Just another Sunday.

Well after a quiet period in the amount of call outs we have been getting, Sunday morning came as violent shock as our alerts got us out of our lazy lay in beds, as a screaming child would a mother! only with a little more urgency. The shout was every fireman's worse case scenario 'House Fire Persons Reported' Being in a rural area especially here in Ireland where there are no postcodes or zip codes, trying to locate a farm house by only an ancient town land name becomes difficult and you have to rely on good local knowledge an experience. The house in question was so far of the beaten track that we had difficulty locating it and difficulty reaching it in a twenty ton fire truck.
Because of it's location and the fact that it was so remote the fire was reported along time after it had started, in fact the thatched roofed traditional mud walled long farm house was completely burnt out when we arrived, we estimate that it had been burning all night, it was only the fact that the young farm hand who helped milk the cows came in the morning that it was noticed at all.
Well the first question an Officer asks is how many people? Thankfully but at the same time sadly one was the answer.
Second question, where is the bedroom that he slept in? At the end of the house.
Along with a load more questions to do with the safety aspect with regards the state of the building etc, this gives you a picture of how we can best go about a search for, and ultimately retrieve that person.
The room he was in had partially collapsed and burning thatch had covered over the rubble and clay of the walls. The first thing to find was the old fashion brass metal bed ends which gave us likely location of the body, then as an officer but more importantly a medic it was my job to carefully remove by hand the debris, so as to identify any part of a body. We found his chest first still wrapped in a woolen blanket, from their we moved carefully up until we uncovered his head, from then on it was a case of working slowly down the bed until he was completely uncovered. The old fashion blanket had protected most of his body but where any part was exposed only bone was visible.
The fire had started in the far end of the building and spread as so many fires do through the roof space falling in on each room in turn setting that alight, this was aided by the thatch and wooden nature of the building. His room would of been the last to set light, and by the fact that we found him as if still asleep in his bed would suggest that he died from smoke inhalation, along time before the fire got to him. In a way it was a peaceful death as he would of had no idea what was happening and therefore was at least spared the blind panic that would of met him if he had of woken. That said a smoke alarm would of woke him in plenty of time to get out and would of saved his life.
What people tend to forget about firemen is that we don't just have to face the flames and hardships that brings but we have to come to terms with the reality of death, and the personal baggage that all that brings. The relative who wants to see the body, then wishing they hadn't!, the priest struggling to give last rights over the body, and then the physical removal of the body into the coroners body bag, which almost seems disrespectful to me somehow as the zip is closed around. And then the man handling of the body into the back of in this case a four wheel drive jeep, and all this after having to damp the body down so as it didn't melt the cheap plastic of the body bag it's self.