Cameron Ganous is a firefighter of Station 2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Cameron is shockingly enough not a macho or super buff man. He doesn’t have huge muscles and Cameron isn’t the tallest guy in the room. Although he is very athletic and quick on his feet, Cameron doesn’t match the typical stereotype of a Hollywood firefighter. His job entails fighting fire, rescue, working the Ladder Company and EMT work. Before I began researching Cameron’s background, I knew very little about his heroic occupation. Pursuing a career in firefighting wasn’t a path Cameron had to make himself choose, and he didn’t have to convince himself it was right for him “it was my calling” he told me. “I’m not a hero, I am just a firefighter.” Maybe firefighting
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Being a firefighter is like being Superman who must swoop in and save the day. I can’t imagine having the weight of someone’s life on my shoulders (figuratively and literally.) Cameron was very quirky and quick with answers all throughout the interview; but when he began to describe a significant event his tone shifted. Suddenly the young facetious man I had just been laughing with became solemn. Ganous then explained, “the hardest thing for me to talk about would be a drowning that happened while I was on duty. When my engine arrived on scene we rushed to the water to see a young girl around six years old receiving CPR. Firefighters from another engine told us that there was a victim still in the water. I entered the water in search of the second victim, the six-year-old girls’ older brother… When we located him he had been submerged for approximately 15 minutes.” He then told me that he couldn’t get to the older brother fast enough and the ten-year-old boy passed the next morning. “That’s probably been the most difficult for me to deal with… Seeing the life of a child being lost, being the person trying to save him and not being able to get to him fast enough has haunted me.” Cameron described to me that death comes with the job. Death may be so foreign to someone who works in a cubicle but being a fire fighter, it’s dealt with daily. “You see death so often, you become callused.” “We see a lot of death and we are faced with our own mortality more often than others in this career.” Humans tend to dwell on burdens that they are faced with and I now see that becoming a firefighter includes carrying some, if not more, burdens daily. “Mentally demanding” has a new meaning to me. It is well known that this career may alter not only the way a firefighter lives but how they’re treating people every day. “People test my patience daily. Some abuse the 911 system,
Being a firefighter is like being Superman who must swoop in and save the day. I can’t imagine having the weight of someone’s life on my shoulders (figuratively and literally.) Cameron was very quirky and quick with answers all throughout the interview; but when he began to describe a significant event his tone shifted. Suddenly the young facetious man I had just been laughing with became solemn. Ganous then explained, “the hardest thing for me to talk about would be a drowning that happened while I was on duty. When my engine arrived on scene we rushed to the water to see a young girl around six years old receiving CPR. Firefighters from another engine told us that there was a victim still in the water. I entered the water in search of the second victim, the six-year-old girls’ older brother… When we located him he had been submerged for approximately 15 minutes.” He then told me that he couldn’t get to the older brother fast enough and the ten-year-old boy passed the next morning. “That’s probably been the most difficult for me to deal with… Seeing the life of a child being lost, being the person trying to save him and not being able to get to him fast enough has haunted me.” Cameron described to me that death comes with the job. Death may be so foreign to someone who works in a cubicle but being a fire fighter, it’s dealt with daily. “You see death so often, you become callused.” “We see a lot of death and we are faced with our own mortality more often than others in this career.” Humans tend to dwell on burdens that they are faced with and I now see that becoming a firefighter includes carrying some, if not more, burdens daily. “Mentally demanding” has a new meaning to me. It is well known that this career may alter not only the way a firefighter lives but how they’re treating people every day. “People test my patience daily. Some abuse the 911 system,