The 22-Hour Class Part VIII - SCBA

After the stunning, albeit long-winded, victory of the EVOC driving test, I was able to rest for a whopping 12 hours before attending the SCBA class. This was the eighth and final class in recruit training.

SCBA is widely renowned as the most taxing and most enjoyable part of what is an otherwise rather uneventful curriculum considering the job for which we're training. SCBA, of course, is Self Contained Breathing Apparatus, just like SCUBA, without the 'U' - 'Underwater' is the 'U' in SCUBA. Typically fires don't burn underwater, hence the removal of the 'U'. Of course, now we have to spell out the damn abbreviation instead of an easy, phonetic SCUBA.

Most firefighters call the apparatus Scott Packs, which are built by the eponymous Scott Corporation. This is easier to say than S-C-B-A, but I propose a better solution: SCABA - Self Contained Awkward Breathing Apparatus. Succinct and accurate without being brand-specific, the two-syllable SCABA could save valuable time and allow for more concrete communication between firefighters. For instance:

Without my suggestion: "Hey, put on your S-C-B-A."

With my suggestion: "Hey, put on your SCABA, asshole."

Same amount of syllables, but the speaker in the 2nd example conveyed his meaning a great deal more effectively. He not only established his precise feelings about the person to whom he was speaking, he also clearly demarcated the chain of command.

The class was led by Robin and another dude I've never met. Robin, by the by, has made the cut. She has not shown any douche-like tendencies and has made great strides in both humor and stand-uppedness. And yes, I am the fucking arbiter of all things cool, so don't question me. Robin is also heavily tatted which is not cool in and of itself, but certainly in keeping with her personality. I go both ways on tats, some can pull it off and some can't. For instance: Awkward Boy has a tattoo. I don't think I could ever adequately explain how much he can't pull it off, but I'll take a crack at it.

In the scientific community there are many concepts and ideas that can't be proven by sight, feel, or any other sense, but they are still generally accepted as reality. One of these things is the Quark. The Quark is a tiny part of an electron. An electron is part of an atom, which most know can only be seen by the most powerful microscopes. An electron is to an atom what a grain of salt is to football stadium in terms of size. So, in effect, the Quark is the atom's atom. Awkward Boy's ability to pull off a tattoo is roughly equivalent to a Quark's ability to blot out the Sun with its shadow. Hey, look at that, I was able to adequately explain it after all.

The class was primarily meant to acclimate us to our gear overall, and specifically to breathing through the SCABA. The SCABA is cool, no doubt, but my desire to wear it goes down in a manner inversely proportionate to the length of time I'm wearing it. Lucky for me, I huff air roughly twice as quick as anybody else in my class, so I don't have to wear it as long.

After donning and doffing our gear multiple times for our two-minute drill practice, we crawled around (SCABA-clad) with our hands on the wall. This was to teach us how to breathe in the apparatus as well as how to perform basic search procedure. I was first, followed by the 4 other guys in class. It wasn't terribly fun but neither was it overly taxing. I think the instructors were just trying to see if any of us were claustrophobic with the facepiece on. One guy was, but not overly so.

We then did buddy breathing. Each SCABA has two hoses, one for the firefighter, and one for any potentially troubled buddy. Hooking up to the buddy breather is difficult without gloves, really difficult with gloves, and impossible with gloves and no oxygen. That was a little bit o' the foreshadowing, because I'm a literary purist. All five of us hooked to the man in front of us and walked around in a circle. I would expect all mental images to be leaning towards the 'Elephant Walk' right about now.

The next bit was a hair more compelling. It involved 400 ft of hose, a boat on a trailer, brooms, a ladder, a car jack, and several yards of wax paper. I know, I was a bit aroused too, until I figured out what was going on.

The wax paper was stuffed in our masks and we were blind. Simply blind. We could distinguish between day and night, but that was it. Not only was sight gone, but hearing was significantly impaired by the SCABA, hood, helmet, neck cover thingy (pretty sure it has a name, but I don't know it) and the blaring radio. The hose was our guide, and it was strewn across all of the aforementioned obstacles. I was again placed in the lead, I can only assume because my profile and stately expression fairly brim with the glean of effective leadership (that's crap, I'm pretty sure the choice was arbitrary.)

We then, in a brightly lit station, proceeded to blindly crawl on the floor, in a group, calling out to one another in a vain effort to orient ourselves. I think we probably looked and sounded roughly like 4 Helen Keller's (pre-Annie Sullivan) except that Helen Keller had character and dignity. If there were a video of this on YouTube it would never leave the charts.

The fifth guy dropped out again, leaving us at four. We crawled under the boat (not easy), around some walls, under a ladder, in and out of a closet, up and down stairs, and out onto the lawn. Some of the comments relayed back to me post-drill were as follows:

"I'm coming out of the closet"
"Grab my leg, dammit, grab it"
"I'm taking number 2"
"I'm breathing heavily, holding a hose, on my knees, wearing a Gimp Mask"

My air ran out 2 minutes before we were done. Fuck buddy breathing, that mask came off with a quickness.