You can get hurt, both physically and mentally.
You may or may not be afraid of dying, but there are things worse than death.
For example, those hoses are very powerful, during an accident, whether due to too much pressure or just being caught off guard, the hose can move erratically, and if it smashes into your face, it can do some damage.
Running around with all that equipment, up and down stairs and all over the place, will cause wear and tear on your knees. When you're young, no problem, but as you age, you will start to notice the wear and tear.
The sleeping schedule can be hectic, which means being awoken randomly is fairly common, and you have to go from being asleep to being in full adrenaline mode in just a couple of seconds. Over the years, this causes wear and tear on your heart, which results in about half of firefighter deaths coming about as a result of a cardiovascular event.
You'll read about firefighter deaths, but you generally don't read too much about firefighters being maimed on the job. It happens, but because of so many different ways a person can be maimed, ranging from an injury that causes a permanent, but minor inconvenience, to a crippling injury that requires a caretaker and extensive, ongoing medical care, it's difficult to quantify into an easily digestible statistic on a spreadsheet, and so, gets less attention from the media.
Seeing people get hurt over and over, as you will during the EMT calls, can cause a mental burden over time.
It's an honorable job, the pay is good relative to the education required, and it does afford some extra free time for side gigs, but there are some definite downsides.
It's up to you to weigh the pros and cons and then make the decision...there's really no wrong or right choice here, it's up to each person and what they're looking for.
You may or may not be afraid of dying, but there are things worse than death.
For example, those hoses are very powerful, during an accident, whether due to too much pressure or just being caught off guard, the hose can move erratically, and if it smashes into your face, it can do some damage.
Running around with all that equipment, up and down stairs and all over the place, will cause wear and tear on your knees. When you're young, no problem, but as you age, you will start to notice the wear and tear.
The sleeping schedule can be hectic, which means being awoken randomly is fairly common, and you have to go from being asleep to being in full adrenaline mode in just a couple of seconds. Over the years, this causes wear and tear on your heart, which results in about half of firefighter deaths coming about as a result of a cardiovascular event.
You'll read about firefighter deaths, but you generally don't read too much about firefighters being maimed on the job. It happens, but because of so many different ways a person can be maimed, ranging from an injury that causes a permanent, but minor inconvenience, to a crippling injury that requires a caretaker and extensive, ongoing medical care, it's difficult to quantify into an easily digestible statistic on a spreadsheet, and so, gets less attention from the media.
Seeing people get hurt over and over, as you will during the EMT calls, can cause a mental burden over time.
It's an honorable job, the pay is good relative to the education required, and it does afford some extra free time for side gigs, but there are some definite downsides.
It's up to you to weigh the pros and cons and then make the decision...there's really no wrong or right choice here, it's up to each person and what they're looking for.