Everyone loves firefighters. Children, straight women, Antifa. Frankly, you can’t be mad at someone who chooses a profession where you run into burning buildings and save people. Volunteer firefighters? Forget it. They’re saints. Unfortunately, though, they’re also human beings. Like all humans, they love to gossip and talk trash. Specifically, it seems, about people they’ve helped. Thanks to Reddit, we now have proof.
Someone on r/AskReddit wanted to know the answer to this question: “Firefighters, what’s the dumbest person you had to save in a stupid situation?” Whatever you’re thinking, there are much dumber answers. Still, it’s funny.
Here are the best answers firefighters gave after being asked “what’s the dumbest person you had to save in a stupid situation?”:
1. Trick locks.
“A motorist had a bad alternator and the car died while she/he was driving. The electric lock control stopped working. We were dispatched for a person trapped in a motor vehicle. On arrival, the advice was given to manually lift the lock knob.
You can easily tell the ones who will not survive the first 24 hours of the zombie apocalypse.” –LTBT
2. Sounds like they’re up a creek.
“Two bikini-clad girls had to be rescued from a swift moving river in a canoe. Neither girl brought a life vest or a PADDLE” –John_Wick_Detroit
3. My dog’s biggest fear.
“I have helped release several dogs and children stuck in the mechanism part of a recliner chair.” –probandaidputeroner
4. The joy ride.
“I was a volunteer firefighter many years back. One summer, after a long period of no rain, two good old boys decide to have a few (dozen) beers and take their Jeep into a nearby field to go off-roading.
Well, ~2 ft. tall corn stalks that are bone-dry wind-up getting jammed up into the undercarriage, which, on a 90+ degree day, turns out to be hot enough to ignite a fire. The owner of the field sees the situation unfolding from their house and calls for fire and police.
Given the proximity to my location, I go directly to the scene after hearing the page go out and see these two assholes trying to drive the Jeep faster and faster to put the fire out. Eventually, the engine gives out, but they won’t leave the car. I physically had to reach-in, burning my arms in the process (since I didn’t respond to the station first to get my turnout gear), and pull them out – somehow, they decided that remaining in the car would slowdown the flames.
And because they thought it was a good idea to continue driving a burning vehicle around a dry field, we now have a significant brush fire and have to call mutual aid from another county to help douse the fire.
State Police get involved, I have a nice trip to the hospital. And assholes lose their Jeep and the remainder of their booze.” –Xaipe32
5. Perks of the job.
“Not me but dad was a firefighter in nyc and once responded to a call at a chinese food restaurant where the owners walkway was iced over. He apparently didnt speak very good english and maybe misunderstood the job of a fireman? Genuinely don’t know. They salted down his front walkway for him and explained that this was 100% not their job. They all had a good laugh and the guy gave them all free eggrolls. Ppl always used to ask him questions about crazy calls and he never enjoyed talking about that so he would always tell that story. Happened in ’99 still makes me laugh to this day 20 years later.” –Turkeybaconisheresy
6. What’s the worst that could happen?
“Dude picked up a metal ring from a hardware store in lieu of paying for an actual cock ring.
It got stuck. He went to the hospital. The hospital called the fire department because a dremel tool turned out to be the right tool for the job.” –invadermoody
7. S*** happens.
“It wasn’t really his fault, but we had an old guy in a nursing home get his balls stuck in a shower chair.” –The_Phantom_W
8. Too old for this crap.
“A young teenage girl who decided those toddler swings with the seat you stick their legs through like a little basket so they can’t fall out was made for a teenage girl. She got stuck and lost blood flow to her legs. We had to cut her down and get her to a hospital to have it safely removed due to it basically becoming a tourniquet on both her legs.” –payperplain
9.
“I used to work in a NYC public grammar school over the summers to pay for college back in the 90’s. One of the full time employees was a nice guy but stupid. And I don’t mean he was slow or anything, he just did dumb shit because he was careless.
One time he loaded up a trailer with like 25 gallons of gas and was driving it back through the main school parking lot. He didn’t realize that container cracked open and spilled all 25 gallons in the parking lot. He didn’t want to get in trouble so he thought the best way to get rid of the evidence was TO SET THE GAS ON FIRE.
He didn’t realize that burning gas gives off a LOT of black smoke and a gigantic cloud of black smoke coming from a school generally attracts a lot of attention from first responders. Panicking, he tries to put the flaming lake of gas out by DRIVING OVER IT WITH HIS CAR. The fire department gets there, screaming at him to stop driving his car through flaming gasoline. They finally get the fire out and just… screamed at this guy for like 25 minutes. It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.” –-Words-Words-Words-
10. Please share any information you have about your own whereabouts.
“I once had a firefighter tell me he almost died in a house fire while going back into the house to look for the owner. A neighbor was concerned about why the firefighter was still in the residence so he asked another firefighter. This is about how the exchange went:
Neighbor: Why is that fireman still in the house?
Firefighter: He’s looking for the owner of the home.
Neighbor: He is right over there with the video camera.Turns out the owner did not think it was important to alert the fire department he was out of the house. Instead, he was just taking video of the whole event.
The fire started because the owner had tried to smother his barbecue cooker flame with left over wood from the siding that had been installed on his home. The owner did not realize it would burn. Burned his whole house down.” –FountainofR
11. God bless our first responders.
“Firefighter/Paramedic in suburb of Phx. Had to transport a guy to the ER because he was constipated. His wife tried to dig it out with a wooden spoon. Spoon got stuck and hurt to move it.
Walked in and there’s a 250 lb man, butt naked, lying on his side with a huge wooden spoon stuck halfway up his butt.” –Gruppet
12. Remember to smile!
“Easily the dumbest person I encountered was a mother of 4 who decided it would be an awesome idea to get a Facebook/Instagram worthy picture of her kids (all under age 10) sitting in a rowboat.
Mother untied it from the dock and thought she’d just pull them back with the rope… That she forgot to hold on to.
They floated a half mile down the river before the two oldest boys managed to grab a branch hanging over the bank.
It was really surreal to see 4 young kids, all in matching clothing, sitting in a boat waiting to be rescued. I have no clue what happened after, but they were physically fine, just scared, a little tired but the mom was in full blown panic mode and kept getting in our way. I hope she’s making better choices now.” –FrankieFillibuster
13. Something’s abuzz.
“Heard this story from a friend. Emergency call comes in for a miscellaneous electrical hazard. Chief walks in and a woman tells him that the tv in the bedroom is making a weird noise. It’s turned off but there’s a low buzzing sound coming from the area. Chief unplugs the tv (which she didn’t think to do???) and the noise doesn’t stop. The tv is sitting on top of a chest of drawers so he opens up the top drawer and finds this woman’s vibrator just buzzing away. Super awkward.” –stewy23
14. Great American Baking.
“I was called to a home to get a pie out of the over before it caught fire. The lady went to the store and was delayed for some reason. she called 911 to have the fire department take the pie out of the oven and place it on the stove. The call came in as ” Something stuck in over and unable to turn off stove”. Still #1 call in 32 years.” -anonymous
15. The worst day of school.
“Stuck my finger in a school cafeteria table when I was in third grade and firefighters had to cut me out with those giant bolt cutters.” –merge51
16. No kink-shaming!
“My Father was (retired) a firefighter in London, He once phoned me just to tell me about a job he had just been to. He told me that He had just been to a fire in a sex dungeon and that, The fire had been started when the women was trying to burn the mans chest hair off with a candle, then proceed to drop the candle onto the fur rug when hot wax burnt her. I laughed and he said “You’ll be sick in a second”, he then proceeded to tell me the couple were in their very late seventies.” –donutmcownage
h/t Reddit: r/AskReddit