A very well written piece Messey and obviously from the heart. While reading that I felt every single word because I have been there and experienced every bit but only on a very minor scale.
Thanks for your honesty and I do hope your traumas don't get you down.
Remember "it's good to talk" and you can pm me if you wish.
Take care.
Uncharacteristically for me, I am a little bit on the fence about this:
On the one hand as a former firefighter with 32 years service - some of it at North Kensington fire station, the nearest to the tragedy - and had attended many incidents at the pre renovated Grenfell Tower over the years, of course I feel a connection with this job.
I witnessed the fire too at 5am that morning on my way to work when it was well alight and could not believe what I saw. Later, I spoke to friends who had attended hours before. They told me about walking on ‘heaps’ of bodies, fearing the final fatal count would be in three figures, the noise of a victim falling onto a firefighter who was entering or leaving the building, and the helplessness of not being able to reach everyone.
One very good friend was ordered to the fire from about 8 miles away. His crew listened to emotional messages being transmitted that described an unimaginable scene. They witnessed the tower from some distance so were really pumped up when they arrived. However, they were placed in a holding pool of crews who, as exhausted firefighters came out, were sent in to replace them.
Usually its the adrenaline that helps you do things your sensible (off duty) head would not allow you to do. As this crew sat outside, watching the building disintegrate around them, seeing dead people being bought out and hearing the building making worrying noises, their adrenaline seeped out of them and they were scared. My friend said he and others text their wives with romantic ‘I love you’ messages - the sort of cheesy stuff a Hollywood script writer would pen - but this was real. They honesty thought there was a real possibility of the building failing like the WTC, but still went in - several times after refreshing their air cylinders.
The bravery, commitment and hard work cannot be over stated
I have experienced - and sometimes still do - symptoms of PTSD after a very serious fire. I understand how it can effect your lives even thought the level of my PTSD was only moderate
But:
Firefighters sign up knowing they will have to work hard in exceptional and demanding environments. They will suffer heat exhaustion and train to identify the symptoms before they overwhelm them.
The know that they will make difficult decisions, see traumatic things and experience fear, shock and emotions that few other workers ever will.
I have tasted someone’s vomit during CPR, had someone bleed onto my head when being carried down a ladder, the blood entering my mouth. I have had the calf of an elderly lady’s leg come off in my hand when lifting her downstairs after she was mortally burned in a fire - and I have been spat at, sworn at, assaulted and injured at incidents. I even had a gun pointed at me in the shadow of Grenfell Tower. ….. there’s lots more that I will spare you!
The primary difference at this incident was the significant and exceptional scale of the job and what the firefighters suffered over a prolonged time frame
So my concern is that the firefighters are being compensated for experiencing trauma that they should have reasonably expected to have experienced - albeit at an exception scale.
They didnt see a bus stop of people being mown down on their way to collect the kids from school, or witness a tragedy at football match off duty. They were on duty and I fear this compensation culture could spread and effect out of control
I also feel a bit uncomfortable that families who lost loved ones and others made homeless have not been sufficiently compensated and thousands of others still live in unsellable flats across the country which remain fitted with this cladding, while firefighters are paid out
But I wish every single firefighter and member of support staff (including control officers who stayed on the phone with people as they died) involved in the first few hours of this awful fire all the very best for the future. You were truly exceptional that night