r/Firefighting • u/wolfgang9996 • Mar 27 '25

Volunteer / Combination / Paid on Call I resigned from a volly department

After much deliberation I decided to resign from a volunteer department in my town. Though I don't regret it, I write with a heavy heart. I tried to juggle my full time job, renovating my entire kitchen to the studs while my wife was pregnant (we had a fixer upper that had a mouse infested kitchen that needed a full gut), and do volly.

I made the few calls and the meetings I could, I was only on the department over a year or so. I took fire 1 while I was in between jobs because I got fired right before my son was born. Between all this stress I cracked during the training when we navigated the rooms blindfolded with full kit on. I just couldn't do it to myself anymore, you can't measure adrenaline or cortisol but mine must've been off the charts, and I just told the trainer I tapped out. All the while nursing a neck injury I've had since I was 18 from being rear ended and getting whiplash. Must've been week 4 or 5 of fire 1.

I guess I am just writing this to just state my piece, because I just told my captain I couldn't complete the class and that it was pretty much the end of the road for me as this was going to be my last push while I was unemployed. Right around that time I got a very good job offer about 45 minutes away, eating up even more time in a commute (not to mention a good pay increase and overall better job than the one I got fired from). Maybe this is the universe nudging me where I need to go. I have recurring dreams about the department, the last one a fireman died and the other guys on the department told me to not even bother going to the funeral because I don't care.

It's been heavy for me and objectively I am a bit of a late starter (31 now) and already have existing neck/back injuries. It just sucks to feel like the dream is dead...my dad was career so I feel like I have some of the "mental" game just from my upbringing...but my body just won't carry the load. It's the story of my life. Personality wise I have always fit in with ex military, mechanics, bikers you name it but when the rubber hit the road with this experiment I just cracked...just telling you all not to garner sympathy but just a guy who's telling his truth.

the end

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u/SeniorFlyingMango NYS Vol. FF/AEMT Mar 27 '25

There’s always room for people. Have you thought about doing fire police or being an EMT? You can go and be a social member/associate or any other name that it gets called where you help with any function the fire department has.

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u/yungingr Mar 27 '25

If we're being completely honest, once I got my EMT, it took up more time and was a more rigid commitment than being a firefighter. Granted, FF was 100% volunteer, and EMT was PRN at a paid service, but still. I'd been on the fire department over 10 years at the point I took the EMT class, and once I was on the bus, I quickly realized that despite having worn a pager for a decade, the weekends that I was carrying my EMS pager instead, I didn't sleep for SHIT - and I soon realized that it was because on the fire side, if I slept through the page or took a couple minutes longer getting out the door, there was 15 other guys responding, and my not being there right away wasn't going to make or break the call. But on the EMS side, it was me and my medic. If I'm running slow, so is the ambulance.

Lot more stress, in my book.