7:30 a.m. Firefighters begin to arrive for the Black shift at Lombard’s Fire Station 1 at 50 E. St. Charles Road starting at 8 a.m. every third day. On Wednesday, the shift consists of Battalion Chief Chuck Ralis, Lt. Art Peters, Brad Delatorre, Chris Wilmot, Aaron Glover, Mike Heimbecker and Terry Davis. The first hour of the day, they work on equipment readiness. Engine 45, the station’s main fire engine used, gets checked and the equipment on the rig is checked thoroughly.

8:45 a.m. After doing the routine maintenance checks, many of the firefighters sit around the large kitchen table and enjoy a cup of coffee before the scheduled day begins. The group is set to attend a training exercise later this morning, but Battalion Chief Ralis knows that can change in the blink of an eye. “All that can disappear in a second if the bells go off and we’re running our tails off,” Ralis said. “We could get a call and the whole day is put on hold.”

10:14 a.m. At the end of a tour of the equipment and just minutes before the group is headed to the training exercise, the bells do go off. Engine 45 follows the ambulance to northern Lombard to assist on a call for a man having trouble breathing.

10:22 a.m. The elderly man is placed on a backboard and carried out the front door of the home near North Avenue. The man is placed in the ambulance where five firefighter/paramedics work to stabilize him before taking him to Elmhurst Memorial Hospital.

10:38 a.m. But the ambulance rolls away en route to Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove instead. After going into respiratory arrest in the ambulance, paramedics decided to intubate the man and take him to the Downers Grove trauma center. The paramedics took an additional firefighter to assist along the way, while Delatorre, Peters, and Wilmot head to the training exercise.

11:02 a.m. Engine 45 arrives at the training site, an abandoned one-story office building south of T.G.I. Friday’s on Butterfield Road. This week’s exercise focuses on training and rescue. The three men are told there is one victim remaining after a fire, and they must use their skills and equipment to find him.

11:24 a.m. The firefighters enter the building that has been filled with non-hazardous theatrical smoke to create zero visibility. Using a rope bag filled with 200 feet of rope with a knot at each 50 feet and a Thermal Imaging Camera, the trio crawl along the ground to search for the victim. They find the dummy victim and bring him outside to safety in less than six minutes.

11:40 a.m. With all gear packed up and back in the rig, the three head back to the station to enjoy some lunch. On the menu today is a pasta salad prepared by the rookie Wilmot.

12:30 p.m. Lunch is served. The men sit around the table to enjoy Wilmot’s creation of pasta with sliced lunch meats, spinach, and sun-dried tomatoes. At the beginning of the day, each fire fighter puts $10 in for lunch and dinner. The shift’s chefs create a menu for lunch and dinner, compiles a list, and one of them heads out to the market to get the food needed for the day. If the daily money is not entirely spent, it goes into funding the next meal, or possibly a nice meal later in the month.

12:49 p.m. The paramedics who took the elderly man this morning return from the hospital and inform their co-workers the man went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

1:50 p.m. Before heading back to training, the firefighters have a little bit of fun at the expense of this reporter. They grab a coat, air pack, and hose and turn me into a firefighter for a few minutes. On a moderately warm and humid day, I break a sweat easily in the heavy coat while I lift a reel of fire hose. Lt. Peters says I should take the next test to become a Lombard firefighter. I tell him I’ll let him stick to putting out the fires while I write about them.

2:30 p.m. With the rest of the crew back from the previous ambulance run, the entire station heads back to the training exercise. Firefighters from Fire Station 2 at 2020 S. Highland Ave. come to the north station to stand by in case of an emergency.

3 p.m. The firefighters return to fire station to what they hope will be a relaxing afternoon and night. Some will go work out in the station’s exercise room until dinner, which was started in a crock pot earlier in the day. The television can be turned out for recreational purposes at five, and firefighters can head to bed anytime after nine.
But before bed time, there is work to be done to the fire house. Each day has a specific cleaning duty, and Wednesday is the day for cleaning the station’s windows.