Audiobook Narration - Autobiography
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EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General) North American (US General American - GenAM)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
prologue all we can. The call came in right around the time of our 10 to 7 wake up call. It was never called a wake up call. It was an alarm test. Why we had to wake up a 10 minutes to seven a supposed to seven was a question no one could ever answer. The February weather was cool and overcast right around 50 degrees, the type of listless gray morning for which this news button was created. The fire alarm was in the tiny city of Cutty he located in southeastern Los Angeles County. Cut. He is about 25,000 people squeezed into a little more than a single square mile, making it one of the most densely populated cities in the entire state of California. This was ironic considering the Irish meatpacker who lent the city its name back in the early part of the century had subdivided the land into one acre parcels that were often only 50 feet wide. That meant the original cutie he lots, as they were called, were also up to 800 feet deep. That's the equivalent of having a backyard the length of three football fields by 1975. The lots have been subdivided again and again. Stucco apartment buildings have gone up in the tiny city was packed with hard working blue collar residents who, still trying to put out their neighbors burning house with a garden, knows it only took seconds for all of the exhausted firefighters to put on their protective equipment, climb onto the rig and quickly leave the fire station. It had been a very busy night as soon as we cleared the ramp and turned south, the large black volume of smoke seems to stand out even more. Is it mixed with the low hanging morning gloom? I was still in the early years of my career and was quickly learning that when there is that much smoke in the morning sky, there will undoubtably be some poor family that will be homeless by the end of the day. The distance from Station 1 63 was not far, so we were the second fire engine to reach the burning house. It was quite a sight. Some little guy, not much more than five feet tall, pointing a garden hose at the side of a house is orange. Flames flopped out of the top windows like windblown curtains. I distinctly remember thinking, What is that idiot? Think that he's doing The lot was still good size dating back to those early agricultural days, but the house itself was not. It was a typical single family home for the neighborhood, two bedrooms and probably no more than 1000 square feet. It would not take long for such a house to be completely destroyed. My friend Jerry, from Station 39 was first in since it was their district. He arrived with an engine in a rescue squad with two paramedics. We were only a couple of minutes behind them if that station 1 64 from still another district sent a truck company right on our heels. Station 39 Fire engine It scarcely come to a stop. When the firefighters ran to the back of the rig and started pulling fire hose into the front door of the burning building, it would certainly do a lot more than someone with a garden hose. As it turned out, I was a little off the mark. The noise of the siren smoke in the flames and the rest of the usual chaos and confusion could not dampen the voice of a screaming woman standing in the front yard. She looked at about 30 years and £300 on her, and she was dressed in a bright pink muumuu that billowed in the wind like a tent with a broken pole. Aside from that, it was the look on her face that stood out. It was like a neon sign At midnight. Her face spoke volumes. It was a sickening sight. Shock, fear, pain and loss were all etched across. That poor woman's face is. She screamed at the top of her lungs that her babies were inside that burning house. Horror struck victims shriek in a particular way when they're truly traumatized, a sound I never wished to hear again. I have never heard that sound duplicated on stage or screen with any real authenticity. No actor has ever been able to truly convey a scream of real terror. Can you imagine your own voice knowing your Children were in a burning building and you could do nothing to save them? My babies, my babies are inside, the woman screamed with adrenaline, pumping through every vein in his body. Jerry jumped out of the rescue squad quickly, donde near mask and ran to the front door. He went in the house much too early. The fire was raging inside in. The heat was intense. The smoke was thick, so thick you couldn't see through it. It's much cooler lower on the floor, so he crawled on his hands and knees to search the house room by room. He never hesitated, never waited for his crew to get the hose in place. He just barreled inside the front door in search of those Children. It would be impossible to hear those screams and failed to act immediately. That is what separates movie screams from real life firefighters from average people in Jerry from your average firefighter. After he went inside, I ran around to the side of the house to make sure that not with the garden hose wasn't in any danger. In experienced, one of the most single most emotional events in my career is a firefighter. As I approached him, I could see he was aiming the water into a bedroom window just below the flames that were quickly spreading across the ceiling. I was about to tell him to stay back when, out of the smoke a baby appeared. Jerry was handing a child out the window. I quickly took the baby in my arms. It amazes me how tiny they are. After two Children and four grandchildren, I'm still in awe. Every time I hold the child, they're God's perfect little creatures, so pure and beautiful. So much the embodiment of everything we were put on this earth to be. Each and every one of them has the potential of all humanity in their tiny little bodies. With all our flaws and imperfections are destructive nature and tendencies. It is the Children who make everything worthwhile. As I looked into the face of that child, I could see my own Children. My boys were two in five at the time. The baby was in a diaper and a T shirt in his little face was black with soot and dust. He was barely breathing. The morning was cold and his jerry handed the baby out the window. Steam started rising from that tiny wet body. No sooner had I cuddled the baby to my chest. Then another child appeared through the smoke. Neither of the two appeared to be more than a year old. The 2nd 1 was in a diaper, too, dressed in a little nightshirt to cover his upper body, the type of shirt that has little bunnies and ponies on it. He appeared just his lifeless is the 1st 1 but appearing dead is definitely not the same thing is actually being dead. I hastily shifted the first child in one arm and took the second from Jerry. I am sure a mother would have handled the Children more gently and with complete ease. I was more like a baker with two loaves of bread, looking for a place to set them down. Only a few minutes previous, we had pulled up to the scene, and now I had to lifeless little babies in my arms. Life can change in an instant. For the briefest moment, I wondered what to do. Such thoughts air fleeting until instinct kicks in. When you look for that final in your memory banks regarding how to respond, the file is empty.