My Life After Firefighting

On this episode of Our American Stories, James, a retired fire captain, shares his story of firefighting and the emotions that came along with his high-stakes job.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories
and we tell stories about everything, including your story. Send
them to our American Stories dot com. That's our American
Stories dot Com. There's some of our favorites. And by
the way, as you know, we are a nonprofit and
what we do well, it's free to listen to, but
it is not free to make. And if you love

(00:31):
the stories we're telling, go to Ouramerican Stories dot com,
click the donate button and do what you can to
help us out. Today you're going to hear from James Pritchard,
a retired fire captain right here in Oxford, Mississippi, where
we broadcast. James is going to share with us the
realities of working in the fire service and how pushing
down your emotions catches up with you in the long run.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
I guess I kind of always wanted to be a firefighter.
I think that's why God put me here. But beforehand,
I was just a kid. I was working with the
city Electric Department actually, and I was in a bucket
truck right across from the fire department working with hot

(01:16):
power lines and I let one of the wires go
and it blew a fuse and it out and I
hunkered down in the bottom of the bucket and I
got out of the bucket and I walked across the
street and I said, Chief, I'm coming to work. I said,
this is it. I knew the fire chief well and
he liked me a lot, and it worked out where

(01:38):
the next hiring cycle, that's where I went. I was
just excited and I was ready to go, and that's
what I wanted to do. I was a volunteer firefighter
for about three years before I actually became a career firefighter,
so I kind of knew what the process was. There

(02:00):
was a lot of lot of physical pain, but other
than that, besides being away from my wife and my
little boy, it was fun, especially looking back, you know,
learning how to repel off the side of a building.
At the start of my career, I was there for
twenty four hours and I was off for forty eight hours,

(02:21):
which worked pretty good for me. But at the end
of my career, we worked forty eight hours on and
four days off, so I was at the fire station
for two days, I was at home for four days,
but being away for forty eight hours, you just missed
so much. My little girl bearre races so it was

(02:43):
you know, I missed the whole weekend of that, or
ball tournaments, are just being home because I'm a homebody.
My family means everything to me. But the hardest part
was absolutely the car wreck. Dealing with death in general.

(03:05):
But when you when you got to a house fire,
if somebody was in that house fire and we couldn't
find them right off the bat, we knew they were gone.
But when you got to a car wreck, lots of
times they were alive, but there really wasn't much you

(03:26):
could do to help them. No matter how fast we
got them out, we knew they they likely weren't gonna
weren't gonna pull through lots of times. You know, it
was hard. Everything built up little by little by little
by little. I was going strong and then I was

(03:46):
broken and I didn't know why, but it was it
was pretty obvious to everybody around me why, especially my wife.
You know, I did pretty good at hiding it from
my kids, but I couldn't hide it when I was asleep.

(04:08):
I would wake up swinging and kicking and punching and
screaming and actually hit my wife while I was asleep
several times, and just it was hard and I still
have nightmares. You know. I try to avoid places scenes

(04:31):
where hard things happened. I try not to go by
those places, but sometimes I can't. And you know, I'm
probably gonna cry to day, but that's all right. I've
got a great wife. She's been my rock through all

(04:51):
of this, and not being afraid to ask for help
has been very important for me also. And I don't
I guess we've realized a lot of times our purpose
until we till we get into it. And I don't
know that we even realized that first one or two
or three steps. I actually got hurt during a training

(05:14):
exercise and I had one back surgery, and then I
went back to work, and then I had another back surgery,
and after that they said I couldn't go back. So
I didn't get my last ride. I didn't get to
finish the way I wanted to finish. But God had

(05:37):
a plan with that too. He knew that I was done.
He knew that I was finished. I was so tired
and I needed I needed to stop, and I needed
to reflect, and I needed to get better mentally and physically.

(05:59):
That's that's what I've been working on ever since. I
feel like God put me here for that purpose. I
got to help a lot of people. But talking to
somebody doesn't mean you're not to let it out, don't
let it build up. I never looked at the fire

(06:22):
service as a way to be a hero or get recognition,
because that's not what it's about. But there's a lot
of special people up there doing it right now.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
In a beautiful job by Madison on the production, and
a special thanks to James Pritchard, a retired captain of
Oxford's Fire Department, And a special thanks to all the
guys and gals who do this kind of work. And
that's the cops, the fireman, the EMT, and even people
in some emergency room situations. It is a little bit
by little bit seeing the world that it's worst, near

(07:01):
death sequences, and sometimes not being able to help, sometimes
blaming yourself, the flashbacks, the nightmares. My goodness, I got
to help a lot of people. You sure did. And
now now James is helping himself. And God did have
a plan and it was time for James to be
with his family and find peace. James Pritchard's story in Oxford,

(07:22):
Mississippi's Story Our Hometown here on Now American stories. Folks,
if you love the stories we tell about this great country,
and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that
all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation, culture,
and faith, are brought to us by the great folks
at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all the

(07:45):
things that are beautiful in life and all the things
that are good in life. And if you can't get
to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free
and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu to
learn more.