On My Way!: A Volunteer Firefighter/EMT's Stories

There are over a million firefighters in the United States. Over 650,000 of them are volunteers. This book is based on the experiences of one of those volunteers, Lieutenant Dan McCann. Lt. Dan is a 68-year-old retired university professor who has been fighting fires and responding to emergency medical calls in Eastern Washington State for over 27 years. In this book he describes emergencies he and his fellow volunteers have responded to in their ongoing efforts to help members of their rural community survive the worst day of their lives. Dan's stories describe what it's like to be a volunteer firefighter and EMT regularly subjected to the physical and emotional stress of responding to medical and fire emergencies at all hours of the day and night. Each emergency begins with the innocuous vibration of his pager, or the ding of a text message on his phone. But the cryptic messages on his pager or in his texts can be the start of challenging, tragic, and sometimes completely unexpected events that stay forever in the minds of Dan and his fellow firefighters. It's always an exciting ride for Dan and the crew at Station 96 that starts from the moment they send their response text "On My Way!" and ends when they return from the call to park their apparatus in the station truck bay. Sometimes they leave the station for home excited and proud of their accomplishments. Sometimes they leave numb and frustrated by the tragedy they have witnessed and shared.Dan McCann was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. As a child, he often accompanied his dad, a career firefighter, to the local fire stations where he was free to climb on and over all the big smokey red fire trucks. These early experiences were, no doubt, one of the fundamental catalysts that ignited Dan's desire to serve as a volunteer firefighter. By reading this small collection of his stories you'll get a chance to see how that decision, made more than 27 years ago, has shaped the person he is today. Chapter by chapter you can ride along with Dan and the crew from Station 96 as they make their way from their kitchen tables, living room couches, or beds, to the center of other people's lives and emergencies, trying, again and again, to make differences that matter.