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The iconic American fire helmet was designed in 1731, with the basic shape that is still recognizable. Safety comes first, but tradition dictates the helmet’s shape, the significance of its color, and how it is personalized. In fact, firefighters usually reject the different shape of the European helmet, despite its advantages.
The last type is the European-style helmet, which looks like a cross between a motorcycle helmet and something from Star Wars. The design is purportedly much more comfortable and practical. But, as one firefighter put it, “I’ve been involved with fire departments in four states…and in seven years have seen a grand total of two [European-style] helmets… these guys were… universally afraid of being mocked for wearing something new, different or ‘unfashionable.’”
Shown is a helmet from the 18th century. Link -via Boing Boing
StoryCorps interviewed retired NYC firefighter John Vigiano about his two sons, one a policeman, the other a firefighter, who both died on September 11, 2001. The audio is less than three minutes. Link -via mental_floss‘ newsletter
34-year-old Hu Binjun of Chengdu, Sichuan province, China was reportedly been doing drugs when he threatened to commit suicide. He also dangled his three-year-old daughter out the window of their eighth-story apartment by her legs! Police and emergency personnel spent three hours dealing with Hu.
Several attempts to coax Mr Hu into putting the girl down failed, until Chen Long, a 22-year-old fireman dressed in army uniform, dropped down from a window on the floor above and grabbed the child away from her parent.
As Mr Chen intervened, Mr Hu tried again to snatch the girl back, eventually falling back into his apartment.
He was arrested by the police after the incident on Tuesday, but subsequently attacked by a crowd of onlookers for threatening the life of the girl.
The daughter was found to have no serious injuries. Link -via Arbroath
In 1968, a white firefighter named William Carroll from South Boston saved the life of a black baby during a fire at the Roxbury housing development. This was a time marked by deadly racial riots across America.
Forty years later, Evangeline Harper, the baby he saved - now a grown woman, tracked down William to give him her thanks. Maria Cramer of The Boston Globe has the story:
A newspaper photograph captured their image – a white firefighter from South Boston with his lips pressed to the mouth of a black baby from the Roxbury public housing development – at a time when riots sparked by racial tensions were burning down American cities.
But despite this most intimate of introductions, they remained strangers. William Carroll won a commendation for the rescue, stayed on the job another 34 years, and retired. Evangeline Harper grew up, lost her family to drugs and illness, had six children of her own, and became a nursing and teaching assistant. And through it all someone would often tell her the story about the day she almost died and the man who would not let it happen. She always wanted to meet him and say thank you.
Yesterday, more than 40 years after the fire, she finally did.
In the neighborhood where they first met, Carroll, a slim 71-year-old, got out of his car, dressed in a navy blue uniform he had borrowed from a fellow firefighter, strode up to the 40-year-old woman, and beamed.
“You’ve grown a lot since the last time I saw you,” he said, laughing and putting out his hand. She smiled, gently took his hand, and looked at him almost shyly.
“Thank you so much for remembering me,” he told her.
Then he pulled her into a tight embrace and they held on to each other as they stood on Keegan Street, just a few yards from where he had carried her limp body decades ago.
“Thank you so much,” she said softly.
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