An Army of Normal Folks - Ellen Yarborough: From Schoolhouse to Firehouse (Pt 1)

Episode Date: February 13, 2024

There are 677,000 volunteer firefighters across America and Ellen Yarborough joined their ranks at 45 years old. The history teacher then accidentally pioneered giving her students academic credit for their service as fire cadets, which they can do as young as 14 years old! Her model called “Schoolhouse to Firehouse” is inspiring the next generation of firefighters and community leaders. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Traditionally, you're going to see a lot of guys in the trades and I'm sure in some communities and some of our local communities, we still have that. My Fire Company, we've got a chemical engineer, a lawyer, me as a teacher, a number of people in finance, accounting, IT. That's hilarious. Absolutely. If you really think about that, I mean, that is just people from all walks of life. And the point is, you know, focusing on an army of normal folks.

That's some of everybody. Absolutely. And where else are you going to get an attorney and a guy operating a forklift on second shift on a line together? Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband.

I'm a father. I'm an entrepreneur. And I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis. And the last part, it unintentionally led to an Oscar for the film about our team. It's called Undefeated. Guys, I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people and nice suits, talking big words that nobody understands on CNN and Fox, but rather an army of normal folks.

Us, just you and me deciding, hey, I can help. That's what Ellen Yarbrough, the voice we just heard is done. Ellen became a volunteer firefighter at a later than normal age. And of course, being a female fighter isn't as normal either for now.

Ellen is helping to change the face of firefighting and I cannot wait for you to meet her right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. One of the best shows of the year, according to Apple, Amazon and Time, is back for another round. We have more insightful conversations between myself, Paul Muldoon and Paul McCartney about his life and career. We had a big bear of a land, it was called Maladins, with our logo. And, uh, mm-hmm, I was coming back on the plane, and he said,

will you pass the salt and pepper? And I miss herding. I said, what? It's actually better. This season we're diving deep into some of McCartney's most beloved songs. Yesterday, Band on the Run, Hey Jude, And McCartney's favorite song in his entire catalogue, Here, There, and Everywhere. Listen to season two of McCartney, A Life in Lyrics on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Get ready for our 2024 I Hard Podcast Awards presented by the Hartford live at South by Southwest.

March 11th will honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry. And you'll help decide who wins podcast of the year. Nominees include Crime Junkies, The Daily, My Favorite Murder, New Heights, Normal Gossip, On Purpose with Jay Shetty, The Retrievals, Scamanda, Smart heights, normal gossip, on purpose with Jay Shetty, the retrievals, Scamanda, smartless, and wiser than me, vote now at iHeartPodcastAwards.com. The Hartford Small Business Insurance

is the presenting partner of the 2024 iHeart Podcast Awards live at South by Southwest. To learn more or start a quote, visit the Hartford.com slash Small Business. With insurance designed for your small business. The bucks got your back. Hi, it's Jenna Ashquitz and Kevin McHale hosts of and that's what you really miss podcast. We're reliving the magic of McKinley High by watching all six seasons of Glee. Whether you were team Rachel shipped curtain blame or couldn't get enough of

Sue Sylvester's zingers, we've got you covered. Join us every week as we dive deep into the world of show choirs and teenage drama. We're breaking down every episode from the highs of nationals to the lows of slushie attacks. We have exclusive interviews with some of your favorite Glee cast members like Chris Culver, Amber Riley, Darren Criss, Heather Morris, Alex Newell, and so many more. Plus, we're taking you behind the scenes with the creators, writers, producers, and crew members like Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan, and executive music producer Adam Anders.

We're even getting the chance to chat with the music icons whose songs were featured on the show, from the Go-Go's to Jason Maraz to Rick Springfield. Meet us in the choir room while we reveal our greatest memories and untold stories. Listen to, and that's what you really miss, podcast podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ellen NEVER thought she'd move back to her hometown of Delaware County, PA. Especially

after having lived in Warsaw, Poland as a child and moving to the French countryside as an adult to help start a school. But being divorced and raising two kids in another country, that ain't real easy. I decided to come back and I said that I really needed to be near family because it's hard to be a single mom. So I got a job at my old high school, bought my parents' house, my childhood home.

And yeah, so now I've been back, we've been back since 2011, 2012. For the first couple of years, I thought, why did I come back here? Like I could have gone anywhere in the States, because one way or the other, I'm paying for the kids to go see their dad. And you can teach,

they're good schools looking for good teachers anywhere. Right, and I'd lived in Colorado States because one way or the other I'm paying for the kids to go see their dad and you can teach their Yeah, good school looking for good teachers anywhere, right? And I'd lived in Colorado and California and Idaho like you know, I could have gone anywhere and I chose Delco so But there you are right so for the first couple years. I was a little frustrated with myself And it was hard. It was like my wings were clipped. I really like travel And it was hard. It was like my wings were clipped. I really liked travel. Well, I guess. Living that life and then back where you were. Yeah. Yeah. And to go from a really simple life with my kids to the busy life of a metropolitan area, the United States is big for my kids. My kids still are not TV kids. They can't stand commercials.

They're not big on social media and things like that because it was just... God bless you and your kids as far as I'm concerned. That's awesome. Yeah, they are great travelers. All right. So, you're back and I think you're teaching social studies and psychology, is that right? Yeah. I'm the gifted coordinator at my high school and I'm a social studies teacher.

And I was given this position the year after I got back because I was then principal at the time. But she said, you know, these parents, you grew up here, you can kind of speak their language. So she thought I could manage these parents okay and so far so good. Fingers crossed. Knock on your wood here, right? I imagine there's not many... You know, this is not a question to remain to the story, but

I'm going to ask anyway is I have coached and taught in very, very urban areas. Obviously, everybody knows that story, but also in private schools and very suburban, as you would say, well-hilled, wealthy areas. And the biggest difference to me is not the kids. Never. It's the parents. Absolutely. And I can hear the helicopter blades cutting through the air in the back of my head the

closer I get to suburbia. Does that exist in France? Oh boy. So my kids went to village schools. I don't know what that means. Local schools. They went to French schools. I mean, they got, it was like they just landed on a brand new planet. I taught them a few words to get going, because I was learning French myself. And they started school in three weeks,

my daughter's coming home from her kindergarten class telling me the school gossip. I'm like, how do you know? How do you don't even speak French? But she was just learning it so rapidly and was such a great accent. That's cool. So they went to our local schools.

And then my school with the largely Americans, we had some Central American students too. Honestly, our parents were great. They were some big names, CEOs of big corporations and airlines and things like that. But they liked it too. They would fly out and I mean celebrity chefs, kids, all of that kind of stuff. They would fly out and join us for Thanksgiving and they just settled into the village life too. They were better dressed than everybody else in the village but they rented nicer cars. So it was nice to get away from the rat race.

I think so too and nobody really cared. They were just so-and-so's father or mother. Absolutely. So we didn't have that so much. I think the parents had a lot of trust in us a lot of faith Which was important when your kids are 3,000 to 6,000 miles away for the Californians But we were I mean it was 24 7 back in call So somebody called at 2 a.m. Because their son was taking a 6 a.m. Flight and he can't find a suitcase. I'm answering the phone You know, so your phone is always on when they're paying that kind of money, yeah, they're used to quick service. But no question about grades or their honesty or anything like that. We were in charge and they appreciated that.

That was nice. So you get back into teaching and the American life and once back in the States there was a tragedy. Right. So I coached my kids local swim club, swim team, and my assistant coach was a 19-year-old, 20-year-old, I guess at the time, college student at Albright, Chris. And he was like a little brother. I mean, he was a terrific guy, and he still is. And my kids really liked

him a lot. All the kids liked him. So he was away at school at Albright in Redding, Pennsylvania, a small school, and he swam for their team there. He was a senior and there was a house fire at his off-campus house, just a swimmer's house. Like a dorm? Well, it was just a rental property off campus. Oh, were friends just kids living in a rental house during college? Absolutely, bunch of guys. Got it. Absolutely.

Fraternity house without the fraternity aspect of it, the true fraternity of it, the lower case uppercase. So they had a fire and actually I never found out what the cause of the fire was, but it originated in the basement. There was one boy, a freshman, a swimmer who was in the basement at the time, and his life was lost. Chris was in a first floor bedroom and he couldn't get out, and he succumbed to the smoke.

But there were two fire fighters who made their way in and got to him very quickly and brought him out and then put on a helicopter and sent him to a local hospital burn center. And it was touch and go. And so his room, it was his own room, I suppose, it had one window and there was an air conditioning unit in it and screwed into the frame of the window. He can he was trying to pry it out couldn't get it out And then the smoke overcomes the smoke undercoat Overtakes you absolutely. I see and then in that smoke is all of all of the things that the byproducts are the things we choose to

So it's toxic and it's very very you your lungs Precisely and then you pass out, you really don't... You lose consciousness. Most people don't burn alive. Correct. Consciously, they pass out first then burn. Right. Okay.

So, this guy survived that because these two first responders heard his causes and basically saved his life. They absolutely saved his life. Yeah. And I believe they heard him at first and then didn't hear him, but they could locate where he was. Other boys in the house had jumped out off the porch roof, the overhang of the front porch from the second floor and they were okay. I think there was one other boy that had some smoke inhalation, but his was significant injuries. But he survived. A few weeks later,

my son, I was always looking for things for my son to do, especially with his dad, you know, 400 miles away. Cameran. And so, he's 13 at the time. So, this is September. And he says, I want to become a firefighter. So I took a left at the next intersection and it brought me, I was within two blocks of our local firehouse and the chief was a guy that I'd gone to high school with.

Did you know that? I did know that. Okay. Absolutely. And this is less than a mile from my house. So we met with him and he said basically, come back when you turn 14, which was two months away. So as soon as he was 14, he submits his application and then he's voted in as the cadet. A 14-year-old? What is a 14-year-old doing in a firehouse? I mean, what could a 14-year-old do?

Well, it depends on the state you're in. It depends on your locality. 14 year olds have to be with an arms reach of a senior member of the firehouse. A 14 year old can actually join a fire department. It depends on your department, absolutely. No kidding. So your kid turns 14, well he's 13. So he gets the thing from your friend who happens to be the chief and 14th birthday he's like, let's go to the firehouse. Come in.

Yep. He gets a green helmet. A cadet. A cadet. So you're not allowed, so let's say there's a house fire, the cadet is not allowed on that property, but they can be in a support role. So off of that, that kind of warm zone, the hot zone is the fire, the warm zone is where everything's kind of getting prepared, cold zone, that's where another

truck might be, that's where the cadet is with the driver. He might be pulling tools out to set up for the guys or women and grabbing water for folks to drink, things like that. He could work the hydrant, hook up and- At 14. Oh, absolutely. That is crazy. Yep, we've got 14-year-olds there now. So he becomes a cadet.

He becomes a cadet. And what are you doing? Well, I was dropping him off and picking him up. Were you scared? No, you know, I joked about it when somebody asked me if I was joining and I said that there were three things I never wanted associated with my name. Beyond recognition, dental records or, gosh, I can't remember the third one. But at any rate, it was along those lines, right? Burned or mauled. Right, right, right, right.

Recognizable parts, whatever it is. So, but it was also his thing. My kids and I had been glued to one another's hips for so long. You live overseas, all the traveling we did, just the three of us, we spent so much time together. I really wanted things just for him, just for her. Um, so they would invite me to dinner, go to the firehouse, have pizza, etc., etc. And I kept pushing them off, pushing them off. And then the chief said, well, how about we need somebody to take pictures on scenes.

Would you do that? Sure. So when it came in, if I could drop him off at the firehouse, even if he wasn't around, I could take my car, park it out of the way, and then take some photos for them, things like that. So one night I dropped him off at the firehouse, hung around for a little bit. They went off on a call. And so I was waiting back there for them at the firehouse, hung around for a little bit. They went off on a call. And so I was

waiting back there for them at the firehouse, figuring the circle, the block, and come right back again with nothing to do. But one of the guys comes running in who's our current, our training officer, a former chief. And he goes, you want to come? I'm like, sure. And I go to hop in the truck. He goes, got to join first. So I put in my application because I realized whatever they're doing, it's certainly cooler than what I'm doing right now, standing in the firehouse. Okay. How old are you at that time? At the time, how old am I now? So 44.

So you're 44. You've been all over the world. Your dad's a whatever it is you said, which is pretty crazy. You go to Penn, you're way educated, teaching stuff and now you're putting in an application to be a volunteer firefighter in media Pennsylvania. That doesn't fit the profile. It does, but it doesn't track because I've always liked adventure. I've taken my kids to the Sahara Desert. We've gone up to Grimsy in the Arctic Circle. We've done all kinds of cool things. Grimsy?

What the hell is Grimsy in the Arctic Circle? What's that? It's a little island off the coast of Iceland. Of course it is. And you can go and then you can take a ferry. What do you do? Sit up there and freeze? You basically hike up to the spot where you can stand where it has one of those directional

signs pointing in every direction around the earth noting that you're at the Arctic Circle. No kidding. Yeah, it's kind of cool. You did that with your kids? Couple times, yep. Yeah. Of course, done it once. You can't do it twice if you hadn't done it once.

All right, so you got an adventure streak, do you? And you think this sounds fun. Yeah, I'd grown up. I think this is kind of important. So I'm the youngest of five. I'm the only girl. And my father never said, you can't do that. So I never got the sense that I didn't belong.

I was never the odd man out. I played on boy sports, on girl sports teams, but nobody ever made me feel like an outsider. So I think there was just a comfort level in it and the company that I joined at the time, we just hit our hundred year anniversary, they had their first female member in 1975, first female firefighter. Which is probably early for that.

Absolutely. And then their second is kind of my hero, she came in in 1978, she actually won Firefighter of their year award one year. You're kidding. Oh yeah, she's a go-getter. And then she became, she's super cool. And she's black too, which now in a house, well our house is pretty diverse, but that's even more uncommon to have a single black woman walk into a volunteer firehouse, not

already married or with somebody that brings her in and says, I want to do this. I think that's really extraordinary. So she was her day job. Super cool. She is a, I don't know if she's still a lieutenant. She's with the park police, the county park police. She's tough as nails. She's a county park cop and a volunteer fire department person. She's neat. Yeah, I would not jack with that one. No, no, she's super cool. All right, so you go on that first ride and you're hooked. Well he didn't let me go on that first ride. He said you have to join first.

So I had to do the paperwork and because everybody's a volunteer it takes a while for the paperwork to come through. So I consider myself to have joined on this date but according to my personnel file it's like three months later because they didn't do the paperwork to come through. So I consider myself to have joined on this date, but according to my personnel file, it's like three months later because they didn't do the paperwork. And that's one of the problems with volunteer firehouses is you have a very small crew of people doing an awful lot of work, not just running the calls and cleaning the equipment, maintaining the equipment in the trucks and all of that, but doing all the purchasing, taking care of the building, you know, all the business of running a fire company falls on those same volunteers. And now a few messages from our generous sponsors, but first I hope you'll consider

becoming a premium member of the Army at normalfolks.us. By becoming one for 10 bucks a month or a thousand dollars a year, you can get access to cool benefits like bonus episodes, a yearly group call, and even a one-on-one call with me. Frankly guys, premium memberships also help us to grow this army that our country desperately needs right now, so I hope you'll think about it. We'll be right now. So I hope you'll think about it. We'll be right back. One of the best shows of the year, according to Apple, Amazon and Time, is back for another round. We have more insightful conversations between myself, Paul Muldoon and Paul McCartney

about his life and career. We had a big bear of a man, he was called Mal Evans, he was our logo, and he was coming back on the plane and he said, will you pass the salt and pepper? And I miss her, I said what? So I should pass her. This season we're diving deep into some of McCartney's most beloved songs. Yesterday, Band on the Run, Hey Jude, and McCartney's favorite song in his entire catalogue, Here, There, and Everywhere. Listen to season two of McCartney, A Life in Lyrics, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. most innovative talent and creators in the industry. And you'll help decide who wins podcast of the year.

Nominees include Crime Junkies, The Daily, My Favorite Murder, New Heights, Normal Gossip, On Purpose with Jay Shetty, The Retrievals, Scamanda, Smartless, and Wiser Than Me, vote now at iHeartPodcastAwards.com. The Hartford Small Business Insurance is the presenting partner of the 2024 iHeart Podcast Awards live at South by Southwest. To learn more or start a quote, visit the Hartford Small Business Insurance is the presenting partner of the 2024 I Heart Podcast Awards live at South by Southwest.

To learn more or start a quote, visit thehartford.com slash smallbusiness. With insurance designed for your small business, the bucks got your back. Hi, it's Jenna Ashquitz. And Kevin McHale. Hosts of And That's What You Really Miss podcast. We're reliving the magic of McKinley High by watching all six seasons of Glee. Whether you were Team Rachel, shipped Curtin' Blaine, or couldn't get enough of Sue Sylvester's Zingers, we've got you covered.

Join us every week as we dive deep into the world of show choirs and teenage drama. We're breaking down every episode from the highs of nationals to the lows of slushie attacks. We have exclusive interviews with some of your favorite glee cast members like Chris Colfer, Amber Riley, Darren Chris, Heather Morris, Alex Newell, and so many more. Plus we're taking you behind the scenes with the creators, writers, producers, and crew members like Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan, and executive music producer Adam Anders. We're even getting the chance to chat with the music icons whose songs were featured on the show from the go-go's

to Jason Maraz to Rick Springfield. Meet us in the choir room while we reveal our greatest memories and untold stories. Listen to and that's what you really miss podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've got a few stats here that I think are interesting that I'm sure you know, but I think it's important to share because honestly, I'm a Memphis guy. There's no volunteer fire department, Memphis, right? Philly, you departments, equipment, hydrants everywhere, readily available water.

I think we in urban areas take it pretty for granted, but I was really interested to find this out. this out of total estimated one million forty one thousand two hundred firefighters in the country six hundred and seventy seven thousand are volunteered so two-thirds of the people in our country that are firefighters are doing don't make it down doing it they're donating their time risking themselves of the total of 29,452 fire departments in the country, 18,000 are volunteer and 5,335 are mostly volunteers. So there's evidently some that haven't,

some fire departments and maybe large arroirs that have one or two full-time firefighters, but the rest of the crews are volunteers, so they're mixed houses, I guess. The time donated by volunteer firefighters saves localities an estimated $47 billion a year. So the 677,000 volunteer firefighters in our country are saving taxpayers $47 billion a year, which is an enormous number. And given the obvious need that two thirds of our fire departments in the United States are volunteer, almost every local volunteer fire departments are struggling

to meet staffing needs, which means when you call 911 because you have a fire or a wreck or a need, more than likely your two-thirds of the time a volunteer is going to show up and if that person didn't give in their time, you're going to burn or die. We have something called mutual aid departments or mutual aid agreements, rather, and that helps all of us. What is that? So we'll have, within a single department or municipality, we might have two companies such as with my department and we respond

automatically to the same calls for the most part. They don't come to our location for cardiac arrest, for example. We do that on our own with our EMS partners. And then mutual aid are with other municipalities and we'll send, so there are things called run cards, it's all in the dispatch that will be assigned to go to commercial fires with a supply engine, hook up to a hydrant and supply water to the attack engine in one municipality. In another one, we're providing our rescue truck for those issues, automobile accidents, people trapped in an elevator, things like that. So we spread out based on anticipated manpower and available apparatus. Who's going where? In all of those agreements for anything that gets dispatched or upgraded to a working fire. We have a group

called the RIT team, it's a rapid intervention team, and that's an assigned department that has dedicated members trained to come and they will stand by on scene prepared with all the potential material they need, a Stokes basket to pull somebody out with, chainsaw, the various tools, axes, halogens, all of that, spare air cylinders and the like. Their job is to go in and rescue a firefighter who might call in for a Mayday. Somebody who's trapped, they're going to go in and get. That way they're fresh, they have nothing else distracting them. That's their sole purpose. So we have that as well. Okay. So how's it work? You're a, you're a teacher, right? And so you teach, I guess, seven to four,

whatever, pick the time, whatever your hours are, You're less than planning at home, having a glass of wine. Somebody calls you up and says, hey, we got a fire, let's roll. How's it work? You got a beeper? What happens? How did... So I'm envisioning a volunteer fire department with a house and a truck or two and all the equipment and one person there or nobody there and a call comes. Well, the volunteer fire people aren't just sitting at the house all the time, are they? No. Well, and again, it's going to differ from state to state, county to county, municipality, and so on and so forth.

So for us, we will have one to two nights a week where we have dedicated staffing. It's called a duty engine. So we'll have four people who are qualified interior firefighters who will respond to within our fire district to their calls. But it's like between 6 and 10 p.m. Well most people are available to run on these calls between 6 and 10 p.m. That's 2 a.m. That's the problem.

Well now 2 a.m. You better get up and go. It's the 8 a.m. It's the 3 p.m. Everybody's most part unless you've got some shift workers. The other working. If you have a firehouse where you have people that do shift work, that's terrific. Or people who are independently employed, that's terrific. But for our firehouse, we don't have that luxury. If there's somebody's retired, that's awesome. We just lost our house, we don't have that luxury. If somebody's retired, that's awesome. We just lost our

daytime driver because he moved out of state and we're hoping that somebody else is able to fill that. But no, I mean, sometimes you're not sending anybody, but the cards in the county CAD system are set up so that if somebody's not responding, they'll add another company onto the call. So sometimes it can be kind of a patchwork of agencies and one engine might only have two people on it, another might have six, and everybody ends up working together. So on an actual fire, which we don't get a lot of, we're in a middle-class residential area, our local in particular. We have a nursing home and we have a couple little single storefronts, but really it's largely residential and it's middle class, so things aren't going to light very often. But in the event that we have one and we had

one this month, it happened at noon on a workday, actually on Friday. So the only reason we had as many people show up from our mutual aid companies as we did is because middle schoolers were doing acts of service at a number of different volunteer firehouses and folks who were able to make themselves available from their jobs to go and work with these middle schoolers and teach them about the fire service happened to be in their firehouses that day. I was at my firehouse, nobody else in my company was available, and the tones drop and I've got a pack of middle schoolers and one of their teachers, they're waiting for their bus and all I have is one of my cadets who I can't take to a fire with me. I have to wait for

them to leave, push the trucks back in from the apron into the bay, and then I have to respond in my local as the only person from my fire company. It was just about availability. But we've got, we had a really robust response from our mutual aid partners and they did an excellent job. It's a little humbling though. You don't want to go alone and, but somebody has to show up, right? So we show up. We show up. We do what we can.

So what was your first firelight? A volunteer firefighter, a school teacher, been all over the world. Your first fire. You had to have been nervous. So trying to think of, I mean, I haven't had a lot of fires. We don't get a lot of fires. Okay. What was your first call to a wreck where you had to get somebody out of it and it's all mangled and stuff?

Where was your throat? My stomach would be in my throat. I'll only share a little bit about this call. I'll say that's the first dramatic one that I went on. It was a call for a single vehicle accident and it was about four o'clock in the morning and three of us showed up and that was something that bothered me for a while. That only three of us came. Everybody else slept.

Two guys came from the other company, just people weren't available or had their pagers off or whatever, or they're working because they're night shift. So they're a job. I can't hold that against anybody, just like I wouldn't want that held against me if I'm not coming. We come when we can. And honestly, the person was deceased and there wasn't a lot to do for him as far as something that is time sensitive. But the most difficult part of that was the aftermath because you go into it knowing

that these are the things that you're going to have to manage and deal with. The strangest thing that happened on that call was somebody came from the coroner's office and it was one of my high school friends. So that's our reunion. I haven't seen her since 1987. And she looks at me and I look at her and I'm like, what are you doing here? What are you doing here? And now we have to do this work together to get this person into her van.

The strangest thing was then I went home and I showered and I went to work and I had to teach. And I'm walking around all day and I've done this on other calls since and things that have hit closer to home because they've been people I know. Walking around all day trying to deal with the daily life of high school life and the silliness of, well, so and so was sitting in my seat or I don't do my homework and you've got this Thing on your shoulder kind of following you around like gosh a handful of hours ago I was doing that and now I have to manage this It's it's a tough transition sometimes. It's gotta be are you a volunteer of firefighters

Does the training address that Our county and and there are others just like it has a really strong Sysm program, so it's a critical incident stress management group and it's made up of People who are trained specifically for that but are all active in fire police and EMS. So these are people that also donate their time when they're not doing something else. And that former chief who helped me get my son into the firehouse, he helps lead that for our county. And in the event that there is a difficult call, then the officer that is on that call will contact or have fireboard, which is our dispatch,

contact the SISM team so that they can send a member out. And I've done that. We had a call where we had to go in and look for somebody that hadn't been seen, found in a while. So we found him. And the conditions in the house were pretty grim. And I had all young guys with me. They were all 19-year-old guys, three of them. And I said, everybody's going to go home and shower. And then you're going to come back. I'm going to order pizza, but you're coming back to the station.

So just come home. You're going to be back in 30 minutes. And I called Sism not because any of them were struggling with it at the time, but I did it as a preventative measure because I wanted to normalize talking about calls first. And the car accident that I told you about, I didn't talk to anybody about that afterwards, and it came out sideways on somebody else a few weeks later. I got up and stormed out of the room because someone's talking about not enough people

showing up for a pancake breakfast to help fundraiser, which is necessary in a lot of firehouses. And I thought, you're telling me I have to come to a pancake breakfast. Where are you at 3am on this road? You know? So, and there wasn't fair to that person. They didn't deserve that. But the point is, this work doesn't come without its stressors and trauma. Absolutely. Why do you do it? I don't know. That love of adventure.

I mean, I guess I know it. Once you're in, and I think this is like the magic of it, it's like you're outside the firehouse, you're outside the fire service, or you're one, two, well, maybe not one degree away, but maybe two, three degrees away, you understand it as a concept. You understand that volunteer firefighters go to some of these horrible incidents, fires and car wrecks and cardiac arrests in the home and things like that. in the home and things like that. So you understand that academically. But then you walk in and you do it and you take care of it and you realize you are taking care of people in your own community. And there's something that's really cool about that. There's like a level of trust and I think,

well, I know across the board firefighters have a tremendous, they enjoy a tremendous level of trust from the public. And it's really, it hurts me, it angers me actually, I guess it hurts me too, when people abuse that, when they're firefighters who abuse it, who steal from their stations, who take advantage of people within their fire companies, their fire departments, you know, firehouse should be a safe place where everybody's equal. And sometimes that doesn't happen. And that bothers me because I think we have so much trust. There's so much faith in us. They trust us in our homes. They trust us with their loved ones. But there's a reward that comes from that which is kind of cool. So I guess it's selfish in a way. It makes you feel good about yourself. You know, like you're doing something of value even though you don't get paid for it. You get paid in other ways. You get paid in the friendships you have, you know, the relationship I have with my kids who both got involved in it. Nobody

understands that. You know, I've been invited to go out tonight with Memphis Fire and that's cool. Really? Yeah, absolutely. I wrote an email. I said, hey, I'm in town. This is what I do. And if you have a firehouse that's agreeable to it, I'd love to ride along. So I got to call this afternoon. You're going to ride along with the Memphis Firetruck tonight? Yeah. Why not? Why not?

And that concludes part one of my conversation with Ellen Yarbrough and you will not want to miss part two that's now available to listen to as we dive into how she accidentally became this extraordinary recruiter of firefighters across America. Together guys, we can change the country. It starts with you. I'll see you in part two. One of the best shows of the year, according to Apple, Amazon and Time, is Back 4 and Other Round. We had a big bear of a man who was called Mal Evans, who's our roadie. And he was coming back on the plane, and he said, will you pass the salt and pepper?

And I miss herding. I said, what? Sergeant Pepper. Listen to season two of McCartney, A Life in Lyrics, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's you get your podcasts. Amber Riley, Darren Chris, Heather Morris, Alex Newell, and so many more. Meet us in the choir room while we reveal our greatest memories and untold stories. Listen to and that's what you really miss podcast on the iHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A small town with secrets hidden for centuries. You turn up in Danville just as the town sees its first real crime in decades. And a curious stranger who may be their only chance for survival. I'm talking about the murder and disappearance in small town New Hampshire. What do you think?

This is Consumed, an all-new supernatural audio thriller inspired by the novel by Aaron Mankey. I did not wake up this morning prepared to deal with forces beyond my understanding. Please, I call that breakfast. Listen to Consumed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.