It is certainly the dream of many children, but being a firefighter merges above all with being one: it is not just any job. The childhood dream of being or becoming a hero, in reality implies responsibility, preparation and awareness like few other professions. One of the most admired by public opinion for the service it offers and the related risks. A true mission of altruism.
There are those who have made a dream come true, like Renzo Rabbia, today department head of the Cuneo Fire Brigade. A journey of anecdotes and experiences that he partly shared with his former firefighter colleague Valter Aimar.
“Being a Firefighter – explains –carrying out this job does not mean composing, producing, creating, buying or selling, it means giving oneself to others, to people you don’t know and who perhaps you will never see again, to whom you have given something great or immense: the awareness that with sacrifices they will be able to face the future, that future that could have been denied and which instead is the constant hope of life, never to be cancelled.”.
The common thread of the working days of all firefighters is precisely this barracks life with the tasks, the joys, the satisfactions, the bitter pills. “And you realize that that very barracks becomes your second home – says Anger -, your daily life. Daily life interrupted too many times by the loudspeaker announcing an intervention and therefore the exit of a team: five men, five firefighters ready to leave”.
And then there is life in the fieldthe action, where one wonders what awaits them, so “get ahead of the times – continues the department head of the Cuneo Fire Brigade -, you get on the truck, put on the helmet and the flame retardant and, during the journey, you are guided by the radio communications given by colleagues in the operations room: every detail, every piece of information becomes useful in the immediacy of the facts. And over the years, you have to face every type of intervention: the one that makes you experience the drama of flames, of explosions in a fire, of a gas leak, of a road accident, the drama of danger and personal risk and for squad.
Always on the alert. How many times do you wait to return to the barracks!
And, sometimes you “wish” to return: some of us have not returned…
In the end, how many photographs are taken by your eyes?
Crude, impressive images that are not part of the game. Life should offer something else, even if you wear the uniform of a firefighter, because that uniform is worn by a man, by a father. The rubble spreads the smell of smoke, the ears capture the noises, the explosions, the hands sense life, but sometimes also death and in the meantime the eyes photograph, photograph and photograph again”.
Years pass, events follow one another, interventions are repeated, situations vary.”and you find yourself telling and telling yourself – Anger continues – You look in the mirror and see the wrinkles, the graying hair and you sum up: the first intervention, the first fire, the first accident, the first death. You turn the page and remember the first flood, the first earthquake, the first landslide or mudslide. You turn the page again and don’t forget the gaze of those who are waiting for you, of those who ask you for help. There are many pages that accompany the chapter of that volume, of that profession so different from all the others. Over the years, the heart becomes a sponge that absorbs emotions, moods, tears, sadness, anguish and you, with positive or negative peaks, in joy or sadness, live. The clear eye exists, it really exists, thoughts exist, comparisons and comparisons exist: it could have been my mother, it could have been my brother, it could have been my son… And you continue to remember the sequences: recovering the body of a human being, a woman or man, extracting it from that tangle of crumpled sheet metal… recovering the body of a fisherman stranded for weeks on the riverbed… entering an apartment saturated with gas and finding a father who has decided to put the final point to one’s life… still finding grandfather Pietro and grandmother Maddalena in the bed of the bedroom, asleep forever by the carbon monoxide released by the wood stove”.
Moments of reflection and reflection are inevitable balance.
“If you stop to think – analyzes Anger – , you come to realize the fact that on New Year’s Day, your birthday, your wedding anniversary or Christmas Eve, you and your colleagues, in the most unthinkable hours of the day and night, were busy shutting down of a residential home, of a factory or perhaps engaged in bringing aid to an elderly person who has fallen at home, or digging through post-earthquake rubble, kilometers from your home.
The mind catalogues, dividing the files of interventions based on weight, impact, consequences, drama experienced or touched upon.
Relive the days of celebration, which become days of pain, of mourning.
There is no removed intervention – concludes Rabbia -, but scaled down with the passing of life”.
