199. A Witness to Humanity

Minneapolis firefighter Jeremy Norton shares that while his job can be intense, scary and dangerous, it also allows him to see the full scope of humanity. 

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Jeremy Norton: Hello, good people. My name is Jeremy Norton, and  it’s going to be okay.  I’ve been Minneapolis firefighter EMT for 23 years, since 2000.  What’s funny about the job is we really don’t fight much fire. Weird, right? We’ve got the big red trucks and the cool fire gear. Some of us can grow hunky mustaches, but… 

Most city firefighters spend their careers running EMS calls, not running into burning buildings. We respond with the paramedics to the wide and wild range of 911 medical calls in Minneapolis.  We often get there first, and if you’re dying, you will need all of us to revive you.  To do multiple crucial actions simultaneously, then carry you from wherever you are out to the ambulance to the hospital. 

If you’re not dying, well, that’s great.  It’s a strange and wonderful job.  Few people really understand what’s going on behind the closed doors of our friends and neighbors. Even if we love to gossip, we don’t know what’s happening. For real.  And emergency responders have an all access pass. We see the acute emergencies, we see the slow declines, we see the sick and the scared, the depressed and the dying, the hopeless and the hurting. 

The fragility of human bodies and the stunning  resiliency of the body and the soul. 

It is, I tell you, a rare and wonderful job.  Frequently, though, you dial 911 because the nurse line told you to. Or you checked WebMD, which said it was either indigestion or your final breaths. So you dial 9 1 1 and here we come, rumbling up your street in our fire truck, rattling windows, tripping car alarms.

We fill your space, asking questions, poking and prodding you, doing an assessment, asking you questions. Our radios squawking, our medical equipment everywhere, our brawniness filling the space. And quite often, all you need is reassurance and calm, not CPR.  But we come crashing in now because that’s how 911 operates, clumsily. 

What’s great about being a firefighter is our sense of purpose. We try to improve somebody’s bad day. Being of use? is a great thing.  . We get to see people as they are. Witnessing their realities, understanding their hardships, appreciating the past that led to this specific moment. 

It’s a lot. And amid the puke and the blood and the panic and the poop, I take in the surroundings, the context or circumstances. If I remain open to it all, that can help me see someone as a whole person, not a cliche, not a stereotype, not a nuisance who woke us all up at zero dark thirty for a tummy ache, but a person. 

The longer I have done this. The more capacious my heart has become. I embrace the messy glory of humanity, the bravery and the desperation, the suffering and the love.  I try to reassure folks. It’s alright. You’re here. It’s going to be okay.  Most firefighters love coming to work. We love our weird job and the strange, deep bonds we form together.

We laugh so much because if we didn’t, we’d cry rivers.  Some of us are jerky. Some are pissy with bleak outlooks on life, but many of us see the hard realities of life and the human struggles, and we say, yes, this is it. We have one shot, and we need to make the best of it.

Your messy house, or mind, or your car, or your relationship. That is my workplace. We see such truly hard things that the small emergencies don’t ruffle us, and then we can be calm for you.  Anything you might be embarrassed about, your dirty dishes, or cluttered house, if you’re naked, or poopy, or mess, anything. 

Trust us. We have seen much, much worse. If you are mostly alive, this is a good day. We’re here for it 

we try to be generous and noble and caring to the folks we encounter.  I feel congruent in this broken world.  Meaning, I see all the brokenness, I see all the hurt and the suffering, and for me that is what it means to be alive. It’s not an either or. I have spent my career immersed in the suffering of others.

I am profoundly grateful for every breath we have, every morning we get to start anew. 

My credo is, do right, be kind, be of use to others.  I know I can’t change human behaviors either, but I still go to work, jump on the rig, and race to whatever someone has called 9 1 1, and I try to be of use. 

When my kids were young and I was a new firefighter, I’d come home from shifts overwhelmed with gratitude and love for my little family. The juxtaposition between the hard struggles we saw every shift and my awesome kids kept me grounded and humble.  I’d tell my daughters funny stories from work back then, mostly as parables or life lessons.

I’d cut out the worst parts, omit the grim pieces just to protect their young minds, but I gave them the rough details. 

And when they were young and they got upset about things, I’d ask, Are you hurt or are you mad? 

Are you sad? and I’d listen to them.  And then I’d say,  Hey, take a breath. 

Breathe.  Good. 

Let’s breathe together.  Good.  Just like that. See, it’s going to be okay.

Nora:  That was Jeremy Norton in EMT in Minneapolis sharing his okay thing with all of us. You can hear more of Jeremy’s story over on Terrible Things for Asking. His episode is called the trauma sponge.  This has been it’s going to be okay. The okay thing changes every day, It’s different for everyone. Today’s okay thing is not the jackhammer  outside of my window, but  maybe that is an okay thing because we all like we all like when things work, And sometimes you gotta jackhammer some stuff up. Let’s get back on topic. It’s Going to be Okay is an independent podcast and a production of Feelings and Co. Our team here is Marcel Malekebu, myself, Michelle Plantan, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, and Grace Barry.

Our theme music is by Secret Audio.