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Tallaght fire brigade educate youth on crucial work

Tuesday, 09 September 2008

SOME of us are guilty of taking them for granted but others go a step further by trying to hinder or even attack members of the emergency services while they are trying to carry out their crucial and often life saving work. But in an attempt to prevent the hassle that they should not have to deal with, firemen in Tallaght are currently trying to educate local youngsters about the extremely important work they do in the community every day. When Tallaght Fire Station on the Belgard Road opened in 1981 it only had one fire engine, but the outfit received another vehicle in 2001 after locals put pressure on politicians to deliver a more reliable service. Today some 55 fire officers and fire fighters are based at the station and they cover a huge catchment area that includes some 300,000 people and takes in the Tallaght, Ballyfermot, Clondalkin, Lucan, Rathcoole, Saggart and Brittas areas. A lot of people do not realise that in the greater Dublin area, Dublin Fire Brigade also runs the emergency ambulance service. Fire officer Paul Mason (49) has been based at Tallaght for the last 26 years. Despite the common perception that firemen come face to face with life threatening infernos on a daily basis, Paul said the reality is quite different and the officers carry out a wide range of different services. “We provide a fire fighting service and a rescue service which covers anything from a river rescue to a heights rescue,” he said. “We provide the ambulance service and we do special service calls ranging from anything like someone who had locked themselves into their house to a child getting caught in a railing. “Our most common call out would be rubbish or skip fires and car fires. About two weeks ago, it was the time of the really bad weather and we had a call about a fella who went into the Dodder up there in Old Bawn. “Most of our lads are trained for swift water rescue and we have all the equipment. His brother was convinced he had gone in and everybody was involved including the gardaí. “We called out the coastguard including the helicopter as well and as it turned out the guy had pretended to jump in and one of the guys saw him coming out of the bushes. We were nearly there for two hours. “We get a lot of hoax calls. It means that an ambulance from the station is dealing with something that is a hoax when it could have been needed somewhere else in a much more serious situation.” Paul spoke of the bravery and commitment of his colleagues. “The job has its moments,” he said. “We would absolutely put our lives at risk for anyone. We would do anything to rescue somebody and we would do anything to save someone’s property. “We would commit ourselves 100 per cent and I have never seen anyone flinch from the task whether it be jumping into a freezing cold river or going into a burning building.” But amazingly despite the often life threatening situations which firemen find themselves in, no Dublin Fire Brigade fire fighter has lost his life in a fire rescue situation since 1939. Paul said that despite the commendable work done by his colleagues, fire fighters in Tallaght are often wilfully prevented from doing their jobs and even assaulted whilst performing their duties by groups of young thugs. “We could get ambushed,” he said. “There are times when we go to calls that we would reverse into a cul-de-sac or something and we could get ambushed by youths. We have been stoned and had our windows smashed. We have had the ambulance stolen a couple of times when the lads were attending to people. They just came back out and the ambulance was gone. “I got hit with a bar one night across the arm but with experience we get to know the areas and the situation and we see groups of youths standing around and we will try to avoid them or else we will call the gardaí and wait until they shift them. “The most common time we get trouble is Halloween and around weekends generally.” Dublin Fire Brigade is currently trying to counter the violence by attempting to educate young people about the vital work the service provides. “We have a schools programme where we go around and talk to school kids and we also go around to community centres and we are just trying to get a good working relationship with community leaders with schools,” said Paul Paul added that members of the public could also help to make the jobs of  emergency services crews easier by entering an ICE number on their mobile phones. ICE stands for In Case of Emergency and Paul said if people add the number of the person to call in an emergency as a contact under the name ICE on their mobile phone it would be a great help to him and his colleagues.