To call them simply “firefighters” is an understatement. The men of Station 6 of the Sacramento Fire Department in Oak Park do more than put out fires.

Out of more than 20 stations within the Sacramento Fire Department, the station is the busiest. Year after year, the station has also been ranked as one of the busiest in the nation.

During their time at the house, firefighters are on-call to respond to a wide range of calls. Many are legitimate life-threatening emergencies, but a number of them don’t necessarily warrant a 9-1-1 response. A faked seizure, a man unconscious in the bushes covered with ants and foaming at the mouth, a woman who claimed she had been assaulted by six men and a man in cardiac arrest while his young children looked on: These are the types of calls that I saw as I rode along for 24 hours with the firefighters from Station 6.

A typical day at the firehouse begins around 8 a.m. The firefighters must arrive ready to work, since the first call can come in at any time. The men (there are no women currently at Station 6) prepare for their shifts by checking out the rigs, making sure tools are running properly and discussing the types of calls that came in during the previous shift. Also, because of recent budget cuts and the resulting “brownouts,” the firefighters must know which engines might be out of service at nearby stations, which can result in additional calls for them to pick up.

The station works in three different groups (A, B and C) with each shift lasting 48 hours, with four days off in between. They work with the same crew each rotation, which creates a strong camaraderie among them.

The firehouse serves as a sort of home away from home for the firefighters. A dormitory room has mattresses and storage cabinets lining the walls and is generally only used when sleeping. The day room houses recliners and a TV and is located directly near the kitchen, where the firefighters take turns cooking each shift - and they certainly know their way around the kitchen. They are given set a budget for grocery shopping at the beginning of each shift and also contribute out of their own pockets.

"When we go to the store, people will joke and ask what they are buying us today, but people don't realize that we will actually put in money from our own pockets as well...," said firefighter Jeff Switkowski.

On the day of our visit, the firefighters dined on homemade bacon cheeseburgers and fruit for lunch, and carnitas, rice and beans for dinner. At any given moment, a call can come into the station and the firefighters have to leave their meals half-eaten.

In between calls, the members of the crew stay busy watching movies, reading, exercising or fine-tuning their job skills with drills. Typically, they will practice one drill a day to stay efficient for situations they might not regularly encounter. On my visit, the crew demonstrated their rescue skills with an elaborate ropes and pulley system while Switkowski, the youngest of the firefighters, played the “victim” and was “rescued” from the roof of the station and lowered to the ground in a metal gurney.

Station 6 is home to Truck 6, Engine 6 and Medic 6, as well as Battalion Chief Niko King‘s red SUV. Depending on the type of emergency, either one or a combination of the vehicles will respond to the call. There are six different panels located around the house with four differently colored lights that give information as to the type of call and who needs to respond. White signals King, blue signals the medic, green signals the engine and red signals the truck.

Both the truck and engine hold rescue equipment and tools, but the main difference between the two rigs is that the engine holds 500 gallons of water and the truck has a ladder.

When someone calls 9-1-1, the dispatcher will determine which station should answer the call, and an alarm is sounded at that particular house. A printer automatically feeds out information about the call and location and more information about the call is provided on the computer screen in each rig.

Two engineers, Eric Munson and Robert Knaggs on this particular shift, are responsible for navigating the truck and engine through the narrow streets of Oak Park. Unfortunately, many drivers give little regard to the blaring sirens and fail to pull aside as required by law. The engineers often have to drive down the center of the road or weave in and out of traffic because of uncooperative drivers.

Of around 20 calls (not including canceled calls) that came in throughout the 24 hours, only two were actual fires. The first, at around 9:30 a.m., was a grass fire on 65th Street and Folsom Boulevard that had to spread to several storage units. The second fire, also a grass fire, came at around 10 p.m. and was behind Cal Expo near the levee.

The response to fires is organized chaos. To the untrained eye, it might seem like a lot of men running around spraying hoses, but there is actually a precise chain of command and specific protocol during each call. Upon arrival, the battalion chief surveys the situation and the best way to go about putting out the fire. Each firefighter has someone to report to. The battalion chiefs are responsible for two captains, who are each responsible for several firefighters.

Rather than fire, most calls are from people who require medical attention because of either accidents or illnesses. Upon arriving to a call for a medical emergency, each firefighter is responsible for a specific duty. Vital signs are checked and medical history and health insurance information is gathered while the firefighters wait for the medics to arrive. If the patient or victim can't communicate, medical history is taken from family members or anyone else present. Information is then transferred to a computer and then input to yet another computer system at the hospital.

The computers, which were installed in medic vehicles around a year ago, are supposed to streamline the emergency room process, but seems to instead slow things down as medics have to wait in line to check their patient in.

On some calls, the firefighters provide more medical attention than the medics might. This was the case Saturday morning, when a woman was unresponsive due to low blood sugar. After administering IV dextrose, the firefighters transported her to the hospital for further treatment. The firefighters saved her life, as she could have slipped into unconsciousness were it not for their quick actions.

Many people often wonder why so many firefighters are required to respond to certain calls. The importance of manpower was clearly demonstrated by a call that came Friday evening for a man in cardiac arrest. There were six different medics and firefighters attempting to revive him, and it was necessary for multiple people to administer CPR, monitor his heart and lift him onto the stretcher for transport.

While many of the calls that come into the department are from people who actually need emergency medical attention, many others abuse the 9-1-1 system and use the ambulances as a sort of Golden Ticket into the emergency room in hopes of being seen sooner.

"Many people are trained to think that if they see blood, they should call 9-1-1," said one firefighter.

Calls such as the woman who was dehydrated at a Church’s Chicken, the man who had back pain from his sciatic nerve or the woman who was intoxicated and fell from her front porch can seem like a waste of the firefighters’ valuable time when there are actual emergencies to be attended to. Still, the firefighters treat all of their patients with the utmost decency and respect. They talk to victims and patients as if they are friends, genuinely concerned with their well-being.

A call early Saturday morning brought them to an unconscious man laying in bushes, covered in ants, and paramedics tried to coax him awake. "Hey buddy, can you open your eyes for me? There are ants all over you, you don't want to lay out here," a paramedic said. He had most likely overdosed on drugs and was incoherent, yet they spoke to him politely, as if he could hear and understand.

Stories are often exchanged, whether around the firehouse dinner table or riding to or from a call, and it’s clear that the firefighters have seen more than their fair share of disturbing and gruesome scenes. Over dessert, Capt. Michael Wolfe recalled a gunshot wound that went in through a man’s groin and came out the other side. Firefighter Jeff Klein recalled a time he entered a car after the driver shot his passenger, who was also his brother. Upon pulling his hooded sweatshirt down from his head, the man’s brain fell from his skull.

Calls like these are shocking to hear discussed at the dining room table casually as if they are discussing weekend plans. However, such disturbing calls are a daily occurrence for the crew. To be able to continue with the job, they have to be able to downplay the shock and use coping mechanisms like humor after witnessing horrific accidents.

"We are exposed to some pretty awful things at times. There are definitely some triggers that will require a supervisor to put together a critical incident stress debriefing, such as an infant death or traumatic injuries," King said. "Most firefighters will joke about the things that stress us out as a way to not just keep it bottled up inside...We deal with the stresses of the job along with our successes as ups and downs within the team."

Another challenge the firefighters face is sleep. Getting quality sleep in a firehouse is almost impossible, and a night's sleep becomes a series a short naps. When a call comes in, the lights in the dorm immediately turn on, and the firefighters must load into the rigs just as if they had been awake. On Friday night, there were a total of 10 calls after midnight, which is more than the average of six for the weekend.

False alarms are common, and two came during our stay. The firefighters got out of bed, dressed and loaded into the rigs only to make a U-turn minutes after pulling out of the station driveway. Even more frustrating was when, on returning from a call, the battalion truck was flagged down by a man claiming to have been held up at knife point. After determining that they could return to the firehouse and return to sleep, a call came in around an hour later, only for the firefighters to arrive and realize the same man had called again and did not actually need any sort of medical attention.

While the crew is used to the constant waking and sleeping routine, it is a huge adjustment for someone used to uninterrupted sleep. As King explained it, to cope with the constant interruptions, it is common to only fall into shallow sleep patterns. Subconsciously they know that on a minute’s notice they could be fighting a fire or saving a life, which requires their alertness, so it is perhaps imperative that they don't sleep deeply.

At the end of an exhausting 24 hours, the firefighters are revving up for the next 24, never knowing what the day will bring. Their lives could be threatened in a massive structure fire, they could save numerous lives or they could be roused from their sleep to answer a call for someone with a simple earache.

But they are ready to go wherever needed and so they wait, with smiles on their faces, for the alarm to sound.
 

To see the rest of the photos from our 24-hour ride along, click here

 For more information about Station 6, visit the station's website.

All photos taken by Ed Fogle of Maverick Photography

Editor's Note: The Sacramento Press editorial department made corrections to this story after it was published .