Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton - 11 Apr

TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
6163 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
penguin.co.uk

Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Doubleday
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright Sabrina Cohen-Hatton 2019

Cover design by Beci Kelly/TW
Flame photograph by Shutterstock

Sabrina Cohen-Hatton has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of non-fiction based on the life, experiences and recollections of the author. In some cases names of people, places and the details of specific events have been altered solely to protect the privacy of others.

Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

Epigraph on extracted from This Week in Fiction: Mohsin Hamid by Cressida Leyshon, The New Yorker, 16 September 2012.
Epigraph on extracted from Managing by Harold Geneen, reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd Harold S. Geneen 1985.
Epigraph on extracted from The Metaphoric Mind by Bob Samples with kind permission of Cheryl Charles.
Table reproduced on
Table on reproduced with kind permission of Phil Butler, Rob Honey and Sabrina Cohen-Hatton.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781473558434

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

To Gabriella

Little and fierce

I will raise you like you breathe fire

Never give up.

To Mike

For your enduring patience and bottomless cups of tea.

I love you both

Always.

Throughout this book I primarily explore the perspective of an incident commander. However, no large or complicated incident can be commanded alone. There is always a group of additional officers. They form a command team and take responsibility for certain elements of the incident. Some are in charge of the activity in a specific area or sector; others are in charge of functions, such as logistics or crew welfare. The roles arent predetermined they change at every incident and so too do the people available to fill them.

Some additional material to clarify some of the fire service terms, including our ranks, different responsibilities and equipment, has been added to the back of this book (see ). Please do check it out if youre ever in doubt.

Thick, black smoke spills from the roof of a house on the other side of the road; bursting from between the tiles. Flames lick at one side of the building, a medley of yellow and orange, and on the other side a man is leaning out of a window, waving his arms and shouting.

You know what to do. You know who to call. You know that help will come. You trust that when you need it for your friends, or your family, or even for yourself someone will come to rescue you.

My father always said that it takes a special kind of person to rush in when everyone else rushes out. I have worked as a firefighter, and more recently as a commander, for nearly twenty years, and I know that he was right. Firefighters are brave enough to face flames; to endure dark, dense smoke; to defy natural instinct and trust that there will be a way out. We are compassionate. We hate to watch people suffer, to witness the injustice of a life snatched away prematurely. We will run through fire to prevent that from happening and to save the life of someone weve never met. We are dedicated. We all want to quit sometimes. Yet we carry on. Because firefighting is such a huge part of our identity that it sometimes feels impossible to disentangle ourselves as people from ourselves as firefighters.

Behind every rescue is a rescuer; behind every rescuer is a team of people, making life-determining decisions and working to save others. Within that team, commanders such as myself are also in the fortunate position of being trusted by the firefighters to pull together the plan, making sure the right people are in the right place, at the right time, to save lives.

We love our work. It inspires and challenges us; it encourages us to be better people, to get fitter, to fight harder. We spend our days at devastating, life-changing incidents, and we are incredibly privileged to have vulnerable people put their faith in us in their darkest hours. We want to do our best work every day. We need to do our best work every day.

The perception of firefighters is ever changing sometimes we are hailed as heroes, and sometimes people think we fall short of the mark but, for most of my career, firefighters have been held in very high esteem. You only have to dial three digits and, like superheroes, we will appear exactly where were needed.

The reality, of course, is that firefighters are human beings. Our instincts drive us to push through the most unforgiving of environments but we have limitations. We have the same fears and flaws as anyone we rescue, but we rely on our skills, confidence and a certain amount of luck. Sometimes it can be too much and we suffer for it. We are just ordinary people, working together to achieve extraordinary things.

It might be the superhero myth that also contributes to the idea of a typical firefighter. Are you imagining a good-looking man; tall, dark and handsome, with a brooding stare? You wont be alone. Contrary to popular belief our nations fire stations arent populated by underwear models, but whatever comes to mind when you think of a firefighter, I very much doubt that youre envisaging someone who looks like me.

Im five foot one and tip the scales at eight stone. I have long dark hair and like a manicure. Im a mum. I have a PhD in neuroscience. Im a nerd. I am not most peoples idea of a traditional firefighter but I became one at eighteen, and Ive been working my way steadily through the ranks ever since. I now serve as a deputy assistant commissioner in one of the largest fire and rescue services in the world.

I wish there were more women in the fire and rescue service because, at the moment, Im a bit of an anomaly. As a result, Ive spent much of my career pushing back against stereotypes. Ive lost count of the number of well-meaning but ill-informed people who blink at me in disbelief when I tell them what I do. I used to feel frustrated and irritated by their reaction. However, in a way, the freedom to be different really different has been incredibly empowering. Ive had the opportunity to define my own boundaries.

Early in my career, I was called to attend what turned out to be a pivotal incident. I rode there in the back of a fire engine quite sure that someone I loved had been badly injured at the fire. It was the most miserable, terrifying journey of my life, and it gave me an insight into how our roles sit on the fringes of real peoples lives and real tragedy. A firefighter had been injured and, while I was relieved that it wasnt my fianc, I felt the most overwhelming sense of guilt.