescue kit or something? No, but dude. And again, this is still some of the, this stuff is still preliminary and coming out. But like you talk about like the guy that wants to adjust something that's really gonna screw something out.

By the way, I saw, I had a lady go into a third degree heart block because her cardiologist gave her calcium channel blocker and someone else gave her a beta blocker. And they must have not communicated or she didn't tell them and like really messed up. So lithium ion batteries for a long time, they were, and stuff is still coming out about this, but taking fire blankets, putting them over the cars

when they're on fire. And it extinguishes the fire, then allows it to cool down. It doesn't keep going into the thermal runaway, is what it's called. Well, what they found, again, still stuff coming out about it, was that you're trapping all those very dangerous explosive gases underneath that, such a tent, but under that blanket, and it could make an explosive environment. So, and like, you dames if you do, you don't,

like, what's the best way to approach these things? Now that we have more EVs and charging stations, Are there fires related to those? Yes, no. Really? Yeah. I don't know about the charging stations themselves, but you're going to see more, more fires that with EVs. It's inevitable.

I forgot if this was Secretary Pete Buttigieg, or someone was mentioning to me how because these EVs are heavier on the highways, for example, the barriers that prevent people from sliding off are now not strong enough because these cars are heavier. That's crazy. that now roads have to be adapted, et cetera, for the electric car environment. Is there anything you guys are doing differently when you come to a car accident scene when it's an EV versus combustion? Our biggest thing is,

we don't want fires to happen at any point in time, and it's so rare that you see a combustion, you know, regular gas-fueled fire starting or on a automotive vehicle starting. These EVs, it's the hardest part is we just don't know what to do yet. We don't know how to fight them. I mean, if it goes into thermal, If it's just the catchers on fire

and it's just the components around the batteries on fire, it's not a big deal. You know, water's gonna be totally fine. But if it goes in a thermal runaway, which is one battery overheating, then catching the next one, the next one, next one, and if it's inside of that actual compartment or inside of the pack itself, we can't access it.

So we can spray water on it all day long, but it's not getting in there to cool it down. So we can cool the battery pack, hopefully, if it's just that, and hopefully cooled enough to where we can prevent the thermal runaway, but the big issue they're having is when they cool it down, then you have a tow truck show up. When it moves, it can set back on fire again. So they're taking him, they're putting them inside of dunk tanks. Wow. It's like a bomb squad is coming out.

Yeah. Jesus. It's not as common as people make it out to be. And it's anything new is terrifying. Of course. Yeah. And that's, so they're coming out with different things where you can take a nozzle, put it underneath there. It's specifically made to just drench it and hopefully cool it on the thermal runaway. But then they're having piercing ones. Well, they'll go in,

they'll pierce the battery pack and then put it out. But our big thing is just trying to cut off the electricity and then kind of go from there. Create the safety there. Like in my race car, I have a fire extinguisher, but it's not a handheld manual one.

I have a giant red button that I have to press. And I think it just explodes in the car. Yeah. I don't know if it explodes. No, no, I think it, right? Isn't that what they said? That would be good.

We haven't had to use it. Yeah. Thank God I haven't had to use it yet. But you know what's funny? So I crashed my car in Indiana. Great. Great job, Mike. And smoke billowed inside the car.

I don't know how I knew because I shouldn't have known. But the smoke was coming from, I hit the rear tire against the wall. And then the tire kind of got jammed. So as the car was rolling to a stop, the brake and everything created a bunch of smoke. It wasn't actual fire smoke. it could have easily been a fire smoke and there should have been a world where I considered pushing the button

but I didn't at all so if I press that button and something they said it explodes there's no I'm maybe hey listen I'm not an expert on all things extinguisher I can tell you back in the day they used to have little hand grenade ones

where you threw it in there and exploded did you ever use one of those? No dude I'm we're talking years years before I could see you guys in the firehouse just messing with each other They're just like, yope. No, but there is a story about that.

We get there. The guy had pulled the pin and thrown a modern extinguisher into the fire, and it didn't put the fire out. He threw the actual. Yeah, the whole extinguisher around. It doesn't do anything. Does it ever explode? I mean, it might if it sits there for long enough periods of time,

but I can't imagine it would that would end up happening. So for yours, I'm not sure it may explode, or it may just be that it is, charged with whatever that chemical is, that agent that's going to put out the fire. Because I assume it's spraying in your gas tank area as well as, is it also going in the engine department? I think it's exploding everywhere. Yeah. Well, and I don't know if exploding is the right term.

But it's clearly not, it's bolted down. It's not like a point and shoot thing that I pick up and shoot. And you just punch that baby. So you punch a bus. There's a button. And it reminded me, this is such a random thing to bring up, but it reminded me of the button that I flew in an F-16 with Air Force Thunderbird. and they were like, hey, just so you know, this is the button and this is the seat thing

in between your seat, do not touch this. Unless like you're ready to jump out. And I'm like, wait, why are you saying do not touch it? What if I need to jump out? And they said that this is a bilateral switch. So if I pull it, the pilot also gets thrown out as well. And this thing's worth like $15, $20 million. They're like, do not do this.

Oh my God. The level of trust to just send it. a YouTube dude and be like, yeah, don't pull that. That's $15 million. You gotta be the right YouTube guy because there'd be a move where that would push that. And what's crazy is it's not like you have a parachute on.

Your seat is the parachute. So your seat gets what? Dude. Again, respect for people that created that. Like someone was like, respect who uses that comfortably. Yeah. No, I'm telling you those Coast Guard guys

when we go out to those shifts, I told you this before the, like literally, he's like putting and I've never been on I'm not comfortable in boats period my biggest fear in life is being 12 miles out my boat goes down and I gotta just sit there and burn in the sun because I'm a ginger um but he literally putting that on me and he's like you know just if you go in the water I'm like hold on bro aren't you the coast guard what do you mean if I'm in the water he's like things happen it should inflate oh my god and then I'm like then what happens he goes they should send a helicopter I'm like dude what is happening right now? Like I'm terrible. I love that it's always should. Yeah, I'm positive. This guy was like, I'm going to mess with this firefire. But they're like, dude, just six foot waves.

You know what's interesting? Given the era in which we live where the majority of the country is either overweight or obese, are you going into scenarios into people's homes where someone is extremely obese, morbidly obese, and you need to get them out? Like, how do you handle that? Thankfully, we've been able to adapt. And if it's really bad... I'm saying 400 pounds.

400 pounds. Anyone over a certain weight, I couldn't give you that exact. We can call a unit that is specifically for that. Really? I've only had one patient in my 18 years of being at the fire service where I had to call another unit to transport them just for their own safety because they have OB units, or not obese units like obese units where they can bariatric units

where they'll show up and it's a wider stretcher with a bigger vehicle. Well, that I get, but actually moving them. We'll figure it out, man. So if they are down on the stairs or like, what do you? We're going to grab feet. Yeah, straps. We're going to grab feet. We're going to grab, we call them carryalls.

We're going to put it underneath them. We're going to move them as best as we possibly can. And that's scary in the midst of an emergency. Like health emergency is one thing, but when all of your lives are at risk. Yeah. Yeah, it's, like I said, it's, we're going to figure it out, man. That's that's that's that's that's that's so you're saying yeah yeah we need to get You're creative so we're lucky man because like I said we're we're fire based EMS service so

We have a minimum of four people showing up on a call sometimes depending off it's cardiac arrest we're gonna have you know Six to ten people showing up you go to some of these private ambulance companies They don't like they got two people showing up at two people showing up what are you that's it They're gonna call some more people they're gonna call the fire a lot of times a local fire stations will show up, they're just not tied together. So they'll get lift assist, that kind of thing. But there's just some people that they're showing up. And response times are bad.

EMS is probably at its lowest. It's been in a very long time. How does one check for their area what the response time is? I'm sure they can look it up or they can call their local fire department. They can find out pull the stats. Yeah, that kind of stuff. Like I said, we're four to six minutes. If you're in a more rural area, then it's probably going to be a little bit longer,

depending on what's going on. Are you oftentimes, again, this is, my knowledge from movies. God, I feel like I learned everything from television. I do. Me too. Are you rescuing cats from? Oh, yeah. No, no, no, come on. Oh, yeah. That always felt like if there was misinformation, it had to be the cat's 100% accurate. You're really? Oh, all right. You know what? The biggest thing that's inaccurate about firefighters, they say that we sleep all the time. They say that's all we do. We play video games and sleep. Do you not play video games? I don't play video games. I have seen it, but we're not going to point that out. I have played a video game a couple times. But the sleep.

The sleeping part, sleep does happen. It is possible, but it's gonna happen at some point, especially when we're on for 24 hours. You wouldn't want guys staying up for 24 hours straight. It's horrendous. But the truck I'm on right now, we average four or five calls after midnight. So we're up all night, that kind of thing.

Yes, cats all the time. Cats out of trees, yeah. In a month, how many cat calls do you get? That could mean two things. Yeah, 16 to 18 per month. I'm kidding, that I'm not. I was about to say, you are now no longer the firefighter. We are cat savers.

Cat savers. I would say probably two to three a year, four a year. Yeah, we're not like, we're not like going out there all the time. But I just pulled one out of a, so we get on, we get on scene. So there's a cat in the drain. We're like, there's no cat in the drain. Oh, I see. Wait, there isn't?

I was like, sad. I was like, it's really a can of drain. You're like, this is the walk of flak. Yeah. They're like, I'm telling you, it's down there. So we're sitting there and we're, meow. I'm like, no way. There's a cat in the drain.

So pop open the sewage cover. Look down in there. It's a huge waterway. Like, I can stand in this thing. And look down there. Yeah, there's a cat. So I crawl down there. We have a four gas meter.

So we bring it down there and make sure there's nothing toxic down there. But go down there and run over, grab them, bring them back up. Oh, wow. So you are rescuing cats. Yeah. So you're a cat hero. Yeah, we're cat heroes. But people call us all the time, man, though.

Is there any time people call you and you go, why the hell did you call? There's nothing here. That's a really, I think it's probably the same lane that you kind of go in where it's like, there's nothing wrong here. You know, they called, uh, they, people will call like,

they'll ask us to blow candles out or, uh, no, yeah, bro, come on. I think I called three in the morning, said he was having a heart attack. He's like,

I'm having a heart attack. My chest is killing me. Well, he's having a panic attack. Okay. So we sent, and we send our units there, everybody shows up, we're walking up to this, and he sticks his head out, he opens up the window and he goes, hey, man, I was lying, bro, I'm not having an heart attack. We're like, oh, well, what's going on? Like, maybe just miscommunication.

He goes, he's got a refrigerator plugged in in his, what he called it, his front yard. He's like, can you just grab me a ball of water out of there, man? No, come on. I swear, dude. Do you, do, is that a crime? It should be. It should be. dude, we've had people call us.

We had a, we call them frequent flyers. I know it's not nice. No, no, that's a common term. We had someone calling us four times a day. Four times a day for months. It's like, it's a huge deal to get people. We want people to call 911. Like if you're thinking 911, we want you to call 911

because someone might be like, I just smell a little bit of smoke. There's probably nothing going on. Like there's a fire behind their wall or something like that. And if you're thinking 911, let us show up. And I've had both sides of it. where we show up, we're like, dude, this is insane. Like, you really called for this?

And we've also had where it's like, oh, you should have called a month ago, man. What are you doing? Like, let's take you in the hospital. That's so scary. You know, I remember the first time I called 911 one. I was on a bus. When I was in eighth grade,

I moved from Brooklyn to Staten Island. So I would take the bus from Staten Island to Brooklyn. And while I was on the Verzano Bridge, which is one of the longest suspension bridges, I think it's the second longest in the U.S. Golden Gate, I think is first. and in the middle of it, bus starts slowing down,

smoke fills the whole bus. Everyone kind of goes off. And I don't know why, maybe from the movies, I was certain it was going to explode and the bridge is going to collapse. Dude, you know what if people will be dead?

If every car accident, they blow it, Jesus, we've had four dead people this month. Everyone's car keeps exploding. I was, that was all that was in my head. So every,

Everyone neatly disembarked the bus. I ran off. And everyone's just standing in. They're like, all right, we'll wait for the police to come or a fire department to come. Like, fuck this. Yeah. I don't want this thing to explode and then I'm left standing here. So I just started walking down the highway.

It's not, look, like getting away from that is not a bad idea. And there are some, I've just seen, I've seen a video recently where I think it was a natural gas bus. I'm not sure. But it exploded. Look at that. I was ahead of the game at age 12. You know, oh, you were 12, I missed that part of the story. Where did you go?

You just, great. So I started walking and the bridge itself, I believe, is two miles. I was halfway, so I had a mile walk. And as I'm walking, I call 911. Okay. Let them know what this happen as if they weren't going to show up anyway. And what's scary is I was on the, there's two levels to the horizontal bridge, upper or lower.

On the lower level, there's like kind of a little pathway. It's not meant for walking, but there's a little bit of a pathway. And in between the pathway and the road, you could see the water. and I have a death fear of heights. So I'm walking this thing and I'm trying to look what's happening on the bus but I don't want to turn my head

because I had this fear that God forbid I'm going to walk off the bridge. Like I'm going to just jump off or the wind would blow too much because it also sways a little of this suspension bridge. Oh boy, that was a scary. And then as I'm a hundred feet away

from the exit to my school, a police officer pulls up to me you're not allowed to just walk here. I'm like, I know, but my thing is on fire. They're like, another bus is going to come pick you up to walk you off the exit. So I had to get on for like 100 feet. And then it'll let me off.

I'm proud of you for still going to school. That's where you and I separate. Are you kidding me? I would have to go tell everyone the story. I'm a survivor, baby. My bus explode. The story became way more dramatic. Oh, man.

I would have went home, be like, mom, I can't go school. The day was on fire. You know why? It's because you did not have a Soviet father. My father, you didn't go to school because there was a fire. I'm going to let you on fire. No, that's, it's true. Like you, you couldn't stay home for anything. See, I would rather people overreact to things, like, well, be careful saying that. Well, to a point. Like, I would rather you, uh, I would rather if you're not sure. The threshold fires, yes. It should be lower. Yeah. Like, if it's going to be like, oh, God, I don't know. Like, like, like, like, get away from it.

If you're not, I stand by this. I tell people when I teach CPR. If you're thinking 911, call 911. Like, let us show up, man. Number one, we don't charge where I'm at.

We don't charge just for showing up. We only, if it's a fire service, it's another thing. But for EMS, we don't charge when we show. We only charge ones we transport. So if you're not sure,

just let us come there. Most people are not going to call, but if you're not sure, dude, that's what we're here for. Hold on, is there, like, let's say, I call the fire department

and had a fire. They put out the fire. Do I have to pay for that? It depends. I'm not like super up in the billing piece of it. I've never thought of that. Do you know? Dan,

do you know? Yeah. We have to look that up. We'll have to put it a disclaimer up on your thing. Do you, obviously, you're very familiar with the wildfires that happen on the West Coast. People, rich people hired private firefighters. Do you hate that? No, dude.

Oh, yeah, too. Oh, okay. Because they take away the resources from. I don't. It's so hard for me to be mad at somebody for doing something like that. I don't know if they were short on resources. I'm not sure.

I wasn't really well versed in that side of it. Well, is the reason they were angry. Sam is well versed on this. People are upset about it because firefighters who could help other people will stand at ex-celebrity's house and not help the surrounding area because they're responsible for what they're paid to come. Okay, yeah.

I could see people being upset about that. Yeah, that would be, especially if the, dude, the thing with wildfires, So I'm a structural firefighter. There are just wildland firefighters And then there's the combination of both So like out in California Those guys are gonna be doing wildland firefighting

And structural firefighting That stuff's insane. So wildland firefighting is by far One of the craziest things that I've ever seen. Because with structural firefighting What we're fighting is typically contained in a structure, right? If it gets out then we can do exposure protection That kind of thing.

That is not. And then it can dictate its own wind patterns it can spread incredibly fast, faster than we could ever fight. And then it can change directions at any point in time. You hear that all the time. So for those guys,

and then the other thing with those guys is it's called mandatory. So my department is short-staffed right now. So I'm supposed to only work 24 hours, but literally I was supposed to be mandatory a couple weeks ago. I give the doctors known. Yeah.

Thanks, buddy. Almost every other shift. Like guys on my crew are getting mandatories who works. Do you want to go home? No, you're here for another 24. hours. Those guys can be sent off for 21 days. So, hey man, we need you out.

You got to do some wildland stuff. You're gone for 21 days. And then depending on where they work, they can be brought back for one day and then sent back out for another 21. So like, it's crazy. Should, I don't know, that's a difficult question to answer. I don't, I don't know what the end result of those other things were. Was that fire coming through no matter what? Sure, sure.

It's, you're going to be really good to stop a wildland firefighter from, fire from destroying your house. I have seen these new things where they put billy pumps, portable pumps, inside of their pools, and then they just, they have their own fire hose at the house, yeah, that's all that recently. I never thought about that. That's good. So then the trajectory

of your life, mechanic, EMT firefighter, now YouTuber extraordinaire. How did that happen? Loose on the extraordinary part. Once you get into the seven figures, baby, you're extraordinary. Just messing around, man.

I don't know how it worked out for you, but we were messing around the station. The original name was National Geographic's Fire Department Edition. We would hunt for different positions. And the battalion chief, the bigger their belly was, the more gnarly they were, that kind of thing. But just messing around and people were like,

hey, man, I can relate to that. I always say, like, none of my calls that I talk about are unique. Like, everybody across the world has run something similar to the exact same call. So just slowly started growing it over time So more and more people enjoyed it Green screening is what really just like

Set it into the stratosphere that was insane That I enjoyed so much being able to do Because I never make fun of the actors or what they're doing Because it's like they're just doing it's given roles Yeah they're like this is who you are Okay cool And even the writers The writers have to write

Fun interesting stuff It's just like get just get the terminology right Like they ran over a hose in one of them. They run over a hose and the hose burst and they're like, that's it. We don't have any more water. It's gone. No more hose?

They're like, there's a thousand gallons in that truck right now. You got more than enough without the fire guys. So just started green screen. And that's where my YouTube started. That's where it kind of set me over a million. And then the real things I've seen in shorts, that was I never,

2024, I think it was 1.5 billion views on YouTube. Wow. It was insane. Like it never made sense the amount of views that I was getting on there. And it was just so cool because all the comments are positive. They're fun. Like I'll take somebody off every once in a while.

But I think it's just fun to not only make fun of myself, because there's a couple of them where I accidentally injected myself in an EpiPen and crap myself in the back of a rescue. But just the stuff that we see every day, kind of create some sort of place for everyone to talk, you know? Sure. And how did your life change? And that just, I'm sure it's same with you.

Like people recognize me, man. Like it's, I have a 10 year old daughter and I don't go to her school. And like, it's the only place that makes me uncomfortable. Like I walk in there, they're like, that's the guy. And my daughter's like, dad, come on. I offered a buyer pizza party, right? Like once a year, I'll just buy pizza for a class. And she's like, she's like, dad, don't buy that anymore.

I'm like, why? She goes, anyone says you're rich and you're famous and you buy pizza. I'm like, it's like $20. You're not giving them lobster, serpent herbs in dinner. I have a butler coming there. Let me spread my wealth. Yeah.

The firefighting community is so, like firefighting and EMS community, they're so, like, tight-knitted. It gave me an ability to be able to create an open line of communication with people. So I get to talk to brothers and sisters from all around the world. I mean, guys,

FDIC, the fire department instructors conference was last week in Indianapolis. It's 40,000 first responders come together. It's insane, dude. It's absolute blast. But there's guys from Mexico, Guatemala, China, Japan. These guys speak a handful of English. And they come up, they'll take a picture with me. They'll be like, dude, we watch your videos every day.

Oh, that's so fun. It's so cool, man. So I think it made my world smaller in a really fun, exciting way. And then I'm able to share, like you do, just pieces of medical information in a fun comedic way to people that hopefully learn something and they're able to utilize it in their personal lives. Yeah, when you made the choice to do the green screening of yourself

into the show, I'm curious, given the fact that the reaction world was so popular at the time, why did you choose to do the green screen approach as opposed to just a standard reaction? So I did two or three regular reaction videos. Okay. And I thought it was fun. And then one day, so, it's gonna shock you, man,

but I have ADD, like, severely. So, and my brain is always like, well, what's the next thing I can do? How can I make myself just slightly different to me the person that's done it before me? And I was, I had a green screen, bought it for the house. I'm gonna give them a shot, man.

Okay. And I did it. And I mean, I probably average views, 50,000 views at the time. I put that first one out, dude. It had like four million views in the first like, in the first like week or something like that, which is crazy for me at the time.

And that was like, okay, this is it. And I can have more fun because then I can physically interact with the person. I can really show what the scene is looking like. And it makes me sad because I love Rob Lowe. And I don't like, oh, no, God, what's the lead the police officer in 911? Oh, my God, she's an amazing actress.

I don't know. Yes. Look at that. Angela Bassett is my, she's my favorite actress. I'm the face of finding every time I'm in a video with her, I'm like, oh, God, I love you, Angela. Anyways, this is all wrong. This is correct. So wait, we never actually answer the question.

Tacoma, FD, was your most accurate? What was the least accurate? Station 19 was... Is that the spinoff of Grey's Anatomy? The one that was in Seattle. They just, like, at no point in time, Did any of that make sense? Like, never.

And then, brother, if we were sleeping with each other in the station as much as they were, we'd all be fired. There would be no fire. Wait, are you not allowed to date other firefighters? You can date other firefighters, but if you're actively having sex and they're like, yeah, they would come out of the battalion chief's office like, who, that was a fun. One of the guys were like, great job. Like, Jesus, day, that would be it. And then they, again, the verbiage. There's my favorite one ever was their.

fighting a structure fire. The fire is in the house, but it's a security house. So like everything is like well fortified. And they are like, we can't fight this fire. We can't get in there to fight the fire. And the girl's like, uh, the captain's like, well, you want to base the turkey? And he's like, yeah, let's base the turkey. I'm like, what? That was a firefighting term that they just made it. We're like, what's the base of turkey? Like we close everything in the house. We close all the windows, all the doors. We let it stay inside and then we spray it from the outside and that cools it down. I was like, nope.

No. Based to Turkey. Nope. This is someone's interpretation of what they think firefighting should be. I was like, this is it's just, again, fun firefighting, because now the shows have gotten a little more accurate.

Really? Because one of the shows that I was considering reacting to, firefighters went into space. I So I don't know. So this is where I'm like, oh, we would never do that in a million years. No, no. Wait, you go out with a coast card. I'll tell you right now, if NASA calls me and they're like, Jason, we need you to go to space to fight fire.

I'm like, uh, I'm going. We're all going to die. They're putting on the suit. They're like, this should auto inflate. It should auto inflate. You should have oxygen. Yeah, I, uh, the, actually, The one that's, that is quickly catching up to the worst is the newest one.

Not Nashville, 911. That one, there's just, again, no, I don't, they're cutting up. Is anyone going to reach out to you to write or have you thought about writing? I would love to write. I would. So I do all the writing and editing for, for my videos and Fire Department of Coffees as well. And I love the writing process. It's, it's very cool.

And I would do it. It's just one of those like, even as a consultant, they should bring you on. Dude, I would love to. I don't think they won't know if they won't be on there. After and after now. I'm sure if this is true or not, but somebody told me on that movie ambulance that there was a scene

and supposedly the consultant there had seen my green screens and went to, again, I don't know if this true or not, but went to Michael Bay and was like, hey, you see this? If you shoot that scene, this is going to happen. Supposedly we wrote it. I'm not sure if that's true or not if it was.

I'm going to just stick with that. But, wow. You know what came into my head that I should have asked you earlier and you mentioned volunteer firefighters. Why in the world does a volunteer firefighter exist? Lack of funding.

So like an area just has no firefighters and then a couple of people go, we got this. So firefighting was born from volunteering. The first firefighters ever were all volunteers. They all got into this for free. When did that? Did that for a long time ago?

1900s, 1800s? Yeah. I want to say 1800s, maybe 1700s. I want to say 1700s, yeah. Whoever knows that fact right now is commenting. They're going to green screen them into this interview sitting next year. Look at this piece. That would be amazing.

People are like, I'm going to green screen myself into your videos. I'm like, please do it. It would be amazing. That would be so good. But it was born from that and then slowly made it to where the first paid firefighters began. But if you have an area where they just don't have the tax base. to be able to support a full-time firefighting department,

then volunteers will come in. So I love the fact that people do that. They're literally working nine to fives. Then they're getting up at 2 a.m. to go grab a fire truck and drive all the way out to wherever to fight a fire to hopefully save somebody's house. So they don't stay at the firehouse. They're kind of at home and they get a page and then they go out.

Or those big sirens. Yeah, I have them near my house. You will have places where people will stay at the station itself. And then some places have figured out a budget to at least have one person on shift to where they're staying at the station. They can grab the fire truck. Everyone else knows the address to show up to. And then they show up there and then they can fight the fire.

Got it. I can't believe that exists. That also exists for EMS as well. Yeah. EMS is a large portion of EMS personnel are also volunteers. And to be a EMS volunteer, you get nothing. Like there's no. Nothing.

But if you're truly 100% of volunteer, you get nothing. You just show up. Some of them will be paid per call. but you're talking 15 minutes. Yeah, or $15, sorry. Oh, $15? No, you're not getting, you're not getting a ton of money

for doing that kind of stuff. 20 bucks, something like that. I mean, the person should tip. Are you allowed to accept tips? No, no. Really, it's in the handbook? Yeah, it's ethically not allowed. So like in my ethical handbook,

patients are allowed to gift you things that are of nominal value, like something below $30 or whatever. Are you allowed to do that? People will show up with like baked goods. So they'll show up with like sealed baked goods or something like that. It's great. I tell people, unless you have a good rapport with a fire station,

don't show up with like homemade banked goods. Oh, because you don't know what you're getting. We just don't know. Somebody just made us pot brownies or something like that. That would be a big problem. Yeah, we'd have to work that whole shift. Now do your coworkers treat you differently? No, they treat me worse.

Same. God forbid anybody. Recognize me and take a picture. Oh my God, they're so bad. They're like, yeah, there we go. I got asked this question a lot. I'm curious, if you've been asked it, and I'm going to ask it right now, why do you still continue to be a firefighter?

I love it, man. What brought me into this field is firefighting. I'm telling you, man, there's, you sit around a station, you run calls, like, you get to save lives, you get to do the stuff, the reason that we went to school. I love creating social media. videos. It's really is. It's really fun. It's a good outlet. Yes, it's great outlet. And especially because I get to write it and film it and edit it. I get to see something come from whatever this small piece of thought was to an actual product that's funny and people will laugh. So that is fun. But I don't think

anything will ever take place of the reason why I got into this. I'll keep doing it. I'm eligible to retire in two years. We'll see what happens then. And also the other thing I say, a lot of people have quit their nine to five or quit the reason why they got into this. A, you lose purpose in the reason you were doing it in the first place. And B, the social media world is not nice. Like, they will wake up tomorrow in Facebook or meta, whoever, be like, we're not going to monetize your videos anymore. Thanks for playing. Now you have no business. Yeah. So is that why you launched the coffee company? So Fire Department of Coffee was founded just before we actually found at the same time, kind of. Okay. Fire Department Chronicles, Fire Department of Coffee. Luke Schneider reaches out to me. He's like,

man, just launched this coffee company. I love to work with you. So we started growing it from there. And I was lucky enough to be able to grow both social media channels, which has been very cool. And we're in 10,000 retailers, Walmarts, Sam's Club, like all this pretty cool stuff. Yeah, man. I said you guys a bunch of it.

I don't know if Sam brought back to his house or not. Sam did not give me. Sam, why are you hiding it from me? Did you not get it? Oh, man. No, Sam drank it all. Yeah. Are there different variations, light roast?

Yeah, we have light rose, dark rose. We just launched instant espresso and instant coffees, which are incredible. Like if you want a good hot or cold espresso, just throw this in there and mixes instantly with it. Wow, really cool. So you and I share something, I don't know if you know, but both of us have had medical emergencies on planes. Oh, tell me about yours. Both of them were coming to New York, by the way. Not on this trip.

No, not on this trip, no. first one was just a basic like diabetic emergency got up there he was we checked a sugar he was fine I think we gave him a little oral glucose and he was good to go but the other one I was sitting in my seat and the page comes over you know is there any doctors or paramedics

by the way no doctors ever jump up whatever they say that he might be the only one all the PhDs are like literature literature but I get up I go hey what's going on this lady's like My grandpa, or my dad is still in the bathroom. I'm not sure what's going on.

So they opened up the door. He went to cardiac arrest in there. So pull him out, start working them. Wow. And where are you on the... I'm in the back of the plane. But I'm saying is the plane close to late? Oh, no, no.

We're like... Mid-flight. Yeah, we're probably... I think we were still an hour out or something like that. So we start working them. Do they have a whole host of medications on there? AEDL, all that stuff.

I was so impressed by that. I managed to get a line. on him, give him epi while we're fine. And I was going based off of... Asystily, I'm assuming. So I was going based off of what the AED was telling me. Because if it's saying no shock advised, he's most likely in Acese if he doesn't have a pulse.

So you gave him Epo because he was an acystole? Yeah, so we gave him, I ended up giving an epi. And then every once in a while, he would go back into a shockable rhythm. And I think we shocked him four times on the way there. But the funniest part is, is I'm going back and forth with the flight attendant. We're doing CPR.

and she's like, we have, we have to give him breaths every time. And I was like, we can do hands only CPR. Like that's fully acceptable. And she's like, no, we have to do. I was like, I teach this stuff, man. Like, we're good, dude. We ended up, they ended up having an OPA. It was able to drop an OPA and we were able to start doing that as well.

So, but it was absolutely incredible experience. We landed and the pilot was like, hey, man, I'm pretty sure I broke like 20 FAA loss getting us here as quickly as possible. Yeah. But they carded them off and, I don't know. You got Rosk? I didn't get Rosk on there, but I don't know what the end result was. Well, I mean, I'm assuming you didn't land in two minutes.

No, no, not in two minutes. No, we did CPR. I rotated back and forth with them. It was incredible. Those flight attendants, man, were absolute rock stars. They knew exactly what to do the second. I was like, hey, this guy's in cardiac arrest. We got to start doing CPR and we started rotating back and forth so fast.

So 20 minutes? I think we landed. I want to say it was 30 or 35 minutes of us doing CPR. Not a good outcome. Yeah. Brain without oxygen. Yeah. That's going to be a problem.

Yeah. Yeah. Did they, what airline was it? I want to say it was Delta. Yeah. And did they give you some coupon code? They gave me $250 on my next one.

I got a hundred. Did you? I got a hundred. So clearly they're not, they're struggling over there. Maybe now that spirit is out and they're collecting all their business. Maybe they can. I probably,

American, man. They've been great, too. Yeah. They've been really good. Honestly, like, I used to pick favorites and then, like, in two months, it would change because, like, some company shifted their business policies and you CEO came in. I'm like, I, they all suck. Yeah. Yeah. But they get this their safety, safely. That's, dude, that's all I care about. But flying is. Are you scared flying? No, it's just an adventure. Just always a flight. Oh, yeah. There's always a drink. No, I'm, I'm, uh, slightly afraid to go on boats for a long periods of time. Like cruise ships. And then like cruise, I'm not going to cruise ship, but you're not going to get it. My wife's like, let's go on a cruise ship.

I'm like, nope, I'm good. Noraviris, people pooping and vomiting out of both ends. But I ended up doing American just because I got their little credit card and I can upgrade whenever. I can't sit in the back, dude, like in between two people anymore. Oh, that's tough. Yeah. That is tough. I wonder, yeah, I get really scared on planes.

It's a weird fright of mind. Yeah, like honestly, planes and purchase. Do you get what I mean by purchase? So anytime you're higher up than the safety mechanism to prevent you from falling off. I don't know why. I was just in Shanghai last week, and they have that pool that overlooks Shanghai

and it's an infinity pool, but it's on the roof. And obviously, like, if you look past it, like low, there is something else there, so you're not sure to fall off if you jump off. And you're five feet deep into the pool. So you're not, there is a five foot rail. But when you're walking next to the pool, you're above the pool, which means you're above the ledge. So you see like openness, oh my God, the anxiety from that perch feeling, it feels like there's a wind that's about to blow and tearing me off.

But you don't like heights in general, right? Yes. But let's say later we did like a little tour thing around the gardens and they had a really high up like bridge that would walk you around. And everyone was really scared. I wasn't because the things were really high. Yeah. I mean, I have 16. Yeah.

I'm like strapped in. I'm good. Yeah. But Perch, forget about it. Like, if I'm not strapped into something, I'm afraid. That's so. See, me with planes, it's, I don't have a fear simply because, like, there's, if this thing goes down, there's nothing I'm going to do about it. I just accept my fate and trying to send a text message out.

Although, Pete, you just shared a crazy statistic. While he was Secretary of Transportation, which I believe was four-year term, four billion, people took flights or four billion flights probably four billion passengers were carried zero fatalities that's crazy bro what else can we do four billion times and then not have a fatality yeah crossing the street i mean four billion times you're i've uh first time i came up to new york i was with somebody and uh they just walked in front of they just walked in front of a car and i was like hey what are you doing man like what you need to stop and they're like dude they'll stop and i I go, what happens if they don't?

Yes. You die. This is terrible thing that I have to say right now. When I was a kid, you know, Magneto? Uh-huh. We would play Magneto where you would be like, I can cross the street at any time on Magneto. And the cars would stop. But like that was really bad that I think about.

But I was really young, like 11 years old. Okay. Where like puberty is happening 12 years old. And you're like, oh, yeah, I feel that testosterone. Watch me, but not from that. Maxotic. Oh, geez. blasted by a car.

Do not play that game. No, please don't play back. This might not end up to the final cut. Look, you do dumb stuff when you're a kid. Some people climb trees. Dude, I fell off of walking on the side of a wall. Thorn bushes on both sides of me. Yeah.

I fell right to one of those. Lots of scratches. Oh, my God, dude. My two brothers, both of them were four years from one and then eight years from another one. And we just did constant and stupid stuff. I threw a dart one day. My brother got in this box,

and we were throwing darts at it. Before he got in the box we were doing darts at it. And he got in the box, and I was like, threw it. It went through the box. It went through the box. It went right in his head.

He pops out. It was fine. It was just surfaced. But he gets out. He's like, oh my God. I'm like, don't tell me on camera.

That would go viral. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That would be super viral. YouTube bands. Yeah. That's difficult not getting banned at all times, man. Like,

especially the stories kind of, of that year. Yeah, if you're saying words, cancer, depression, anxiety, whatever. So I'm saying them all right now. Yeah. Good. Blie, bleep, bleep with us. So where's the future for you? Where are you going to be in 10 years since you're retiring into? I want to do anything, bro. I want to wake up in the morning. Like what- And just do interesting? Yeah, what bathroom are my pooping in today? Like, that's, that's going to be my big conversation. I think, because I still am full-time at the fire department, I have the CPR business, my daughter, the coffee business and constantly traveling and doing stuff for that as well.

And then whatever else comes up in the middle. Like I love it, dude. It's an incredible thing gives me purpose. It gives me the stuff that I want to do. But it's, it's, it's, any big picture, big ticket items, book show. I want to do a book at some point in time. I just don't know. So I don't do a ton of speeches because whenever I do a speech, I want to make sure

I'm bringing value to whatever it is. So the same thing would work. You don't think you do that? I think I do to a point. But I want to make sure that like I'm not one of those. People with everyone's like, what was that? He told five jokes up there. Like, that was it.

So I know I can bring value to stuff. But I do book would be amazing. I want to set the Guinness World Record for CPR. Excuse me. I'm a professional fighter. But I'd love to at some point in time either be in a film or produce a film. But that's... Do you act?

Yeah. Not. Where. Historically? I was in my first film that just came out, I think two months ago. Oh. Yeah, I have six seconds in it. It's amazing.

That's very good. It's got Eric Roberts is in it. It's, yeah. And what's your role? I'm a firefighter. So this guy flies me out to Seattle, flies me out to Seattle. Flies me out of Seattle. He's like, hey, I love your videos, man.

He's like, he's like, he's a director. This director. He's like, I love your videos. if you, would you mind, would you like to be in a part? I'm like, sure, what's the part, dude? He said, it's a firefighter 17.

It's fine, yeah, it's a completely serious part. It's like, the house burnt down. It was really tragic. And like that's pretty much it. But it was a cool experience, man. Wow. Okay. So you want to grow that?

Yeah, I want to grow that. Oh, that's exciting. I just did a big thing with American Red Cross, fire prevention, which was very cool. That was three videos all about same kind of stuff. Cool. I would love for us to partner off. on your comedic show,

rent out Madison Square Garden, and we've reset the Guinness World Record. Okay. Because I don't think we train enough people. I want to do it, bro. I think we can do it, man. I think we can do it too, and I think it could be like a show, a spectacle.

Like, obviously, we've never sold out Madison Square Garden, but we did sell out one of the local theaters here is City Winery, which obviously is drastically different numbers, but when you combine forces, when there's a plan in place, when I would do my live tour, it's like, you don't know what you're going to get.

And that's a tough proposition for people. Like I've got to travel somewhere and we don't even know what the show is. Do I bring my children? Do I not bring my children? So if we flesh it out, I think it could be really fun. I think it'd be amazing. Do we do it? If you have interest, leave us a comment down below.

Yes, please. And where would you like people to follow along your journey? So Fire Department Chronicles, you can do it on YouTube and Instagram, TikTok. And then if you want to see my newest game show, that's we're on season two. It's called Shattershock. General Knowledge Questions. It's on the reveal network. Imagine general knowledge questions.

If you get the question right, you get points. If you get it wrong or your opponent gets it before you, we shock you with a dog collar that's either on your arm or on your thigh. And then... That sounds awful. It's one of the funniest things I've ever been a part of. And it's like one of these ecstatic shock. It's not a taser.

No, yeah, yeah. But we hit you, man. It is an absolute blast. We're laughing really. Wow. Okay, cool. We'll check it out. Appreciate it.

Thank you, sir. Hope you had fun. Thank you, man. Had a blast, you. Yeah, cool. You know who's dealt with some pretty dangerous fires before? Stevo from Jackass. He was actually the second guest we've ever had on the show

and told me the story about the worst burn he ever got during a stunt. So scroll on back to listen to that one. I think you're really going to like it. It would also be great if you could leave us a five-star review. Drop a comment down below if you like the episode, as it really helps us find new listeners and viewers. And as always, stay happy and healthy.