Fire academy was, for me, an experience I will never forget. Not only did I learn a lot about fire fighting, I learned a lot about myself.

We learned about our equipment and how to safely use it. We learned to take care of it because we needed to be able to rely on it when we needed it. We also learned how to respect it.

Ladders are a very important part of a firefighters arsenal of equipment. Ladders are used to rescue people, ave cats stuck in a tree and for firefighters to get out of a burning structure in a hurry when necessary.

We learned to carry ladders in many specific ways, we learned where and how to place ladders while yelling “checking for overhead obstructions - all clear” every time we set a ladder against a building (or tree in case of a stuck cat).

But we also learned it is not safe to step over a ladder on the fire ground. How? One word - push-ups. Stepping over a ladder meant at least 10 push-ups on the spot.

“Bottles are for babies, cylinders are for firefighters”. SCBA, Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus, is what firefighters use to breathe safely in a dangerous environment. The SCBA is made up of the apparatus itself, with the face piece and an air bottle. Crap! That’s 10 push-ups!! Any time we called it a bottle it meant push-ups. Crap! There’s 10 more!!

We did a lot of push-ups in the fire academy. And not always 10. We stood in line for inspection and a scolding for something we did wrong, I don’t recall what. We were told how awful we were and told we had to do 10 push-ups.

One of the cadets yelled out to our captain, who was a rather large man, “I’d like to see you try!” Not only did he try and succeed, he stood and watched as we did our 90 additional push-ups for being cheeky!