Captain Pat Murphy - 40 years on the line - Firehouse Talk: Tales from the Fire Service

Episode Transcript
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Chuck Hampton (00:05):
Hello everybody and welcome to firehouse talk a
new name for this podcast thatmore accurately reflects the
direction we seem to be going asthis still new project continues
to evolve. What follows today'sconversation with retired Fire
Department Captain Pat Murphythat grew up right here in
Pleasant Grove in southeastDallas where he attended Grady
spruce High School.

(00:27):
He went on to work 40 years forthe Dallas Fire Department
retiring as a highly respectedcaptain who won multiple awards
for his distinguished service.
I wanted to document the storyof his exemplary career. So I
asked Pat to join me Nakamotoand Mark Hoskins to talk about
his career. I hope you'll enjoyour conversation as much as I

(00:48):
did. But first I want todedicate this episode of
firehouse talk to a greattailboard man we recently lost
my houseMike always had a smile and a
story for everyone. So in hishonor, I in turn what to share a
story he wants told me.
I had recently been assigned toa new fire station and Mike told

(01:10):
me he knew a fella at thatstation named Beauregard. Now,
as a side note, you should knowthat lock always I'm changing
the name to protect the guiltyparty. But anyway, knock told me
that Beauregard asked him to putin a set of French double doors
at his house.
Mike told Beauregard that if hewould measure the opening didn t

(01:31):
had order the door and when itarrived, he'd come over and
install it for him andBeauregard agreed, but my
keyboard, the measurement had tobe exact down to 1/8 of an inch.
Beauregard agreed and assuredhim he would measure very
carefully.
So after he had received themeasurements from Beauregard,

(01:51):
Mikey ordered the door, and whenit came in, he went out to
install it and found thatBeauregard had indeed measured
the door opening and it wasexactly, exactly down to 1/8 of
an inch, exactly one foot offfrom the correct measurement.
Rest easy Mikey in that landwhere the nails are straight,

(02:11):
the wood never splits andeverything always fits just so.
And now without further ado,here's our conversation with Pat
Murphy. Okay, hello, everybodyand welcome to firehouse talk.
I'm here today with my co hostretired Fire Department
Lieutenant Mike Otto.

Mike Otto (02:33):
Hello, everybody.
Hey, Mike. Welcome.

We also have a special guest here today. Pat
Murphy. Glad to be here. Thanksfor coming. And we also have
another guest joining us todayMark Hoskins, retired police
department and some of you mayknow him from having seen him at
many fires. He is a volunteerwith 896. Morning. Hey, Mike.

(02:58):
Well, Pat, did you come to geton the fire report what made you
want to be a Dallas fireman

Pat Murphy (03:05):
two things, football, and George Barry
Smith, really? When I graduatedfrom high school, just about a
year after I got out of highschool, I miss playing football
so bad. And they had an ad inthe Dallas Morning News. But the
semi pro team was looking fornew recruits and stuff in the ad
tribes right across the streetfrom that teams before everyone

(03:29):
knew what 98 was. But anyway, Iwent tried out for this Semi Pro
Football team. Got lucky madethe team. Well,
Barry Smith was already on thisfootball team. It had been going
on for two or three years.
Anyway, when I got on there thevery night just we just hit it
off. For some reason, this boomright off the bat. And the more

(03:49):
he talked about the Dallas FireDepartment, the more I thought,
Man, that's what I want to do.
He explained to me the processof going through this and that
and the other and I went downsigned up and

got lucky and got Oh, was there an interview board
that you had to go through?

Pat Murphy (04:06):
I remember talking to people. The thing I remember
most about the process was whenI went down was the fiscal the
doctor physical. Yeah. And Iwent in his office and I thought
he was probably three days olderthan Jesus Christ. In would go
going through he checked this hechecked that and at one point in

(04:29):
the deal with but make itstanding there in his office and
he tells me to bend over touchmy toes. And I'm thinking I

Mike Hoskins (04:39):
don't know. I don't know.

Pat Murphy (04:42):
I you know I thought well, I but you know one of the
jobs so I did bend over touch mytoes. And I kind of looked at
him on the phone. Look, he saidI'm just checking the curvature
of your spine make sure thatalign. But anyway, just before I
walked out the door, he saidsuddenly Let me see your hands
and stick my hands out there.
He's no those that don't know.

(05:04):
He said, you back to fingernailsor to your fingernails and bit
and I said, Well, yeah, it'sjust the habit of mine. He said,
I'll tell you what he said. Youmight be a little bit too
nervous for this job. He said,If you really want this job, you
come back, see me in 30 days andhave some fingernails. Is that
right? That is the true storyand waited 30 days and went back
and he said, okay, you did.

They have to say I've ever heard. Yeah.

Pat Murphy (05:30):
Well, both of those things are damn saying. Anyway,
it worked out for me,

gosh, Almighty's.
So then you ended up going torookie school, I guess what was
rookie school at

Pat Murphy (05:41):
rookie school? I really enjoyed it. Gotcha. So
that record crossing Okay,dropped out there. JACK Levitan
was one of our major people outthere chief Lewiston, Mickey
Ferguson was one of myinstructors. raflatac was one of
my instructors.

And of course, you would meet up with Captain
lac again later, which we'llcome to after a while is that
what year would this have beenif he came out of high school?
1968 68 Okay, yeah. sling packscbas at that time, or any SCBA

Pat Murphy (06:20):
so they had some fleet bags, but not everybody
had one. Okay. It was it wasdifferent. I mean, yeah, no
walkie talkies?

Probably cotton gloves. Oh, yeah. Cotton

Pat Murphy (06:31):
garden. gardening gloves. Little metamaterial
plastic helmet. Canvas coat.

Yeah. Pull up rubber boots. Not a lot of us
actually was different. Yeah. Nohoods. Yeah. So you were at 24.
Until then, you promoted or whatto paramedic school or how

Pat Murphy (06:51):
many fours for like two and a half years. Then they
built the new 24. Okay, whatafter they got it? Yeah, I
worked over there for a coupleof years. They move into DMS
have volunteered for EMT school.

And were you in one of the first EMT classes.

Pat Murphy (07:07):
I was in the fourth EMT class. The first paramedic
but the first paramedic class.

Okay. So you probably didn't have to go to
paramedic school. Did youvolunteer for that to make
driver like some people did? Orwhat was the impetus for you
going to paramedic school?

Pat Murphy (07:22):
I just started mini Yeah, matter of fact, most of
the people back in the day, it'sadvisor stranded probably, I
think the over 90% of the firstpeople that started our email
system, were all volunteers. Isthat right? Yeah. So that's what
my understanding of some of mysay no, I didn't volunteer. But
I think the initial group, mostof them were volunteers.

What was that?
Like?

Pat Murphy (07:45):
It's very interesting. The, the officers
were Bill, Bill Roberts, andTroy, England and some of the
people that were trying to getour program up and running. They
did a lot of research, a lot oftraveling a lot of legwork. And
they wanted to really start usoff with a really, really good
program. And I think for a whilethere, Dallas probably had in
front and probably still doeshave one of the best email

(08:07):
systems in the country.

Mike Otto (08:09):
I'm curious, you know, today, our ambulances run
or rescues run constantly, youknow, they're making calls all
the 24 hours are just very, verybusy. But I know that that
evolved over the years are busy.
Do you remember how busy wereyou back in? 1972

Pat Murphy (08:28):
when you go? I'll tell you what they told us when
we started. Okay. They said theywere looking for volunteers. Is
that right? We're gonna set upthis system. We're gonna start
off with I believe it was like14 amasis. The busy ones, the
busy ones are gonna make sevenor eight runs this year. The
other ones?

(08:49):
Alright. Prior to us taking overthe EMS system, the funeral
homes in Dallas, right? Did theAmazon stores in basically it
was geographic. If you were inOak Cliff, you got this unit. If
you were North LSU got SparkmanHillcrest. If you were in South
Dallas, you got black and Clark,you know. And they did that the
last year. Chief Roberts, BillRoberts, he did some studies and

(09:10):
research. And he found out thatthe last year that the funeral
homes had damage serviced, theyhad about 25,000 calls in that
year. So he figured well, whenthe fire department takes over,
we're going to kick it up anotch. And they estimated we
were going to make 28,000 thefirst year we were in service

(09:31):
will the first full year we werein service. It went from 25,000
estimated go to 28,000 actuallywent to 43,000. Wow.

First year yeah.

Pat Murphy (09:44):
So we started off behind and never caught up.
That's why they're still so busyand they just kept adding units
new to us and of course the cityget bigger and bigger and
bigger. And initially. I think alot of the the initial impact
was the fact that A lot ofpeople assume Well, it's the
fire department. It's free.
Let's call him in. And I'mtalking. Do you call 911? Yeah.
Can you take me down to thepharmacy and get this

(10:09):
prescription field? and stufflike that? Yeah, that actually
happens.

Mike Otto (10:14):
Well, then maybe that was what led to the call
screening that ended up beinginstituted probably in the early
80s or late 70s. I would guess.

Pat Murphy (10:24):
I think the call screening was gonna do some good
until

Mike Otto (10:31):
the Boff incident.
Yeah, the Boff incident? Yeah.
Well, that's when it justcompletely went away. Yeah. went
away. Yeah, I was kind ofwishing they could have kept it.
Because he I thought he wasgood, you know, just to weed out
some of this stuff. Now we theydid some public relations stuff
to try to, to educate the publicas to what we're really for, you

(10:52):
know, tomorrow seasons and otherbut it worked a little bit not.
I said, We start off behind him.
We still are. Well, I noticedwhen they eliminated that after
the boss answered it. I kind offollowed the stats for a few
years. And we were jumping at10,000 runs a shift. All right,
a year. Yeah, annually for apretty regular basis. I don't
know how many years. But 10,000a year about we were jumping

(11:14):
after the call screening programwas eliminated. Now the alarm
off to somebody that's not allwe're saying is yes, that's what
it is. That's what it became.
Now.

I want to take a little break here to go into
greater detail about this bossincident we're talking about
because it really was a hugedeal. And we still feel its
ramifications today because asMark Otto mentioned, it resulted
in the end of call screen. Sowhat happened

(11:51):
on January 5 1984, Mr. LarryBoff called to request an
ambulance for his mother Lillianbath. When the call came into
the call center, it wastransferred to a call screening
nurse. These were registerednurses who were employed for
their medical expertise so theycould screen out calls that did

(12:12):
not require the advanced lifesupport capabilities of a fire
department, mobile IntensiveCare Unit, as opposed to a
private ambulance service. NurseBilly Merrick took the call and
was asking the caller theroutine questions. The caller
became impatient with thequestions as often happens on

(12:35):
911 calls, and mismarkedresponded negatively. As it
turned out, there would be aneight minute delay before
amulets 753 was dispatched andwhen 753 arrived on the scene,
Miss Lillian Boff was dead.
Clarice Tinsley, a local newsanchor broke the story, and soon

(12:57):
it was all over the nationalnews. It was all the media
talked about for a good whileand people all over the country.
were directing their vitriol atDallas. I don't think that the
city of Dallas had had this muchnational hatred directed at it
since Kennedy was shot here 20years earlier. So some
commentators even refer back tothe Kennedy assassination when

(13:22):
castigating us regarding thisincident. Call screening was
halted as a result in the era ofyou call we Hall began. It set
in motion is sort of missioncreep that would eventually find
us rolling heavy apparatus downthe streets with lights and
sirens blaring to patients whohad simply stubbed their toe, or

(13:44):
suffered similarly minormishaps. We'll do a deep dive on
this incident and on thecontinued mission creep that we
have suffered since in a futureepisode. But for now, let's get
back to our discussion with PatMurphy. Well, back in the day,
so you come out of paramedicschool, and where did you go

(14:09):
ride and ambulance?

Pat Murphy (14:13):
But there it was at 44. So 4444 was my we initially
started. were young, we had veryfew EMT, we just had enough EMTs
to go around and they assignedthree people. Three EMTs at
station.

Okay. So did you just have one paramedic Willie,
that Oh, initially, okay.
Usually it was two EMTs EMTsOkay,

Pat Murphy (14:41):
okay. We're three mvmt society the station, okay.
So they can rotate a little bit.
Most of the most of the officersthey they seem to Esther was
new, right. And most of them waslike, You got it, you guys. you
tease it got it. You'll dowhatever you need. Do and that's
it. You know how that one can?

(15:04):
We were so short handed therethe first the first three half,
maybe four years down that road.
Yeah, it was pretty much all soyou were pretty much on the
Hamlet's every game was nearlyevery shift. Yeah. And that that
kind of story leading up to theywill realize that this burnout
factor might be a little bitworse than a recipe, right?

(15:26):
Because nearly everybody waswriting it nearly all the time,
I think three or four times inthree years.

Good grief. Yeah.
So did you have in your careerin the fire service? Any
officers that mentored you andhelped bring you along? Or were
you pretty much thrown in thebriar patch to figure things out
for yourself?

Pat Murphy (15:50):
I wouldn't call it a Briar Patch. I felt like like
every other rookie back back inthe day. No, this was pretty
good waste back in the day.
Yeah. And things were differentback then. I was actually, they
were taking care of me. Theywere teaching me things. But I
didn't really realize it for awhile because of all the
agitation. I mean, you feel likeyou're rolling. Well. You
couldn't do anything right. Youknow, the Yep. You're like a

(16:13):
monkey messing with thefootball. And he just, he didn't
feel like they wanted to run meoff. But I feel like I was
really part of the team. Yeah,but later on in my career, I
realized, this guy, that guylove people, that crew. Yeah,
you know, if they're notagitating you, they don't like

(16:34):
you. So I got quite a bit.
Everything worked out good forme. But as far as anybody, any
individual, just to help me out,picking me up and help me spread
my wings and stuff. I don'trecall individually was his team
working. But again, I didn'tthink I was doing that good.
Because all the agitation stuffcame to pass. It worked out

(16:59):
great. It's a

different culture. Oh. Now, there was a
time I believe in the 70s whenyou were possibly working and
maybe a detail out of thisstation or near here. And you
answered a call across thestreet at the fairgrounds when

(17:22):
there was an incident involvingthe gondola. Is that correct?
Yes. Was the Swiss skyrise wasscara. Yeah, that was a

Pat Murphy (17:29):
Tell me about that.
October 21 1979. Okay, is therethe fair, okay. They had
decided, now this station, orold fires was no longer a
functional station at the time.
Okay. So what they did, they putan engine crew here with three
paramedics on it, and alwaysresponded to his fair part. I

(17:51):
was fortunate enough to be on itfor two, two years in a row. And
we were aged 61 sitting at thestation. But if we went out on a
fire call, we were engine 61. Ifwe went out on a mess call, we
were 761 Okay, and we onlyresponded to the fairgrounds.
And we were the first locationthat cable Koreans in

what had happened that what was the problem there?

Pat Murphy (18:18):
When I saw the picture, there was a gentleman
walking down the Midway in wasgoing to take a picture of the
guy and he just when he snappeda picture to the cars that
already were in the process offalling. Oh, and every time I
looked at that I thought how inthe heck did that car hit that
car and then that goes on inthat car. And these two cars
fall now in our in our numberone in the whole thing fall? I

(18:41):
couldn't figure it out. But whenwe pulled up, we had a blade
where we had 16 or 17 peopleinjured. had one fatality go for
a couple extra and which is inand I believe, Chief Steve
Perry. I think the chief Perrywas kind of in charge. Okay. I

(19:03):
was still fairly young onFriday. Well that not that
young, but there was a lot ofcommotion going on. And I mean,
they were, you know, like thiscable call ran the entire length
of the fairground the headtogether, we

got a very chaotic scene. Exactly.

Pat Murphy (19:16):
You got 16 or 17 people on the ground. We got
what we found out later on was85 people to deal up in the
gondolas frying the fire to theother and had to take care of
these people. They killed peopleup there you got a very big
incident. Exactly, exactly.
Yeah, it was a I mean, they hewas they had to tear down the

(19:37):
tents

and actually move things in order for the trucks
to get in. Now some of the bigtrees are now long the Midway to
get they had a couple of snorkeltrucks. They had a couple of 100
foot aerials. And here's thepart that would seem difficult
to me is trying to reach thosepeople with that aerial and
convincing us Someone to stepout of the gondola and own to

(20:03):
the ladder.

Pat Murphy (20:05):
It It was interesting to say the least. I
actually was only up on the topof one of the, the 100 foot
aerials to bring a couple ofpeople down. You just had to
hope that they can you can gaintheir trust there. Yeah, I can

(20:25):
trust you in everything. Yeah,it was a, the, in some of the
incidents they had. Some of thegondolas had stopped over the
automobile building and one ofthe other buildings in that I
had heard that they had to do achurch raise, but I'm not really
sure about that. But I did readsomething that they had to take

(20:47):
a 16 foot ladder, and hook it onthe gondola. And two guys at the
bottom were holding it wassomebody went up there and
convinced them to climb downthis ladder. And the more people
that got off the gondola, thehigher the 16 foot. Oh, right,
right

rally last night.

Pat Murphy (21:03):
It was pretty interesting to that. It was. I
mean, I'll never admit it, likeit was yesterday, most of it.
But it was, I don't know howmany hours we were at, during it
seemed like, we were there at 30or 40 minutes. But it was, I
would think it would take a lotof hours to Oh, indeed, it

(21:23):
didn't need to get everybodydown. And

Mike Otto (21:26):
to give the listener a little bit better idea of what
that all was about that gondolayou know, they were What did
they probably hold for peoplethey were Yeah, they were
literally closed open openthere. But but in closed on
cables that ran at fair Park andhow high off the ground were
they design at five feet. Soit's a substantial distance, you

(21:49):
know, that you guys are havingto go up and to get to these
people,

Pat Murphy (21:52):
based on most of the part that I was involved in. I
guarantee you nearly everybodyup there. thought this whole
thing is gonna fall it's gonnafall. Anyway. Yeah, when we tell
it if you're if you feel betterto sit on the very floor where
you can see and you can you bemore protected. So and we said

(22:14):
it's gonna be a while, but we'regonna get you down. And that was

Mike Otto (22:17):
a good day. So did the gondola course or whatever
did it encompass most of farepartner was with this total you
all the way around thefairgrounds. And so you can cars
in different locations that werestranded.

Pat Murphy (22:31):
Now it basically went from big text back to the
wild mouse or back to the rollercoaster of the length of the
Midway right down the middle ofthe middle. Okay. And Matter of
fact, the baskets fell on someof the the games and stuff
there. And it's myunderstanding. One, I'm stuck
another one hate it. Then whenthe third one hit, two of them
fail and landed on top of one ofthe tents. And of course, went

(22:55):
through it and there was

Mike Otto (22:57):
quite an incident it was

Pat Murphy (23:00):
more than more than one time when the individuals
finally got to the ground.
That's when they had thisrelease. I mean, they break down
crying they would they'd behugging everybody it was it was
some of it was good to see someof it was really tough. And you
know, but fortunately, what wehad one fatality in everything
that was very unfortunate. Butoverall, it could have been a

(23:22):
nightmare worse than it was

speaking of incidents that had to have a lot
of emotional impact. As aparamedic, you want answered a
fire at the Athena. And Ibelieve there was somebody there
who you mentioned had been atrookie school a captain lack Is
that correct? That's right. Andwhy don't you tell me about the

(23:48):
thena fire and your response tothe Athena? Okay.

Pat Murphy (23:54):
As we were expanding and adding MRC used to the city,
they decided they wanted to puta an ambulance at station three.
They put one there in Novemberof 1975. And I'd written a
letter to go over there becauseI thought it'd be a really neat
station or get be a busystation. I always like to try to

(24:16):
stay busy. So we went over andmy partner at that time one of
my partner but the driver was agentleman named Kenneth COEs big
Stuckey burly guy from twigMinnesota. I loved his accent.
We had a we were a good team andstuff. Well, when the event

(24:38):
thing of fire came in, it wentto second or third or fourth or
fifth. And we're sitting therethrees thinking man, what did
they got there? What do they do?
Gosh, we were kind of listeningscanners stuff and we knew that
they had dispatch several MRCused for smoke inhalation and
this and that and the other butlate into the incident. 660 fire
dispatch came over and they said756 and 703 respond to the

(25:04):
Athena fi and we took offcandles driving on and we had a
brand new unit new no he put hisfoot in the carburetor and we we
got up there pretty rapidly aswell who pulled up RG Russell
was the incident commander atthe time. And he said Murphy

(25:27):
said you can't come on he saidlet these guys bring your
equipment. So we go up to Ithink was the 14th floor. And we
go into first we get into thehallway that looked like a
chimney flue. I mean it was itwas burnt from ceiling the
floor, wall wall. Long, longhallway. We go down if tall when

(25:51):
I'm thinking my gosh they hadtheir hands full. Somebody had
their hands well here. A when weget down we get to the
apartment. The chief Russellwant to just go in he said this
downstairs he said these guysgrab your equipment. We got two
firefighters upstairs in badshape. And well that got dumped
on top. We get up there we gointo the apartment, going to

(26:14):
have room go into a second roomand go back into a third room in
this apartment. And there'sprobably four or five
firefighters already there. Butsoon as we walk in, the two of
them are down right there infront of us. They were doing
something to this to RileyHearst. They were working on

(26:38):
rally. So I knelt down can jumpdown. And that's when I realized
it was RAF lac who was myLieutenant instructor in rookie
school, and nothing so anyway,we we start working and did make
a long story short. We workedand worked and worked to get
enough people we'll get themdownstairs, got him into the

(26:58):
unit, worked him all the way toParkland and worked on about 45
minutes after we got toParkland. And Ralph had some EDL
ventricular beats or what theycall pa postless process
electrical activity on themonitor that look picture
perfect, but there weren't verymany of them. We kept thinking

(27:19):
Come on Raph Come on Rafi,you're gonna you're gonna kick
it you're going to kick in butafter about 45 minutes apart
from the they call it andeverything and that this I'm out
of I can think back about someof the RAF was a southern
country boy from Starkville,Mississippi, had a really
interesting voice in tone andhis attitude. And I just had

(27:44):
this. This really lacked a manhe was really good does. He
wasn't one of these, you know,really gruff and rough and treat
rookies like, you know what, hewasn't that way. He was just a
good man. And that incident wasit still sticks with me? Pretty
good.

Mike Otto (28:01):
Yeah. The Athena itself thought, you know, just
to kind of address it for thelistener, you know, was built I
believe back in the 60s was oneof was one of Dallas's first
high rise, residential,condominium type setups, and it
still sits today on Westnorthwest highway on the north

(28:22):
side of the road betweenHillcrest and Preston road, and
I can't drive by it to this daywithout looking at the Athena
and seeing the words and knowingthat Gavin Ralph lac and Riley
Hurst, you know, perished on the14th floor, you know?

Yeah. And I would, I would venture to say
that probably most citizens ofDallas that drive along
Northwest highway every day haveno idea. Oh,

Mike Otto (28:46):
I would agree.

Pat Murphy (28:47):
Yeah. It was a very elite company. And we would they
were city council members there.
They were judges there. Myunderstanding there was a
retired military general thatlived there, very classic,

Mike Otto (29:01):
that would explain the size of the unit, going into
a kind of, you know, threebedroom condominiums. high rise
in the 60s, as substantial.

That is. So you touched on something I want to
ask about, and that's theability to get lost or
disoriented when you don't havea hose line. And since I've got
a few firefighters here, my viewever been lost or disoriented in
a building. When you didn't havea hose line? I mean, actually,
besides, well, we've alreadydiscussed one of your incidents

(29:34):
in another episode, but I mean,that probably was not the only
time that you've been lost in abuilding or was

Mike Otto (29:40):
certainly no, it wasn't the only time Yeah,
that's not a good feeling. AndI, as I listened to pat tell a
story about Captain black andRiley. I was visualizing it, you
know, and how that would havefelt wandering through a space
where youCan't see your hand in front of
your face. And you know, theenvironment around you is

(30:02):
nothing but toxic air, which iswhat you know what you saw when
you intubated him, and you sawthe soot. And that's that was a
byproduct of the, the smoking,you described the hallway. And I
can only imagine. But But I canimagine it pretty probably
pretty closely because of pastexperiences. And it's not a good
feeling, you know, when you hitis not? Am I gonna get out of

(30:25):
here?

Pat, what about you? Have you had that
experience of being lost ordisoriented? In a fire when you
didn't have a whole slide tofollow out

Pat Murphy (30:39):
a couple of times, then? Sometimes it's because
you've been asked to dosomething. And I remember one
time, I don't know, I justbrought upon myself to go check
this warehouse, bla bla bla, blabla, and the Cardinals saying, I
didn't have a partner. But I'mwandering around back then. And
finally, I got back so far, thenI wouldn't find in what I

(31:00):
thought I might find it. And I'mthinking, Wait a minute, we're
in the hail Emma. I mean, Icouldn't, couldn't see anything.
In this warehouse. It's not oneof the days where you put a show
on the wall and walk through it,I was just wandering through
this jag, big space. And I gotback here, and I thought for a
minute, not in my heart was kindof talking a little bit harder.
I thought that wasn't verysmart. To get back there without

(31:24):
somebody or without a lie. Andthat kind of I think that that
was probably the last time I didthat on campus was Yeah,

Mike Otto (31:32):
I think we certainly as incidents escalate, you know,
we, we go in when we havevisibility, you know, and we're
not thinking about leaving, youknow, a breadcrumb trail to get
ourselves out, you know, andthen the conditions deteriorate.
And the smoke, you know, becomestrapped and heavier and it's,

(31:55):
you know, hits the ceiling, andthen it starts banging down. And
the next thing you know, youhave no visibility and what was
easy a minute ago to walk intois impossible now to walk out.

I think you're exactly right. I think you hit
the nail on the head. I've madethat mistake many times because
it didn't look like anything atfirst, but then conditions
change fast. Mike Hoskins and Inoticed you nodding your head
while ago. Have you been in asituation like that? Where
you've been disoriented? Yeah,when I worked at Siu Fire
Department.

Mike Hoskins (32:25):
Oh, obviously we had the federal prison next
door. And so we we had buyers inthe cafeteria there in the
kitchen area, with a problemover there is when you go in the
gate, they searched apparatusand everything so the fire still
burning and everything. And oncethey clearly did you go on in
you go on in. So we, we get off,get the hose line. And then when

(32:47):
you go in, the problem with thatis they send you in, they lock
the doors behind you, where youcan't get out. So you get in
there and you get so far back inthere. And then you can't know
you can't get out if you neededto get out because they got the
doors locked. That happens allthe time over there, man.

I don't know. I don't know. Oh, man. Well, you
worked ended up working how manyyears for the fire department
just

Pat Murphy (33:14):
a little over 40

years, little over 40 you barely got started
and you retired.

Pat Murphy (33:20):
These people that don't know me, they'll find out
I was a firefighter and they'llsay how long you work. I say
well, I was gonna make a careerout of it, but a quit.

And I believe you retired as a captain. Yes,
Captain, my last 21 years.
Anything you'd want to pass onto the younger generation of
firefighters, maybe they'restarting their career.

Pat Murphy (33:43):
Like I throw a couple of pointers out here.
From mass aspect of everythingon the fire service, you need to
be a team player. Even if you'remade to feel like you're lower
than whale poop. Because they'regonna agitate and aggravate you
enter. If you're not gettingagitated, that might not be a

(34:03):
good sign. Listen to the moresenior people and ask for help
if need be. have respect for theDFT and your coworkers. And
learn something on every callyou make no matter how trivial
or how he met. You may get to apoint in your career, that
you've seen it all and thenboom, sometimes literally.

(34:28):
Something new will occur. Yeah,this profession is so very
visceral, and it's not foreveryone. You will see hear,
smell, taste and touch thingsunimaginable to most people and
it wears on everyonedifferently. Use your co workers
and friends and religion if youchoose to keep things on an even

(34:52):
keel.

That's good.
That's words of wisdom.

Mike Otto (34:57):
Yeah, accumulated over For decades, many years,

I tell you what, and I like the part about
learning something on everycall, because I don't feel like
I ever came close to knowingeverything I needed to know for
this job.

Pat Murphy (35:12):
I had a gentleman, when I initially went to 30
threes, the very first day Steveworked at, he got me off to the
side one time and he said it acouple of things about being a
rookie, and I said, Oh, here itcomes. He said, No, he said,
first thing he said was, don'tget a part time job. And in our
were discussing from but hesaid, I say, I'll see you young

(35:33):
guys come on the firedepartment. You get over here,
you're making more money thanyou ever made in your life, you
got 48 hours off. So they'll goout and they'll become a painter
this for their they'll dosomething. And then they'll get
locked into where they'll startbuying a new truck and buying a
new house. And so then they haveto work off duty. Yes, to and

(35:54):
hidden. And that was somestellar advice for one thing.
And then the other one was, hesaid, you know, what this kind
of went through here. He said,He's trying to learn something,
all the ones you know, if itdoesn't, about the structure,
about your district, aboutwhatever it is try to learn
something on every run, youmake. Major x stands for

(36:14):
medical, this, it doesn'tmatter. Just try to learn
something on every run you makeand put that together, and you
will end up pretty good.

That is such wise counsel, you know, I've seen so
many guys get on this job andimmediately go out and weigh
themselves down with payments ona fancy new truck and house that
they can't really afford andthen their house poor. And then
they are they're locked intoworking part time. And you
mentioned, you know how much youneed to learn on this job. And

(36:44):
it's only getting morecomplicated. Now we've got cars
with exploding bumpers, andhidden airbags, and you've got
to know a lot just about thecars you're responding to let
alone the buildings which arealso getting enormously
complicated.

Pat Murphy (37:00):
I was just talking about training stuff and
learning. I was the academycommander for about three years,
me and five lieutenants, we'retraining all the new recruits
that are on the fire department.
And there's some really, reallygood things that go on in the
train division. But honestly,honestly, it's just scratching
the surface. It's a very basic,very fundamental things that you

(37:20):
need to do to distribute arecruit, or a new firefighter.
In and I learned pretty quicklyin my career. Because I always
liked to work at busy stations,the more rounds we made, the
more I saw, the more I thought,Man oh man, and so I kind of
made it. My duty to myself, forsafety reasons and other things.

(37:44):
Just learn something, learnsomething every time you go out
and keep it tucked in here, keepit tucked in here. And then you
can say one of these days, Ihope I remembered that I can
remember this, I'll do this ordo that. Because I saw this
before now. Anyway, I just triedto learn something every run I
made, even if it was just adumpster fire, you know,

it's a good philosophy.

Mike Otto (38:04):
I you know, I had a history at NINETEEN'S, you know,
which actually was prior to youcoming over there as a captain,
you know, but I rememberanswering with you and, and
being around you for you know,years and always enjoyed that.
But one of the things that Iknow when you went over to an
iTunes on a shift, and this ismainly I'm saying this for young
officers or, or people that willbecome officers at some point in

(38:27):
time. I remember some of thoseoutlaws that you worked with
over there talking about, youknow, you had a real passion for
the job, you know, and thatthere were times when, you know,
if we have a fire today, I don'tknow if it was malts or or blue
bail on me or whatever it was,but you know, you they sometimes

(38:47):
they said you'd start off theday with a fire day motor on me,
you know, and, but but that kindof eagerness and passion, I
think really breeds you know,excitement and passion for the
job, you know, from you hear itfrom the top and then it just
goes down to the bottom, youknow, and then everybody

(39:10):
embraces that. Yeah, we'refired. I can't buy an ice cream,
you know, and that's a goodthing.

Pat Murphy (39:16):
I never wish anything bad on anyone in my
entire career. But I just feltlike every fire you make or
every emergency you go tothere's something there that you
can take away from you couldlearn something from it and
everything. I like he talkedabout buying the bluebell and
buying the mouse. I want to tellyou what station was but I had
one of our crews, which I hadsome fantastic crews in my

(39:39):
career. One of my crews, theywould take some chicken bowls
and put them in a deal and setthem on fire. Kind of a ritual
deal to see if we can pull in afire. You know, and again, we
never wish anything bad onanybody. But if we're going to
have a fireless habit redistrictLet's having this habit where we
work, let's be firsthand. Letsomebody bring us Water.

Mike Otto (40:00):
You wrote squad eight for a while. Thank you so so you
know, when you look back overthat 40 year period of time,
where where did you I know, Ifelt like I've learned how to
become a fireman at 19. Youknow, I, other places I'd been.
We just we had themintermittently. And then I had a
slew of fires at NINETEEN'S inthe early 90s, especially. And

(40:25):
so where do you think you reallycut your T sixes? Yeah,

Pat Murphy (40:29):
I was there for six years. And that was again, at a
time that I felt like the worldis burning down. But I wanted to
learn I wanted to be more busy,I actually had actually made a
couple of transfers in my careerjust to go to somewhere busier.
This was kind of my way I wantedto do, I wanted to be busy and

(40:51):
busy trying to stay on top ofeverything. So but again, I have
some fantastic crews working tofantastic stations, who did a
couple that I didn'tparticularly care about. But for
the most part 18 years of SouthDallas, probably 10 or 12 years
in East Dallas a little bit, noCliff a little bit here, it all

(41:12):
paid off. I

Mike Otto (41:13):
think the guys coming up today, we don't have near the
fires that we used to, I mean,the the, the dynamics of the
fire service have changed somuch, you know, Chuck and I got
on an 83 baguettes on in 1668.
From 83 on, you know, we had somany more fires back in the day,
and in so many less other calls.

(41:35):
And now we're our call volume isthrough the roof. And but yet
our fire calls are downsubstantially, and we're a lot
busier. But that's not becausewe're putting out fires. And
it's just so important that whenyou don't have those on the job
training opportunities, you knowthat you make opportunities to

(41:56):
train and understand. And Ithink the department some of the
younger officers in thedepartment a we were really
trying to make a consciouseffort to do just that, which
I'm really glad to see,

Pat Murphy (42:05):
let me revert back to what I was doing the training
division that's going to bringthis up. That's just scratching
the surface, we're just giventhe basic fundamentals that the
state requires him to have thismany hours of this subject and
everything to be a firefighter.
I can't tell you how many timeswe've seen recruits out to the
station in our being the captainof the academy commander, I'd
get phone call, say hey, he saidsoldiers sort of Oh, here's my

(42:29):
fire station. And he can't dodiddly squat, he can't pull this
out of a booty cable, whatever.
And I said, timeout I saidsurely surely you've been
working long enough, or you knowwell enough that 95% of the
training these individuals needis on the job, you need to take
this individual and teach himthis, we can only give us some

(42:51):
fundamental stuff in training, Iget so frustrated because it's
like they think they're gonnacome out there and be a super
Superman firefighter with just alittle stuff that we give them
in rookie school in that that'snot the case, they've got to
learn on duty in the field, onthe job that they have, the more
you do, the

better firefighter, you're going to be
think you're exactly right. AndI think that's more true than
ever, because now, the training,division really has to focus on
the state level requirements.
And they've had budget cuts,and, you know, so they're
literally teaching them to gettheir state certification and
leaving out a lot of the stuffthat they need to learn the
Dallas way to do so

Pat Murphy (43:32):
you hit the nail on the head, if we used to have, we
didn't have enough time to doeverything the state wanted to
do. For the most part in some ofthe recruit classes that are
trained, we actually tried tocut short their lunch period
they were they were taking potsand pans home and bringing food
in the next day to eat andthey're so good. We can get all
the time for training and notfor, you know, everything else.

(43:55):
It just it was a littlefrustrating. But especially when
these guys would call and say hedoesn't know or he or she
doesn't know anything about thisand the other. And I'd say
that's your job and your crew,you need to take these people
out, put them under your wing,and teach them what they didn't
know, they got to learn it inthe field. We can't do it all
out here and trying to doscratching the surface.

That's true. And I think that what Mark said was
right, I think a lot of ourofficers nowadays are making a
greater effort to conductstation level training. That
honestly was something that waskind of lacking at the stations
that I grew up in in the 80s. SoI've been very pleased seeing a
lot of people that are a lot ofthe station captains that are

(44:34):
engaging in this will say oneimpediment is the other deal you
refer to though, and that's thecall volume. For instance at 25.
I mean, engine 25 is as busy asany ambulance, they're they're
out there making over 20 runs ashift on the engine. It's hard
to get much training and whenyou're making over 20 runs a

(44:56):
shift on the engine you reallyso Well, looking back over this
career, is there anything you'reparticularly proud of any thing
there that you'd want to share?

Pat Murphy (45:08):
Yeah, actually, the thing I'm most proud of is to
give you a little history lessonfirst. I was on the fire
department for 40 plus years. Ihave a brother who was on the
Dallas Police Department for 35years. I have another brother
that worked for the policeproperty room for a few years

(45:29):
then work for the EMF divisionin the fire department for 28
years. The three of us had 103years of service with the city
of Dallas. And I'm proud ofthat, but what I'm most proud of
is how proud my mother andfather were. For their three
sons it is, every time I thinkabout my mom just passed away
recently, but every time I thinkabout all these careers

(45:53):
together, I was a pretty decentfirefighter. My brother was an
exceptional police officer. Myother brothers did good at
everything he did. And not andbut my mom and dad did. My dad
would listen to a scanner, tillthe wee hours of the morning and
moments they turned me on thingalternatively, he would monitor
the police in fire because theyknew where we were going and

(46:13):
knew whom we were doing things.
And anytime we had a big deal orheard about anybody getting
hurt, my phone rang my mom, youokay? Chico, might you Okay, I'm
okay, mom. Sothis is kind of it's something
you firefighters will justdiscount that is a little bit
corny. But I was also proud thatI took no sick time. I took off

(46:37):
no sick time, the last 27 yearsthat I worked, never took off a
sick day.

None no last 27

Pat Murphy (46:44):
years. 27 years old.
Wow. But then I didn't burn mysick. I want to retire as the
guys in the States. But you'reinsane. You're crazy. And I say
well, I wasn't sick. I don't. Idon't even take enough sick if
you're not sick. Now, earlier inmy career, I might have finished
a couple of days and stuff andtook a day off for this and
another or whatever. But thatexists got to work or not. I'm

(47:04):
not gonna do it. I'm not gonnado it. I'm not gonna report off
second if I'm not sick.

That's awesome.
Yeah. So what a family legacybetween you and your brothers,
your parents must have donesomething, right.

Unknown (47:21):
Oh,

Pat Murphy (47:23):
I was. It amazes me sometimes how we all grew up in
Canada. nanosec went to jail.
None was ever gotten any majortrouble. And this counts, I'll
do this. And we were justrobbing kids doesn't grow. And
it likes even when Barry Smithtalked about the fire
department. The more he talkedabout it. I thought I had been

(47:45):
working in Freightliner. I'vebeen working in coal and radio.
I've been doing some odd jobshere and there and everything.
But when he talked with the firedepartment, I thought man, that
sounds so exciting. But you needto do so much good for so many
people and get paid for ittoday. What more could you What
more could you

Mike Otto (48:03):
pair to mentioned Barry Smith, more than one so I
thought the listener might enjoyit. Barry Smith passed away a
few years ago after a lengthybattle with cancer. But Barry
Smith was retired as a captainit was it three is when he
retired when he but he it wasfor years. He was a captain at
age rotate engine. Just somebodythat everybody that knew him

(48:27):
really looked up to and he was aDallas guy. And you know, I was
really proud to have known himand enjoyed a great relationship
with Him. And but just just togive the listener a perspective
on

and he was a

Mike Otto (48:43):
really gifted athlete, oh, volleyball and well
at the Texas Olympic sports. Heparticipated in pretty much
everything I think but oh yeah,if you showed up at his fire
station, you better bringsomething play volleyball
because your volleyball is gonnabe played and you're going to
participate.

Pat Murphy (49:01):
here when you played with this team, the Dallas
rockets, he had probably four orfive NFL teams, looking at him
to see if maybe it's an athlete.
thing that held him back was hisage. He was getting up close to
30. And he don't most teamsdon't have 30 year old rookies,
but he he was exceptionalathletes, anything anything he
did. competitive. Yeah, he wasreally I gotta tell you a story.

(49:26):
When, when he was working instation 11 I used to live right
down the street, but but I alsoserved there sometimes. And we'd
go out and pitch corners. Andhe'd have a wall there and you'd
pitch corner and whoever gotclose to the wall would take
take the coins as well. We'regetting hot and heavy. And of

(49:51):
course there's always a lot ofagitation going on. Yeah, I can
be that and he's not gonna bedead blindfolded. He'd go on and
on. Well, I think a quarter andI swear it was probably about a
16th of an inch off the wall.
And after gotcha, yeah, buddy,I'm gonna get a belly washer
from you. He flipped quarter upthere. But it is a book. And I

(50:14):
swear to God, that quarterjumped up and leaned against the
wall. He said, I've got aleaner, I beat you. But he had
placed some of the guys in pingpong, he'd use a scrub brush
from the station instead of apaddle in between. him just
exceptionally competitive. Yep.
I love that man. He's probablyone of our best, best, best best

(50:36):
friends of the many that I thinkI have.
In my career, I was fortunateenough, I got four Distinguished
Service Awards. And nearly everyone of them was kind of a fluke.

(50:58):
I was either at a position hereout of pocket there are and I
had this, why me? Why me? Iwouldn't want it when it came
down. When I took those awardsand stuff and got the plaques on
me. I'm thinking it could havebeen any anybody on the fire
pump open? It'll give you anexample. Let me see here. And

(51:20):
work in it. CBA versus singleservice water got. That was we
were new, fairly new in a mess.
But we were up at the paramediclevel. And some of the powers
that be in the IMS. They've saidWell, let's let's come up with
a. They chose paramedics of theyear. I don't know if you're
familiar with a way. Well, thefirst year Gary Taylor, Jeevan,

(51:41):
Dutton, and myself, wereselected as paramedics of the
year, got the bar, got all thiskind of stuff. But then I got to
looking and thinking that allthree of us worked at the same
fire station, not on the sameship. But we all three came from
44 station. And I'm thinking ofall these paramedics that busted
their butt to get trained and goout here and do this work that's

(52:05):
been busier than we everanticipated. Why me? Wow, you
know, why are these three guysfrom this one fire station? I
didn't. It just didn't. I mean,I was glad I was proud of it. I
worked hard. I tried to be goodand do well. And, you know, I'm
not. I just said kind of wireme.

Okay, Pat, in there was a fire on Lafayette
street that you responded to atone time. Can you tell me about
that particular rescue? Sure.

Pat Murphy (52:45):
It was kind of ironic because I was scheduled
to be on the MSE that day andsomeone came in, swung in. And
they chose the route, the MSE,they said, you're around any
day. And I thought, well, I'llride the tail board of the
engine anytime I get a chance.
So I was on the the tabledimension three and march came
in on Lafayette Street, whichfor anybody not familiar with

(53:07):
the Dallas area. Right now theTom Landry center sets where
Lafayette street used to be thatused to be the projects and
whatever. But we pull up on thesame first on the scene, a lot
of smoke coming from theapartment. And we noticed there
were a couple of people on therewas a porch over the front
doorway. And there were twopeople in they appeared to be

(53:30):
trying to get in the windows ofthe upstairs part of the
apartment. And if did forChristmas time, the Christmas
tree gifts isn't another word onfire downstairs. And when we
pulled up, I looked in and theytold us that there were two
babies upstairs. Well, that goteverybody really pumped and

(53:51):
adrenaline was flowing. And thelieutenant told him to lay
across land whatever. Well Ilooked at where the fire was and
how much fire there was. Andthere was the stairs. They went
straight ups. These were liketwo storey apartment deals live
in and kitchen downstairs andbedrooms and bathrooms stuff

(54:11):
upstairs. And I thought well ifI want to go upstairs This was
one of that console talking atwander saying hey Luke, and I do
this and do that. I just thoughtif there's some babies up there
if I'm gonna go I need to go nowup the stairs. So slept on air
masks and I went upstairswithout a handle on in whatever.
It was a little toasty. Very,very smoke field. So basically

(54:34):
out going by Braille got to thetop of the stairs. I was down on
my hands and knees feeling andfeeling feeling went into a
bathroom that I found out when Igot in it was a bathroom. Check
that out checked out the tubaround the commode When have you
backed out, went into the nextroom and bumped into a bit felt

(54:54):
under the band all as far as Icould feel Get up high enough to
lay on the bed. And when I laidon the bed, I can even reach the
other side of the bed and nowsuddenly realize, in after the
fact it was a king sized bed andthis small project department
didn't find anything on the bed,or make it down to the end of

(55:15):
the bed. And there was about atwo foot space between the end
of the bed and a dresser. AndI'm down on my hands and knees,
and I'm crawling through there,and I bump into something. And
when it's dark, and when youbump into something, it kind of
gets the adrenaline going again.
First of all, I didn't know isit a child? Is it a dog? Is it a

(55:35):
toy or whatever. But then I feltenough that it was a child
picked it up live as a dish Ray,and I'm thinking oh, my
goodness, we didn't get here intime, I really thought the child
was deceased. I already had preplanned in my mind that if I'm
going to go down stairs, I don'tknow how if the fires
progressed, or if they'reknocking it down. But I've

(55:57):
already told myself if I have tocome down, I'm gonna have to
come down to one of the windowsin the front part of the
apartment. So I've got tochallenge one arm and I'm kind
of like a one armed man crawlingthrough there and I found the
wall, found one of the windowsand they hit these. They're
called your lousy windows, thesecrank metal Windows is sometimes
they're very cantankerous, Itried to open the first one too,

(56:19):
and wasn't having a lot ofsuccess one handed. And then I
hear a muffled voice to my leftsaying, Come down to the next
window. Well, I made my way feelmy way down to the next window.
And Steve who he had thrown up aladder and he was on the ladder.
So he on the outside and me onthe inside with one hand. We got
to jelastic windows open,patched the child down. But he's

(56:40):
still I really thought he wasdeceived. But I passed him to
Steve. We were to block fromBaylor hospital, they rushed him
over to Baylor, and he survived,which made me feel really well.
Matter of fact, there's beentimes I actually tried a couple
times to try to track him downto see where he was in the you
know, all that ails. A lot ofthings ran through my mind,

(57:00):
because this has been severalyears. I think he would be in
his 40s now, but I thought youknow, it, I think it'd be kind
of neat to find him if I could,but and as I climb down the
ladder, thinking, What do I do Ineed to make that loop again.
Because he said initially theywere two people do babies but
then he said No, the other oneswere next door. So everything

(57:22):
worked out really good on thatrun. Here's a I don't like to
call them highlight with it wasa little peak thing in my career
that I'm very, very proud of itis. I guess they This was
golden. The guards that they in?
It worked out really well.

that's a that's a great story. And imagine you you
were supposed to be on theambulance that

Pat Murphy (57:43):
I was supposed to be able to get dragged the tail
board is a driver and yeah,

things just worked out. Good for everybody.
That's awesome. And it's sounfortunate, but so common that
we don't get to follow up. Yeah,it would be fantastic to see you
know how that young man's lifeturned out. But that's that's
kind of the way it usually is,is we don't we don't get to
know.

Pat Murphy (58:05):
I'm not I've I don't know how many times mercury I
know I've done it a few times,is how it actually would have a
really bad incident or maybe arescue on a major accident. It
took us quite a while of doingan ad. I don't know if I was
supposed to or not. Butsometimes I'd go to the hospital
after the fact that they are tolater check on them and see and

(58:29):
in some cases, we have peoplecome by the station that we've
done a rescue on and whateveryou are, they'll bring soda
waters and cakes and cookies inthis Nether. So a lot of times I
really kind of wanted to checkto see well how wonder how that
person is doing or has thisperson do it? Yeah. So

I often wanted to also but but most of the time
did not find out and youmentioned you know, occasionally
somebody coming by the stationand thanking you. My experience
was I got a lot of thanks forthe things that were the most
inconsequential, you know, andyou know, so most time you have

(59:08):
an incident like that where youreally make a difference in
difference in somebody's life ordeath. You never hear never
hear, right? But if you gettheir dog out of a sewer that
they would have eventuallygotten out of anyway, man,
they're coming with theirfriends and their cakes and
their cookies.

Pat Murphy (59:23):
Oh, we're gonna kick it seemed like it happened more
times than not would peoplewould come and bring the cakes
and cookies and thank everybodyin. Actually it was the bishop
that did the run. And he says,you know,

Ed will your honor bound to eat all of that
before they get there.

Pat Murphy (59:44):
As part of it.
Then in 1988 had a smoking areacalled home granted homes in
Word Tilden over there. And sureenough, we saw this smoker
stuff. Well What happened? Acar, apparently the man and

(01:00:07):
woman his car got in theargument while they were
driving. And they ran into a oneof these big telephone box
things. And either his footstuck on the accelerator or
something. The tires are justspinning on the Cadillac and
smoking up the whole area. And Ithought, well, we'll try to
figure this out. Well,unbeknownst to me, they had seen

(01:00:27):
an angle serve for the majoraccident. And they were down
about a half a block down, kindof had behind his building. And
they got on there. They said, Wewouldn't bother. You want to go
in the two people. They'refighting over a gun. Oh, yeah.
And I'm thinking, Wait a minute.
Anyway, we get off the engine.
And sure enough, they're almostout of the car. They're tugging

(01:00:49):
and pulling and tugging andpulling nothing Gosh. And at
first I thought that was way thepolice get here. But then the
school bus pulls up in stops.
And about 50 kids get out, startwalking down the sidewalk. And
I'm talking like 40 or 50 feetfrom where they are. And I'm
thinking Oh, and I didn't reallyknow what to tell my crew. So
Addis was trying to get the twopeople's attention. So they quit

(01:01:10):
talking and all this kind ofstuff. And I just kept making
more, a little closer and alittle closer look when I get
close enough. They were just aman or woman they were pulling
and tugging she had a hold ofthe barrel. He had a hold of the
stock. But I can see the hammerwasn't caught and nobody had
their finger in the triggerwhale there. So I'm thinking so

(01:01:31):
when I finally got him settleddown a little bit, I just grab
all I can grab in the pistoljust pop right back up the hill.
And simultaneously when Igrabbed the gun, I think it was
Jimmy waters and August galleyone was in front of the car and
it was a bag they grabbed bothof them and took them down to

(01:01:51):
make sure everything was okay.
But I kind of got I'm not gonnameet you at night, but I got my
butt chewed by a senior officerwho accused me of being john
wayne, or acting like john and itried to explain I said you

(01:02:13):
would did this had to beenthere. He's not gone. I don't
care. I don't care. I don'tcare. You don't do that kind of
stuff. I said you but he neverdid take myself out of the
story. But I was so concernedabout all those kids. I mean,
they were just right over there.
And plus the two people thatwere fine. So anyway, that was
another one with why I'm meetinghere we get a call to a smoking
area and and there's a beingdrawn Wayne deal. So anyway, and

(01:02:36):
one more and then I'll be quiethere. 1995. back I used to use
hiring back is when the guy toldme not to get a part time job.
Yeah. Most time I didn't know.
But when they started hiringpeople back that was my part
time job. Which was over time.

Mike Otto (01:02:56):
The listener doesn't know Yeah, that's what we call
getting overtime shift was ahigher back exactly. It Anyway,
I

Pat Murphy (01:03:03):
got hired back station to nice, quiet semi
quiet station, not Dallas.
Probably don't have three, fourfires a year and everything.
Well, we're sitting there andboom, bell hits we'll go out
have a good house fire. Supposedto be a lady inside. So not one
of these deals. Me and Mike Mikehouse would go in. We don't have

(01:03:27):
a liner thing. We're gonna go inand try to find out what's going
on. And Jason Hall, he was rightand easy. 35 that day, we in
micronesian to Jason whole houseland, but in Georgia, but he's
playing it smart. He's goinghe's getting ready to get back
and he's waiting for him to givehim some water. Well, we go into
two different parts of thehouse. And me and Mike can't

(01:03:50):
find anything that we rarely cankeep up with where each other.
Yes. And then we're here, JasonHolman. Over here, over here
over here. Well, he had foundthe lady in a bad stuff. And but
he couldn't get her out byhimself. So it took all we could
all three of us to get that ladyout of out of the house and

(01:04:11):
stuff. And again, I'm thinkingI'm a higher back. I'm working
on the house fires me Why Why amI here in this in in I you know,
I think a lot of people saidwhat it was divine intervention.
It was it may well have been itmay well have been on all four
of these cases. But still, Imean, I'm proud of them. I'm

(01:04:31):
glad I get to do some goodthings. But there's so many
other people in this departmentthat could have done exactly the
thing and some of them even moreor whatever. And now this think

Mike Otto (01:04:43):
well, I have an opinion on this, actually. I
mean, I can't tell why why youwere in those situations, you
know, but at post 911 you know,the whole public attitude
towards the fire service andwhatnot changed drastically, you
know, into this day. You know,if I got a fire department t
shirt on somebody saying thankyou for your service and

(01:05:03):
whatnot, which is very nice forpeople to do, you know, but
after I went to the New Yorkcompliments a local 58, wound up
to go to the firefightersmemorial services, and I thought
about later, this the this herostuff, which I'm really, you

(01:05:24):
know, uncomfortable, and I don'tthink that anybody is a hero, by
virtue of their profession, Ithink they can do heroic things,
when presented with anopportunity to do something that
they totally didn't expect tohave or whatever. And then they

(01:05:44):
respond, you know, they respondto their training, or just their
gut, their heart, theirwhatever. But, but for whatever
reason, they do heroic things,as opposed to saying, oh, he's a
fireman, or a police officer, orhe's a veteran, and he's a hero.

(01:06:05):
Very well, maybe. But I'm sayingthat, that a true hero is
somebody that is presented witha situation that where he can
either act or not act, and ifhis actions and if he acts, he's
a hero in my book,

I mean, I'm very fortunate enough to be in the
right place at the right time.
And everything fell in place.
And, and I mean, I felt goodabout doing some of the things I
did, but it wasn't that I waslooking forward it was it just
kind of fell in my lap, I guessyou'd say and,

Mike Otto (01:06:38):
like, see that the head, but you did what it took
to mitigate the situation. Youknow, your how you got there.
That's another story. But youknow, you were there. And you
did what you had to do.

Chuck Hampton (01:06:54):
My next question for Pat was if he had any
lessons learned from his careerthat he could share with us?
Here's his response.

Well, yeah, I've learned but I want to pass them
on, especially to the youngerpeople to get on the fire
department. This is advice fromme, you can take it or leave it,
but I think it works sometimes.
When you're on the job and onthe department, you need to keep
your mind open and clear untilyou arrive on the scene. And
then make decisions based on alittle common sense. A lot of

(01:07:25):
safety, and you're trusting yourco workers and your training and
experiences. Everyone goes home.
Very good. Very good. So On arelated note, any,

any major mistakes, anything that you
think boy, I screwed that up. Iwish I had done that
differently.

Okay, I'm probably not going in the same direction
you want me to. But for me,personally, the biggest mistake
when I go back and think aboutmy career, the biggest mistake
that I didn't make itintentionally but it ended up
being I was I got where I got sokind of engrossed in my job in
what I was doing and where I wasgoing and where I was heading,

(01:08:09):
that I kind of started slackingoff with my family. And if I
could go back and changeanything in my career, it would
be that Okay,

Mike Otto (01:08:19):
that's good advice.
Always keep keep thosepriorities in line.

It took me a while to realize that it had occurred
or was occurring, but it did inin some of it can't be changed
now because it's been so long,right? So

and over the course your career, any close
calls, actually,

for 40 years, I was very, very fortunate that I did
have on a ambulance called d h.
JOHN T. May he rest in peace, mypartner, Dr. Rhonda angles, we
were headed to an unconsciouscall on Lafayette Street, which
was about two districts out ofour district. So he was pretty
much in a hurry. We went throughan intersection and got nailed

(01:09:06):
with a dart bus that hit just infront of the Danny's brand front
of him in the left hand wheel.
The MCU did 180 degrees. Thebumper, the MSU tour sat out of
the bus when all the commotionstopped out. I wasn't knocked

(01:09:30):
out, but I was pretty groggy,and I looked over it and I was
swore my partner was dead. Imean he was slumped over and not
moving. I wasn't even sure hewas breathing. But we basically
some people from around came outand got the doors open. God got
me out. Then he started pickingup a little bit and everything
so it was a I believe if it hadbeen three foot farther towards

(01:09:55):
Donnie he probably would havebeen killed and it was a pretty
good wreck here. He was goingprobably 3540 miles an hour and
a big bus. So john T.

Did he smoke apart?

He Yes, he did.
Maybe retired out of 50 threes.
Does that sound right? Yes. Oh,yeah, remember him he was out I
love man. He has a very goodparamedic. Yep. But you could
put Donnie an $800 suit. And hestill was Donnie. I guarantee he
ended up burning holes in it. Healmost always had a pipe, mouth.

(01:10:28):
And in a lot of times, he talkedout the side of his mouth
because of the power of

a few characters like that one of them in
particular. Every time I sawhim, he looked like he'd been
shot with a double barreledwrinkle gun.

Donny would, when we were running out of 40 fours,
nearly every time we go to parkand inspect in the wee hours of
the morning, we'd get through,we'd go out we'll hit up in the
back and get on the stretch andgo to sleep. And I'd drive back
to station in most of them. Ijust back in I go to bed next
time we had a run hit in theback of the ambulance. And I'd
go bang under Danny get outfront. Yeah, he was he was very

(01:11:06):
good partner. I really enjoyedhim low demand. And we had some
some fun times in South Dallas.

As we continue to chat, the conversation naturally
turned towards station laugh.
And Pat told us about some ofhis experiences that occurred,
not at the scene of anemergency, but just there with
the characters at the Firehouse.

I was I was a fairly new officer and went to the
station as a new lieutenant. AndI've learned that you never
should change things. Really, ifyou're like, if you're new
officer go into a station, don'tgo in there and say, oh, we're
gonna change this and changethat change it. I didn't want to
do that. I want to try to seehow they handle things. But one
thing that I did want to do itthis particular station was I

(01:11:51):
wanted to rotate the cooking.
You know, you have some stationsfor one person would go buy
groceries and cook all the mealsand everything in it. Sometimes
I thought that that's a gooddeal. But it might not be a good
deal for that individual andlisten anyway. I said we're
going to rotate to cook in Nice.
Well get one of these young mencame to me. He said, they said

(01:12:12):
Lou he said, I don't I don'tcook very well. And I said
that's okay. I said this, youknow, we'll make it do you know,
we'll we'll have the hours guys.
we rotated around we'll finallywhen he got to use rotation
without cleaning up theapparatus and doing everything
that we do in the morning anddoing all reports and whatever.
And he gets on the intercom saysstaff for lunch. We walk in to

(01:12:32):
table he's already set thetable. He's got a plate out
there. There were this see sixplates there with a half a
cantaloupe on each plate. Andeach one of those cantaloupe was
full of chili What? And wewalked in there and I looked at
goodness. And I looked at him hesaid cap I told you

earlier that Antonia couldn't cook.

We didn't have him cooking.
In another station deal. I justtook the call it wasn't for me.
There was a gentleman who waskinda maybe semi abused is sick

(01:13:21):
time occasionally. And he calledhim one morning and go where to
get who's, who's gonna be sick,and it's nothing really reported
to the deputy chief and all thiskind of business. And he said,
report me off sick and then justhung up the phone. I knew that
was I said, Hey, I got to tellthe chief What's wrong with you,

(01:13:44):
you know, you got a you got aheadache, whatever. He said,
I've got anal cataracts. And Isaid, cataracts. He did an anal
cataract. I said, I don't knowthat. I know that when he said,
My eyes don't see my eyes comingto work today.

It's pretty good.

I can tell you something funny. But this nation
right here.

Tell me something about eds. And for our
listeners. We're in the Dallasfirefighters Museum, which is
the old fire station number fivefor the Dallas Fire Department.
So you say you've got a storyabout this particular fire
station.

I used to swing I've worked in this district and I've
swung to this stationperiodically. And in the little
phone booth you have out hereone day, I'm mostly across the
street over here and I got thephone numbers to these two
payphones across the streetright there in front of the
airport right by the gates fair,Martin. When you're standing in
the phone booth, you can see thepeople over there. Okay. dial

(01:14:52):
the number. Somebody wouldeventually answer the payphone
across the street and say Hey,how you doing today. Fine, I
said, Hey, I work for thetelephone company. And I'm down
the street here. I'm on thetelephone pole above the white
owl cafe right down the streethere. And I will make sure you
can hear me, okay? If thislines, okay? And they say what I

(01:15:15):
said, I said, I'm down here on apole above the White House. I
say, look, look down to yoursouth, in there did kind of
sorta nice, well, I don't seeit. I said, Well, look, I see
you just look down to the south.
And if you can hear me, wave,and then wave and as well, if
you can give him a real good waywith two hands on having jumping
up and down and waving and orI'd make a comment, especially

(01:15:39):
if it was a lady answered thephone. I say Ma'am, I said, I'm
on the telephone pole down thestreet here. I said, That's a
beautiful red dress you have.
And she's looking looking. And Isaid, just look down to Jeff
Dean, where the wild ale Cafeis. We'll just look down to the
south. I'm up on polar if youcan, if you can hear me this

(01:15:59):
way. We do that pretty prettyoften just for a little
entertainment between Ron's

habit, a fireman with a little bit of free time
is a very dangerous thing.
So looking back over yourcareer, I know you worked with a
lot of great people. Was thereanyone that stood out that you
hold in particularly highesteem?

Yeah, but in fact, there's a few probably even
several, but I'll give you thetop of my list. First of all, I
had to save Denny burrs Dini inour rookie school together. His
brother in law actually was inrookie class with us. It was
like a big family. But Danny hasdone so much in is still doing
so much for the fire department.
I have the utmost respect forhim. And Matter of fact, if you

(01:16:52):
talk to Danny about Pat Murphy,we call I always call him Padre
leave. But Danny,

Paul, Michael Freeman,

most respect for power, Michael Freeman. Good,
Chief good, man. Goodeverything. That's the best time
best way I can put it. Now thethe other ones or trailblazers
that a lot of people maydisagree with me on this, but I
feel very strongly about thesepeople here. Andy and rica's

(01:17:25):
Caleb Parker, and Sherry Wilson.
Now, for those of you thataren't up on all the fire
department issues, any was thefirst Hispanic, the fire
department, Howard, KennethParker was the first African
African American. And SherryWilson was the first female. And
I know there were several peoplethat followed in their tracks.
But I don't think anybody had toendure some of the things that

(01:17:48):
all three of these people did bybeing the first, the first the
first. So yeah, I have theutmost respect for those five
people, and hopefully are thepeople on down the line.

I can imagine, you know, you were talking
earlier about the agitationcertainly can be difficult
starting this job for anybody.
If you were the first member ofone of those minority groups,
back in the 70s. Economicallyimagine, it probably would have
been even that much tougher.

The firearm has gone through a lot of changes. And
personally, for me, I think mostof them were for the good for
the better. And now I've heard alot of negativity, headed
towards all three of thesepeople. And that's kind of why I
have all the respect for becausethey took so much flak to to be

(01:18:40):
a part of this wonderful firedepartment that we have.

What to say Pat Murphy for being on the show
today, along with Mark Otto andMark Hoskins for their
participation. There'll be moreinformation about Pat Murphy and
other topics that were mentionedin today's show, such as links
to newspaper articles on thewebsite firehouse talk comm if
you enjoyed today's show, besure to leave us a five star
review on your podcast app.
Also, I know that a lot of youare listening from your

(01:19:13):
computer, which is cool. But ifyou're not taking advantage of
one of the many apps that areout there, which enable you to
listen to podcasts, like thisone while you're driving you are
missing out far has taught canbe found on Apple podcast,
Spotify, Amazon, music, Pandora,and many other listening apps.
The next episode will featureKristin Whitaker and Byron

(01:19:33):
tibble. I hope you'll be able tojoin us for that. I'm also
planning deep dives on numeroustopics relevant to Dallas Fire
Department history. If youresponded to a major incident
where we had a line of dutydeath or close call and have
information you'd like to shareabout that incident. Send me a
message. The same goes forhistorically important incidents
like the Swiss gondola incidentthat pat touched on. If you

(01:19:56):
don't have my contactinformation You can always send
a message to the firehousetalk.com website. Until next
time, that is all kk in 377 FireDepartment city of Dallas.

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Captain Pat Murphy - 40 years on the line

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Captain Pat Murphy - 40 years on the line