Chattanooga Firefighter for a day shows what firefighters do to save lives

October 16, 2021

Brian Armstrong,

CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee (WDEF) – 16 people including City officials got first hand experience at battle challenges firefighters often face. These included putting out fire, searching a smoke filled building looking for people needing to be saved.

“Show to navigate a room that’s so smoke-filled that you can’t even see your hand right in front of your face,” said Director of innovation special projects Dylan Rivera.

The also showed CPR of an infant as well as my favorite the jaws of life to rip apart a car to save a life.

C.F.D. uses this as a way to show people how hard their job can be.

“Personal stories in the experience that we’ve had, it’s good for us to be able to share that an open peoples eyes the amount of times that we talk and people have no clue what each individual event is and how it affects us,” said Jack Thompson, president of the Chattanooga Fire Fighters Association.

“What you really learn is how much a heart these guys have for our city,” said Rivera.

During the most recent budget firefighters as well as other first responders got a significant pay raise, something the firefighters are thankfully for, and today shows how important staffing is.

“All the events we do today is a show that it takes a lot of firefighters to do small work. When it comes even from CPR having a ladder on the side of the building, going on a search for another fallen firefighters or another occupant. Even as small as putting out a diesel pit fire takes firefighters to be able to do that to show that a listen or pay is helping us and I’ll be able to get more firefighters in to be able to fill our gaps we have it just shows that extra step,” said Thompson.

“How hard, how stressful, how much these guys experience, how much they see, how much do here. This is a good living proof of how much they’re worth and what their value is diversity so I’m happy to be able to be a part of an administration that’s actually putting our money where our mouth is,” said Rivera.