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Comments

1. #709397
   On May 29th, 2009 at 3:17 am, RetFireman said:

   Cheap, you really do not know what you are talking about and are coming across as such.

   Chronic back ache? Let me tell you about that when you are moving some 500 pound slug who fell down and can’t get up. Or one that is so huge that you need to take everything out of the ambulance and slide them onto the floor with a salvage cover. Or maybe after a ceiling collapses on you. How about falling through a floor or roof? Or maybe after you put on the 100+ pounds of equipment and then put a High Rise Pack on your shoulder or over your bottle and climb 40+ floors.

   I could go on. My injury has left me crippled for life. FOR LIFE. You gonna tell me that I don’t deserve the paltry amount I now have to live on while being told that the city I worked for refuses to care for or treat it? Maybe you would like to tell my kids your little theory about back problems. They would love to hear you explain to them about all the things that they have missed out on because of a paltry little sore back. Or maybe my estranged wife who had to deal with what she had to deal with on her end until it got to be too much.

   You want me to go on?

   Ort maybe you would like me to talk to you about the exposure issues. Maybe you would like to hear about the MRSA, the AIDS, the rare cancers that firemen come down woth because of all the exposures to chemicals and other crap we are forced to breathe and come into contact with. I have two widows that would LOVE to hear your version as to why their husbands had to die from a rare, incurable stomach cancer, or from a rare, incurable brain tumor.

   Hey, I know, why don’t you talk to everyone about what the stress of being jolted out of whatever you are doing, especially on the rare chances it is sleep, by a loud alarm, making you go from 0-100 mph instantly, 10-30 times a day. Maybe you would like to talk about what that does to the person’s heart and nervous system.

   I called it LODD deaths. There are far more that die as a result of things that happened on the job, but took a lot longer. Then there is the fighting that goes on just to be treated and taken care of by the departments and municipalities who like to say things like, “Pre-Existing Condition” even after you passed the rigid pre-employment physical without any “pre-existing” anything?

   You ahve no idea what you are speaking of, and are coming across as someone who is nothing more than jealous, and maybe even someone who applied for one of these jobs and, for whatever reason, was turned down.

   Sorry, you know I don’t really disagree with you on anything…but in this instance, you are incredibly wrong about all of it.

   And it is not just that I know people, I AM one of those people. I have had to deal with my “on the job back injury” for 5 years now, and it has cost me damn near everything that ever mattered to me.

   So do NOT lecture me or anyone else on this subject.

2. #709398
   On May 29th, 2009 at 3:20 am, RetFireman said:

   And I did not even mention the exposure I had that left me in the hospital for a week and within 2 hours of dead.

3. #709405
   On May 29th, 2009 at 4:47 am, RetFireman said:

   Sorry Cheap…but this truly is a sore subj. and one that the public really knows little to nothing about. I am not meaning to insult you.

4. #710292
   On May 30th, 2009 at 8:13 pm, cheapseat said:

   ret fireman; i’m not speaking of any one’s specific injury, not yours or anyones. but just as some define waterboarding as torture, and spanking child abuse, if someone can’t show me an injury on a x-ray, i tend to doubt the prognosis. i was in a jeep in nam which hit an antipersonnel mine, which broke my ankle, my leg, sent a steel piece of the jeep through my lower leg and out my knee. i have had chronic leg and back problems since. that’s life. i met my wife laying in a hospital not for a week, but for over 2 months. did i mention agent orange. we will all die from something. some jobs are more dangerous than others, but in my humble opinion, firemen in todays world is not a dangerous job. they sit on their ass 99% of the time polishing their truck or their monkey, as do soldiers, interspersed with times of high anxiety and terror. to me, most suburban cities would be huge dollars ahead to just carry self insurance for fire, let the couple of houses per year that catch fire burn to the ground, and pay the owner the value. in my old town, webster groves, they actually sprayed water on average 6 times per year. they spent 36 million per year not including vehicles, and pensions. that’s 6 mil per house. there wasn’t a house in webster that approached 2 million. life’s tough, then we die. nobody has the right to live off the sweat and work of others. this is why we are where we are. we give ss disability to drug addicts and drunks. we give disability to adhd kids, for life. everyone knows someone disabled from the police or firemen, which seems an abnormally high level for professions which suffer so few deaths, fire so few bullets, spray so little water. construction crews get hurt way more often and way more severe, but they get workers comp while they recover. disability retirement, what’s that? they have to go to ss disability which my brother can’t get into despite having ms and been in a wheelchair for 7 years with no feeling below his waist and now can’t feel his hands. when i get to feeling the pity party, i go to my local ford dealer, where a young man who is a thalidimide baby works the service counter. his arms are maybe a foot long, and his one hand is only a single digit, while his other actually has 2 digits allowing him to grab. he’s a terrific young guy, and never fails to make me say my pains are trivial. he’s the guy i will pay disability for, but he isn’t asking for it. he’s working. you should see him on his knees stretching his arm into the coke machine to get his drink, with no thought of asking another to fetch it for him. that’s guts and a lesson in life. don’t take my ramblings personnally as i have no idea what your situation is, but look at the collective and tell me honestly that as a fireman you never saw disability for some colleagues that you said, hmmmm. i’ve met too many retired/disabled gubmint workers on the golf course, at the beach, in the rv parks, doing fine with their bad back in lifting that grill, jacking that rv, swinging that club and hauling that bag. just saying.