Several years ago I was at a family reunion in Pittsburgh when one of my rather robust distant relatives tripped and fell. She landed with a pretty good thud and I remember that my first instinct was to laugh...okay I'm a terrible person but I think it's funny when people fall down. I remember my brother slipping and falling in front of the entrance at a ski resort...hang on...just the thought of it causes me to pause and laugh out loud. At any rate the lady ate it pretty good and she wasn't in the best of health to begin with. There was real concern among those of us that were not trying to hold back the giggles, that she could really be injured. I was not a firefighter at the time...I wouldn't become a firefighter for three more years but I remember that day. Of all the people at that party, my brother stepped forward in order to take care of the patient. I would learn later that the questions he was asking were standard EMT stuff but at the time, I thought my brother was a hero. He was calm and collected. He was doing an initial assessment but he sounded like Dr. San Filippo and I watched in utter amazement. Up until that point I thought being a firefighter was pretty...well...easy. "Put the wet stuff on the red stuff" as we like to say. I really had never thought about what my brother had been learning all those years working for CDF and attending classes. I really didn't appreciate the kind of mentality that he had developed that would allow him to remain calm in chaotic situations. (We're Italian so a meatball falling off the table is paramount to Armageddon, imagine what a falling relative is like). It wasn't the first time I looked up to my brother because quite Frankly I always looked up to my brother. In High School I played the sports my brother played. When I was little I used to sneak into my brothers room at night and sleep with him in his bed. But as I got older, I guess I tried to be unlike my brother...you know...forge my own identity. But after several years of forging (if that's a word) I came right back to that family reunion with my brother engaged in a crisis situation, calm, cool, and collected. I was right back to the point I left, 10 years before, I wanted to be like him. And three years later I became a Firefighter/Engineer for the Kings County Fire Department. Funny thing is, last night, I realized that maybe in some respects I will never be like I perceived my brother to be so many years ago. With the mentoring of my Captain and friend, I have developed into a confident Firefighter. There isn't much that gets me riled these days. Multi-casualty traffic accidents, fully involved structure fires, medical aids for broken limbs, stabbings, pulse less non-breathing, hazardous material spills, you name it, I've probably encountered it in some form or another. And this wealth of experience has only expanded my knowledge of the right and wrong directions to take early on an incident. I still have a lifetimes worth of lessons and experience that I haven't lived...but what feels good is that I am well on my way and at times, after the lights and sirens are off, I realize that I have become a little of what I saw in my brother that day at the reunion. However, last night, I was reminded of something that looms out there every time the bell rings. It's the improbable, the rare, and for me the dreaded..."Station 12 medical Aid for 4 year old not breathing..." I don't know how it affects the professionals around me or my brother, but dealing with children in trauma/life threatening situations is emotionally exhausting. The very first EMT call I ever ran was a 6 month old infant that aspirated on her own vomit. I walked in and the deputy police officer handed me the limp warm body of a baby just like my Grayson at the time. I performed flawlessly establishing an airway and performing CPR, I did everything right and yet I was crushed...I got home grabbed my children and weeped, I couldn't hold them tight enough. I learned two things that day, first that I can do this job, and second... I might never be like my brother. When the call came out last night, without anything ever being said, there was an extra sense of urgency. We both knew what was at stake and the clock is your enemy when someone is not getting oxygen. Although I acted in the same professional manner I had five years earlier, that same emotional pit clung to the insides of my stomach and I could feel a tidal wave of emotion as I watched the ambulance drive away. I remember talking to my brother-in-law Chris about this and he advised that I would have to find the strength somewhere to just forget about it. It made sense at the time, learning to understand I was not at fault for what happened, I was only there to help. But all these years later and I haven't been able to do that, and quite frankly I'm not sure I want to. I think my brother in law is probably one of the best persons I know, but I disagree with what he said only in this respect. I'm not sure I ever want to be the kind of person that sees a suffering child and isn't emotionally affected. And so I have come to the realization that maybe I will just have to ride this emotional roller coaster in the rare event that I deal with young children. Perhaps God wired me this way so that I would and do take this job to heart. Maybe that's why I love what I do. I have an emotional stake in every thing that happens after the alarm goes off. For whatever the reason it appears I won't be able to shake the connection I have with this type of emergency. And so in a way I have become just like my brother except I am wearing my own shoes...I guess that's close enough.