Jumpline magazine Spring 2025 - Flipbook - Page 46
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Editor’s Page
What if
Jack Swerdloff, Ret.
Jumpline Editor
was your last?
Daddy Daughter Photo Op
I wonder what you’d do. Would
you hug more? Would you travel
more? Would you love more?
Text more? Visit more? Chat
more? Gift more?
It is hard to naturally live by the philosophy that today may be
your last. But as the song goes, “Live like you were dying…” and
to try and do it without regrets and resentments. Do your favorite
people know how you feel?
Being “one of a kind” and “revered by the entire solar system”
does not exempt you from seeing the dark place.
What about old Capt. G. The week before he went to the other
side, I brought dozens of doctors from my post-retirement “hospital gig” to play 昀椀re昀椀ghter for a day at MDFR Training. They had
a blast!
Maybe not the best transportation
crew he ever managed, but that’s
what I tell people:
On the lighter side. Back in my Rescue 2 C shift days (the 1900’s),
rescue folks could give people the magic red paper report copies
and leave if another call came in. Hopefully beating the good Captain Gustin in! My Lt. (Jenkins) could rip out red copies and hand
them to patients better than anyone! “Someone’s house is on 昀椀re;
we’ve got to go, give these papers to the ambulance when they
get here in 15 mins!” And he was also good at teaching George
and I the way of the nozzle, and how Batt 5 did things.
Is Capt. Gustin inside you? Did you ever eat ice cream at Firehouse 2 during a 30 year period from the 80s to 2018? If so, a
piece of Capt. Gustin is inside you! If you know, you know! Smile
and be proud he is in you.
I followed a group over to Capt. Gustin’s station so I could watch
the legend in action. Still ALWAYS animated, sharp, and FUNNY.
After a typical perfect intro and grab, he made sure the docs
were aware that he found me “ruggedly handsome.” True or not,
we all got a good laugh. But he was the best transitioner! After
the laugh we got back to the 昀椀re extinguisher ops class. Gustin
was the absolute best transitioner. Unless you were doing something fun, like dropping 5” for hours on a lightning storm day, he
always had the best segways. I learned that early from him and
adopted it myself. His PowerPoint presentations were sure to
have hysterical transitions.
He knew all tactically. What a blessing to have debated and
then committed to bidding Rescue 2, C shift in 1996.
It is possible.
We learn as we go in this thing called “life.” Some of us have
seen the dark place. I never had until I lost my boy. Then my
eyes were opened! I remember actually thinking, “Oh this is what
those people feel when they want the pain and worry to go away.”
It really changed my perspective. At that time in my life, I wasn’t
sure I’d live. I needed the unbearable pain to go away.
I fought hard to climb out of the grief pit in those 昀椀rst couple of
years. I feel good now. I’m ful昀椀lled. All I can do is tell everyone
it’s possible. If you’re in MDFR you run those suicide calls often
on others. If you’re in MDFR you will run suicide calls often on
civilians. And if your on for a few decades, you’ll also never stop
the disbelief that someone that was formidable and strong “on
the job” took their own life.
Spring 2025 | JUMPLINE Magazine
