Doing Heroism: The Stress-Filled (and Thriving) Art of Fire and Rescue

• In Event: 256 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 18. Work and Well-Being

Abstract

Doing fire and rescue work is a stress-filled art. The day in, day out unpredictability of life’s goings on, combined with wrestling death and its implications, makes the art of saving life and property a unique specialty that comes with a great deal of internal and external pressures. There is little published qualitative work on firefighters and other rescue workers. It could be the difficulty of gaining extended access to the unusual world of the modern fire department that precludes more qualitative analyses. Most published scholarship about rescue workers arises from the medical and psychological fields and is primarily focused on the physical, mental, and familial outcomes of stress. Other scholarship within the field examines the coping mechanisms of thriving and post-traumatic growth. I located the same themes in my observations of doing heroism. The hero is more than a do-gooder. Heroes are trained and focused on how to prevail over the supreme enemy of life: Death. Heroic doings are a purposeful giving of time, acute focus, and personal safety for public well being. This short-term, participant observation looks at a variety of ways stress is created and how it subsequently presents itself after doing heroism. It also examines ways that stress is mitigated through thriving techniques and leisure activities during the coping life of the male, fire and rescue hero; and it illustrates all these doings through first-hand accounts from the heroes themselves.

Author

• Nikki Annette Weihe, University of Illinois-Chicago