Pat Murphy worked for the Dallas Fire Department for 40 years before retiring as a Captain. A gregarious character, he is well known and loved by all. My co-host Mike Otto, museum docent Mike Hoskins and I sat down with Pat to discuss his career over a cup of coffee at the Dallas Firefighters Museum. Pat mentions many firefighters in this episode, one of whom passed away recently, Mike Hyles, and this episode is dedicated to his memory.
Pat Murphy worked for the Dallas Fire Department for 40 years before retiring as a Captain. A gregarious character, he is well known and loved by all. My co-host Mike Otto, museum docent Mike Hoskins and I sat down with Pat to discuss his career over a cup of coffee at the Dallas Firefighters Museum. Pat mentions many firefighters in this episode, one of whom passed away recently, Mike Hyles, and this episode is dedicated to his memory.
Hello everybody and welcome to firehouse talk a new name for this podcast that more accurately reflects the direction we seem to be going as this still new project continues to evolve. What follows today's conversation with retired Fire Department Captain Pat Murphy that grew up right here in Pleasant Grove in southeast Dallas where he attended Grady spruce High School. He went on to work 40 years for the Dallas Fire Department retiring as a highly respected captain who won multiple awards for his distinguished service. I wanted to document the story of his exemplary career. So I asked Pat to join me Nakamoto and Mark Hoskins to talk about his career. I hope you'll enjoy our conversation as much as I did. But first I want to dedicate this episode of firehouse talk to a great tailboard man we recently lost my house Mike always had a smile and a story for everyone. So in his honor, I in turn what to share a story he wants told me. I had recently been assigned to a new fire station and Mike told me he knew a fella at that station named Beauregard. Now, as a side note, you should know that lock always I'm changing the name to protect the guilty party. But anyway, knock told me that Beauregard asked him to put in a set of French double doors at his house. Mike told Beauregard that if he would measure the opening didn t had order the door and when it arrived, he'd come over and install it for him and Beauregard agreed, but my keyboard, the measurement had to be exact down to 1/8 of an inch. Beauregard agreed and assured him he would measure very carefully. So after he had received the measurements from Beauregard, Mikey ordered the door, and when it came in, he went out to install it and found that Beauregard had indeed measured the door opening and it was exactly, exactly down to 1/8 of an inch, exactly one foot off from the correct measurement. Rest easy Mikey in that land where the nails are straight, the wood never splits and everything always fits just so. And now without further ado, here's our conversation with Pat Murphy. Okay, hello, everybody and welcome to firehouse talk. I'm here today with my co host retired Fire Department Lieutenant Mike Otto.
Mike Otto:Hello, everybody. Hey, Mike. Welcome.
Chuck Hampton:We also have a special guest here today. Pat Murphy. Glad to be here. Thanks for coming. And we also have another guest joining us today Mark Hoskins, retired police department and some of you may know him from having seen him at many fires. He is a volunteer with 896. Morning. Hey, Mike. Well, Pat, did you come to get on the fire report what made you want to be a Dallas fireman
Pat Murphy:two things, football, and George Barry Smith, really? When I graduated from high school, just about a year after I got out of high school, I miss playing football so bad. And they had an ad in the Dallas Morning News. But the semi pro team was looking for new recruits and stuff in the ad tribes right across the street from that teams before everyone knew what 98 was. But anyway, I went tried out for this Semi Pro Football team. Got lucky made the team. Well, Barry Smith was already on this football team. It had been going on for two or three years. Anyway, when I got on there the very night just we just hit it off. For some reason, this boom right off the bat. And the more he talked about the Dallas Fire Department, the more I thought, Man, that's what I want to do. He explained to me the process of going through this and that and the other and I went down signed up and
Chuck Hampton:got lucky and got Oh, was there an interview board that you had to go through?
Pat Murphy:I remember talking to people. The thing I remember most about the process was when I went down was the fiscal the doctor physical. Yeah. And I went in his office and I thought he was probably three days older than Jesus Christ. In would go going through he checked this he checked that and at one point in the deal with but make it standing there in his office and he tells me to bend over touch my toes. And I'm thinking I
Mike Hoskins:don't know. I don't know.
Pat Murphy:I you know I thought well, I but you know one of the jobs so I did bend over touch my toes. And I kind of looked at him on the phone. Look, he said I'm just checking the curvature of your spine make sure that align. But anyway, just before I walked out the door, he said suddenly Let me see your hands and stick my hands out there. He's no those that don't know. He said, you back to fingernails or to your fingernails and bit and I said, Well, yeah, it's just the habit of mine. He said, I'll tell you what he said. You might be a little bit too nervous for this job. He said, If you really want this job, you come back, see me in 30 days and have some fingernails. Is that right? That is the true story and waited 30 days and went back and he said, okay, you did.
Chuck Hampton:They have to say I've ever heard. Yeah.
Pat Murphy:Well, both of those things are damn saying. Anyway, it worked out for me,
Chuck Hampton:gosh, Almighty's. So then you ended up going to rookie school, I guess what was rookie school at
Pat Murphy:rookie school? I really enjoyed it. Gotcha. So that record crossing Okay, dropped out there. JACK Levitan was one of our major people out there chief Lewiston, Mickey Ferguson was one of my instructors. raflatac was one of my instructors.
Chuck Hampton:And of course, you would meet up with Captain lac again later, which we'll come to after a while is that what year would this have been if he came out of high school? 1968 68 Okay, yeah. sling pack scbas at that time, or any SCBA
Pat Murphy:so they had some fleet bags, but not everybody had one. Okay. It was it was different. I mean, yeah, no walkie talkies?
Chuck Hampton:Probably cotton gloves. Oh, yeah. Cotton
Pat Murphy:garden. gardening gloves. Little metamaterial plastic helmet. Canvas coat.
Chuck Hampton:Yeah. Pull up rubber boots. Not a lot of us actually was different. Yeah. No hoods. Yeah. So you were at 24. Until then, you promoted or what to paramedic school or how
Pat Murphy:many fours for like two and a half years. Then they built the new 24. Okay, what after they got it? Yeah, I worked over there for a couple of years. They move into DMS have volunteered for EMT school.
Chuck Hampton:And were you in one of the first EMT classes.
Pat Murphy:I was in the fourth EMT class. The first paramedic but the first paramedic class.
Chuck Hampton:Okay. So you probably didn't have to go to paramedic school. Did you volunteer for that to make driver like some people did? Or what was the impetus for you going to paramedic school?
Pat Murphy:I just started mini Yeah, matter of fact, most of the people back in the day, it's advisor stranded probably, I think the over 90% of the first people that started our email system, were all volunteers. Is that right? Yeah. So that's what my understanding of some of my say no, I didn't volunteer. But I think the initial group, most of them were volunteers.
Chuck Hampton:What was that? Like?
Pat Murphy:It's very interesting. The, the officers were Bill, Bill Roberts, and Troy, England and some of the people that were trying to get our program up and running. They did a lot of research, a lot of traveling a lot of legwork. And they wanted to really start us off with a really, really good program. And I think for a while there, Dallas probably had in front and probably still does have one of the best email systems in the country.
Mike Otto:I'm curious, you know, today, our ambulances run or rescues run constantly, you know, they're making calls all the 24 hours are just very, very busy. But I know that that evolved over the years are busy. Do you remember how busy were you back in? 1972
Pat Murphy:when you go? I'll tell you what they told us when we started. Okay. They said they were looking for volunteers. Is that right? We're gonna set up this system. We're gonna start off with I believe it was like 14 amasis. The busy ones, the busy ones are gonna make seven or eight runs this year. The other ones? Alright. Prior to us taking over the EMS system, the funeral homes in Dallas, right? Did the Amazon stores in basically it was geographic. If you were in Oak Cliff, you got this unit. If you were North LSU got Sparkman Hillcrest. If you were in South Dallas, you got black and Clark, you know. And they did that the last year. Chief Roberts, Bill Roberts, he did some studies and research. And he found out that the last year that the funeral homes had damage serviced, they had about 25,000 calls in that year. So he figured well, when the fire department takes over, we're going to kick it up a notch. And they estimated we were going to make 28,000 the first year we were in service will the first full year we were in service. It went from 25,000 estimated go to 28,000 actually went to 43,000. Wow.
Chuck Hampton:First year yeah.
Pat Murphy:So we started off behind and never caught up. That's why they're still so busy and they just kept adding units new to us and of course the city get bigger and bigger and bigger. And initially. I think a lot of the the initial impact was the fact that A lot of people assume Well, it's the fire department. It's free. Let's call him in. And I'm talking. Do you call 911? Yeah. Can you take me down to the pharmacy and get this prescription field? and stuff like that? Yeah, that actually happens.
Mike Otto:Well, then maybe that was what led to the call screening that ended up being instituted probably in the early 80s or late 70s. I would guess.
Pat Murphy:I think the call screening was gonna do some good until
Mike Otto:the Boff incident. Yeah, the Boff incident? Yeah. Well, that's when it just completely went away. Yeah. went away. Yeah, I was kind of wishing they could have kept it. Because he I thought he was good, you know, just to weed out some of this stuff. Now we they did some public relations stuff to try to, to educate the public as to what we're really for, you know, tomorrow seasons and other but it worked a little bit not. I said, We start off behind him. We still are. Well, I noticed when they eliminated that after the boss answered it. I kind of followed the stats for a few years. And we were jumping at 10,000 runs a shift. All right, a year. Yeah, annually for a pretty regular basis. I don't know how many years. But 10,000 a year about we were jumping after the call screening program was eliminated. Now the alarm off to somebody that's not all we're saying is yes, that's what it is. That's what it became. Now.
Chuck Hampton:I want to take a little break here to go into greater detail about this boss incident we're talking about because it really was a huge deal. And we still feel its ramifications today because as Mark Otto mentioned, it resulted in the end of call screen. So what happened on January 5 1984, Mr. Larry Boff called to request an ambulance for his mother Lillian bath. When the call came into the call center, it was transferred to a call screening nurse. These were registered nurses who were employed for their medical expertise so they could screen out calls that did not require the advanced life support capabilities of a fire department, mobile Intensive Care Unit, as opposed to a private ambulance service. Nurse Billy Merrick took the call and was asking the caller the routine questions. The caller became impatient with the questions as often happens on 911 calls, and mismarked responded negatively. As it turned out, there would be an eight minute delay before amulets 753 was dispatched and when 753 arrived on the scene, Miss Lillian Boff was dead. Clarice Tinsley, a local news anchor broke the story, and soon it was all over the national news. It was all the media talked about for a good while and people all over the country. were directing their vitriol at Dallas. I don't think that the city of Dallas had had this much national hatred directed at it since Kennedy was shot here 20 years earlier. So some commentators even refer back to the Kennedy assassination when castigating us regarding this incident. Call screening was halted as a result in the era of you call we Hall began. It set in motion is sort of mission creep that would eventually find us rolling heavy apparatus down the streets with lights and sirens blaring to patients who had simply stubbed their toe, or suffered similarly minor mishaps. We'll do a deep dive on this incident and on the continued mission creep that we have suffered since in a future episode. But for now, let's get back to our discussion with Pat Murphy. Well, back in the day, so you come out of paramedic school, and where did you go ride and ambulance?
Pat Murphy:But there it was at 44. So 4444 was my we initially started. were young, we had very few EMT, we just had enough EMTs to go around and they assigned three people. Three EMTs at station.
Chuck Hampton:Okay. So did you just have one paramedic Willie, that Oh, initially, okay. Usually it was two EMTs EMTs Okay,
Pat Murphy:okay. We're three mvmt society the station, okay. So they can rotate a little bit. Most of the most of the officers they they seem to Esther was new, right. And most of them was like, You got it, you guys. you tease it got it. You'll do whatever you need. Do and that's it. You know how that one can? We were so short handed there the first the first three half, maybe four years down that road. Yeah, it was pretty much all so you were pretty much on the Hamlet's every game was nearly every shift. Yeah. And that that kind of story leading up to they will realize that this burnout factor might be a little bit worse than a recipe, right? Because nearly everybody was writing it nearly all the time, I think three or four times in three years.
Chuck Hampton:Good grief. Yeah. So did you have in your career in the fire service? Any officers that mentored you and helped bring you along? Or were you pretty much thrown in the briar patch to figure things out for yourself?
Pat Murphy:I wouldn't call it a Briar Patch. I felt like like every other rookie back back in the day. No, this was pretty good waste back in the day. Yeah. And things were different back then. I was actually, they were taking care of me. They were teaching me things. But I didn't really realize it for a while because of all the agitation. I mean, you feel like you're rolling. Well. You couldn't do anything right. You know, the Yep. You're like a monkey messing with the football. And he just, he didn't feel like they wanted to run me off. But I feel like I was really part of the team. Yeah, but later on in my career, I realized, this guy, that guy love people, that crew. Yeah, you know, if they're not agitating you, they don't like you. So I got quite a bit. Everything worked out good for me. But as far as anybody, any individual, just to help me out, picking me up and help me spread my wings and stuff. I don't recall individually was his team working. But again, I didn't think I was doing that good. Because all the agitation stuff came to pass. It worked out great. It's a
Chuck Hampton:different culture. Oh. Now, there was a time I believe in the 70s when you were possibly working and maybe a detail out of this station or near here. And you answered a call across the street at the fairgrounds when there was an incident involving the gondola. Is that correct? Yes. Was the Swiss skyrise was scara. Yeah, that was a
Pat Murphy:Tell me about that. October 21 1979. Okay, is there the fair, okay. They had decided, now this station, or old fires was no longer a functional station at the time. Okay. So what they did, they put an engine crew here with three paramedics on it, and always responded to his fair part. I was fortunate enough to be on it for two, two years in a row. And we were aged 61 sitting at the station. But if we went out on a fire call, we were engine 61. If we went out on a mess call, we were 761 Okay, and we only responded to the fairgrounds. And we were the first location that cable Koreans in
Chuck Hampton:what had happened that what was the problem there?
Pat Murphy:When I saw the picture, there was a gentleman walking down the Midway in was going to take a picture of the guy and he just when he snapped a picture to the cars that already were in the process of falling. Oh, and every time I looked at that I thought how in the heck did that car hit that car and then that goes on in that car. And these two cars fall now in our in our number one in the whole thing fall? I couldn't figure it out. But when we pulled up, we had a blade where we had 16 or 17 people injured. had one fatality go for a couple extra and which is in and I believe, Chief Steve Perry. I think the chief Perry was kind of in charge. Okay. I was still fairly young on Friday. Well that not that young, but there was a lot of commotion going on. And I mean, they were, you know, like this cable call ran the entire length of the fairground the head together, we
Chuck Hampton:got a very chaotic scene. Exactly.
Pat Murphy:You got 16 or 17 people on the ground. We got what we found out later on was 85 people to deal up in the gondolas frying the fire to the other and had to take care of these people. They killed people up there you got a very big incident. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, it was a I mean, they he was they had to tear down the tents
Chuck Hampton:and actually move things in order for the trucks to get in. Now some of the big trees are now long the Midway to get they had a couple of snorkel trucks. They had a couple of 100 foot aerials. And here's the part that would seem difficult to me is trying to reach those people with that aerial and convincing us Someone to step out of the gondola and own to the ladder.
Pat Murphy:It It was interesting to say the least. I actually was only up on the top of one of the, the 100 foot aerials to bring a couple of people down. You just had to hope that they can you can gain their trust there. Yeah, I can trust you in everything. Yeah, it was a, the, in some of the incidents they had. Some of the gondolas had stopped over the automobile building and one of the other buildings in that I had heard that they had to do a church raise, but I'm not really sure about that. But I did read something that they had to take a 16 foot ladder, and hook it on the gondola. And two guys at the bottom were holding it was somebody went up there and convinced them to climb down this ladder. And the more people that got off the gondola, the higher the 16 foot. Oh, right, right
Chuck Hampton:rally last night.
Pat Murphy:It was pretty interesting to that. It was. I mean, I'll never admit it, like it was yesterday, most of it. But it was, I don't know how many hours we were at, during it seemed like, we were there at 30 or 40 minutes. But it was, I would think it would take a lot of hours to Oh, indeed, it didn't need to get everybody down. And
Mike Otto:to give the listener a little bit better idea of what that all was about that gondola you know, they were What did they probably hold for people they were Yeah, they were literally closed open open there. But but in closed on cables that ran at fair Park and how high off the ground were they design at five feet. So it's a substantial distance, you know, that you guys are having to go up and to get to these people,
Pat Murphy:based on most of the part that I was involved in. I guarantee you nearly everybody up there. thought this whole thing is gonna fall it's gonna fall. Anyway. Yeah, when we tell it if you're if you feel better to sit on the very floor where you can see and you can you be more protected. So and we said it's gonna be a while, but we're gonna get you down. And that was
Mike Otto:a good day. So did the gondola course or whatever did it encompass most of fare partner was with this total you all the way around the fairgrounds. And so you can cars in different locations that were stranded.
Pat Murphy:Now it basically went from big text back to the wild mouse or back to the roller coaster of the length of the Midway right down the middle of the middle. Okay. And Matter of fact, the baskets fell on some of the the games and stuff there. And it's my understanding. One, I'm stuck another one hate it. Then when the third one hit, two of them fail and landed on top of one of the tents. And of course, went through it and there was
Mike Otto:quite an incident it was
Pat Murphy:more than more than one time when the individuals finally got to the ground. That's when they had this release. I mean, they break down crying they would they'd be hugging everybody it was it was some of it was good to see some of it was really tough. And you know, but fortunately, what we had one fatality in everything that was very unfortunate. But overall, it could have been a nightmare worse than it was
Chuck Hampton:speaking of incidents that had to have a lot of emotional impact. As a paramedic, you want answered a fire at the Athena. And I believe there was somebody there who you mentioned had been at rookie school a captain lack Is that correct? That's right. And why don't you tell me about the thena fire and your response to the Athena? Okay.
Pat Murphy:As we were expanding and adding MRC used to the city, they decided they wanted to put a an ambulance at station three. They put one there in November of 1975. And I'd written a letter to go over there because I thought it'd be a really neat station or get be a busy station. I always like to try to stay busy. So we went over and my partner at that time one of my partner but the driver was a gentleman named Kenneth COEs big Stuckey burly guy from twig Minnesota. I loved his accent. We had a we were a good team and stuff. Well, when the event thing of fire came in, it went to second or third or fourth or fifth. And we're sitting there threes thinking man, what did they got there? What do they do? Gosh, we were kind of listening scanners stuff and we knew that they had dispatch several MRC used for smoke inhalation and this and that and the other but late into the incident. 660 fire dispatch came over and they said 756 and 703 respond to the Athena fi and we took off candles driving on and we had a brand new unit new no he put his foot in the carburetor and we we got up there pretty rapidly as well who pulled up RG Russell was the incident commander at the time. And he said Murphy said you can't come on he said let these guys bring your equipment. So we go up to I think was the 14th floor. And we go into first we get into the hallway that looked like a chimney flue. I mean it was it was burnt from ceiling the floor, wall wall. Long, long hallway. We go down if tall when I'm thinking my gosh they had their hands full. Somebody had their hands well here. A when we get down we get to the apartment. The chief Russell want to just go in he said this downstairs he said these guys grab your equipment. We got two firefighters upstairs in bad shape. And well that got dumped on top. We get up there we go into the apartment, going to have room go into a second room and go back into a third room in this apartment. And there's probably four or five firefighters already there. But soon as we walk in, the two of them are down right there in front of us. They were doing something to this to Riley Hearst. They were working on rally. So I knelt down can jump down. And that's when I realized it was RAF lac who was my Lieutenant instructor in rookie school, and nothing so anyway, we we start working and did make a long story short. We worked and worked and worked to get enough people we'll get them downstairs, got him into the unit, worked him all the way to Parkland and worked on about 45 minutes after we got to Parkland. And Ralph had some EDL ventricular beats or what they call pa postless process electrical activity on the monitor that look picture perfect, but there weren't very many of them. We kept thinking Come on Raph Come on Rafi, you're gonna you're gonna kick it you're going to kick in but after about 45 minutes apart from the they call it and everything and that this I'm out of I can think back about some of the RAF was a southern country boy from Starkville, Mississippi, had a really interesting voice in tone and his attitude. And I just had this. This really lacked a man he was really good does. He wasn't one of these, you know, really gruff and rough and treat rookies like, you know what, he wasn't that way. He was just a good man. And that incident was it still sticks with me? Pretty good.
Mike Otto:Yeah. The Athena itself thought, you know, just to kind of address it for the listener, you know, was built I believe back in the 60s was one of was one of Dallas's first high rise, residential, condominium type setups, and it still sits today on West northwest highway on the north side of the road between Hillcrest and Preston road, and I can't drive by it to this day without looking at the Athena and seeing the words and knowing that Gavin Ralph lac and Riley Hurst, you know, perished on the 14th floor, you know?
Chuck Hampton:Yeah. And I would, I would venture to say that probably most citizens of Dallas that drive along Northwest highway every day have no idea. Oh,
Mike Otto:I would agree.
Pat Murphy:Yeah. It was a very elite company. And we would they were city council members there. They were judges there. My understanding there was a retired military general that lived there, very classic,
Mike Otto:that would explain the size of the unit, going into a kind of, you know, three bedroom condominiums. high rise in the 60s, as substantial.
Chuck Hampton:That is. So you touched on something I want to ask about, and that's the ability to get lost or disoriented when you don't have a hose line. And since I've got a few firefighters here, my view ever been lost or disoriented in a building. When you didn't have a hose line? I mean, actually, besides, well, we've already discussed one of your incidents in another episode, but I mean, that probably was not the only time that you've been lost in a building or was
Mike Otto:certainly no, it wasn't the only time Yeah, that's not a good feeling. And I, as I listened to pat tell a story about Captain black and Riley. I was visualizing it, you know, and how that would have felt wandering through a space where you Can't see your hand in front of your face. And you know, the environment around you is nothing but toxic air, which is what you know what you saw when you intubated him, and you saw the soot. And that's that was a byproduct of the, the smoking, you described the hallway. And I can only imagine. But But I can imagine it pretty probably pretty closely because of past experiences. And it's not a good feeling, you know, when you hit is not? Am I gonna get out of here?
Chuck Hampton:Pat, what about you? Have you had that experience of being lost or disoriented? In a fire when you didn't have a whole slide to follow out
Pat Murphy:a couple of times, then? Sometimes it's because you've been asked to do something. And I remember one time, I don't know, I just brought upon myself to go check this warehouse, bla bla bla, bla bla, and the Cardinals saying, I didn't have a partner. But I'm wandering around back then. And finally, I got back so far, then I wouldn't find in what I thought I might find it. And I'm thinking, Wait a minute, we're in the hail Emma. I mean, I couldn't, couldn't see anything. In this warehouse. It's not one of the days where you put a show on the wall and walk through it, I was just wandering through this jag, big space. And I got back here, and I thought for a minute, not in my heart was kind of talking a little bit harder. I thought that wasn't very smart. To get back there without somebody or without a lie. And that kind of I think that that was probably the last time I did that on campus was Yeah,
Mike Otto:I think we certainly as incidents escalate, you know, we, we go in when we have visibility, you know, and we're not thinking about leaving, you know, a breadcrumb trail to get ourselves out, you know, and then the conditions deteriorate. And the smoke, you know, becomes trapped and heavier and it's, you know, hits the ceiling, and then it starts banging down. And the next thing you know, you have no visibility and what was easy a minute ago to walk into is impossible now to walk out.
Chuck Hampton:I think you're exactly right. I think you hit the nail on the head. I've made that mistake many times because it didn't look like anything at first, but then conditions change fast. Mike Hoskins and I noticed you nodding your head while ago. Have you been in a situation like that? Where you've been disoriented? Yeah, when I worked at Siu Fire Department.
Mike Hoskins:Oh, obviously we had the federal prison next door. And so we we had buyers in the cafeteria there in the kitchen area, with a problem over there is when you go in the gate, they searched apparatus and everything so the fire still burning and everything. And once they clearly did you go on in you go on in. So we, we get off, get the hose line. And then when you go in, the problem with that is they send you in, they lock the doors behind you, where you can't get out. So you get in there and you get so far back in there. And then you can't know you can't get out if you needed to get out because they got the doors locked. That happens all the time over there, man.
Chuck Hampton:I don't know. I don't know. Oh, man. Well, you worked ended up working how many years for the fire department just
Pat Murphy:a little over 40
Chuck Hampton:years, little over 40 you barely got started and you retired.
Pat Murphy:These people that don't know me, they'll find out I was a firefighter and they'll say how long you work. I say well, I was gonna make a career out of it, but a quit.
Chuck Hampton:And I believe you retired as a captain. Yes, Captain, my last 21 years. Anything you'd want to pass on to the younger generation of firefighters, maybe they're starting their career.
Pat Murphy:Like I throw a couple of pointers out here. From mass aspect of everything on the fire service, you need to be a team player. Even if you're made to feel like you're lower than whale poop. Because they're gonna agitate and aggravate you enter. If you're not getting agitated, that might not be a good sign. Listen to the more senior people and ask for help if need be. have respect for the DFT and your coworkers. And learn something on every call you make no matter how trivial or how he met. You may get to a point in your career, that you've seen it all and then boom, sometimes literally. Something new will occur. Yeah, this profession is so very visceral, and it's not for everyone. You will see hear, smell, taste and touch things unimaginable to most people and it wears on everyone differently. Use your co workers and friends and religion if you choose to keep things on an even keel.
Chuck Hampton:That's good. That's words of wisdom.
Mike Otto:Yeah, accumulated over For decades, many years,
Chuck Hampton:I tell you what, and I like the part about learning something on every call, because I don't feel like I ever came close to knowing everything I needed to know for this job.
Pat Murphy:I had a gentleman, when I initially went to 30 threes, the very first day Steve worked at, he got me off to the side one time and he said it a couple of things about being a rookie, and I said, Oh, here it comes. He said, No, he said, first thing he said was, don't get a part time job. And in our were discussing from but he said, I say, I'll see you young guys come on the fire department. You get over here, you're making more money than you ever made in your life, you got 48 hours off. So they'll go out and they'll become a painter this for their they'll do something. And then they'll get locked into where they'll start buying a new truck and buying a new house. And so then they have to work off duty. Yes, to and hidden. And that was some stellar advice for one thing. And then the other one was, he said, you know, what this kind of went through here. He said, He's trying to learn something, all the ones you know, if it doesn't, about the structure, about your district, about whatever it is try to learn something on every run, you make. Major x stands for medical, this, it doesn't matter. Just try to learn something on every run you make and put that together, and you will end up pretty good.
Chuck Hampton:That is such wise counsel, you know, I've seen so many guys get on this job and immediately go out and weigh themselves down with payments on a fancy new truck and house that they can't really afford and then their house poor. And then they are they're locked into working part time. And you mentioned, you know how much you need to learn on this job. And it's only getting more complicated. Now we've got cars with exploding bumpers, and hidden airbags, and you've got to know a lot just about the cars you're responding to let alone the buildings which are also getting enormously complicated.
Pat Murphy:I was just talking about training stuff and learning. I was the academy commander for about three years, me and five lieutenants, we're training all the new recruits that are on the fire department. And there's some really, really good things that go on in the train division. But honestly, honestly, it's just scratching the surface. It's a very basic, very fundamental things that you need to do to distribute a recruit, or a new firefighter. In and I learned pretty quickly in my career. Because I always liked to work at busy stations, the more rounds we made, the more I saw, the more I thought, Man oh man, and so I kind of made it. My duty to myself, for safety reasons and other things. Just learn something, learn something every time you go out and keep it tucked in here, keep it tucked in here. And then you can say one of these days, I hope I remembered that I can remember this, I'll do this or do that. Because I saw this before now. Anyway, I just tried to learn something every run I made, even if it was just a dumpster fire, you know,
Chuck Hampton:it's a good philosophy.
Mike Otto:I you know, I had a history at NINETEEN'S, you know, which actually was prior to you coming over there as a captain, you know, but I remember answering with you and, and being around you for you know, years and always enjoyed that. But one of the things that I know when you went over to an iTunes on a shift, and this is mainly I'm saying this for young officers or, or people that will become officers at some point in time. I remember some of those outlaws that you worked with over there talking about, you know, you had a real passion for the job, you know, and that there were times when, you know, if we have a fire today, I don't know if it was malts or or blue bail on me or whatever it was, but you know, you they sometimes they said you'd start off the day with a fire day motor on me, you know, and, but but that kind of eagerness and passion, I think really breeds you know, excitement and passion for the job, you know, from you hear it from the top and then it just goes down to the bottom, you know, and then everybody embraces that. Yeah, we're fired. I can't buy an ice cream, you know, and that's a good thing.
Pat Murphy:I never wish anything bad on anyone in my entire career. But I just felt like every fire you make or every emergency you go to there's something there that you can take away from you could learn something from it and everything. I like he talked about buying the bluebell and buying the mouse. I want to tell you what station was but I had one of our crews, which I had some fantastic crews in my career. One of my crews, they would take some chicken bowls and put them in a deal and set them on fire. Kind of a ritual deal to see if we can pull in a fire. You know, and again, we never wish anything bad on anybody. But if we're going to have a fireless habit redistrict Let's having this habit where we work, let's be firsthand. Let somebody bring us Water.
Mike Otto:You wrote squad eight for a while. Thank you so so you know, when you look back over that 40 year period of time, where where did you I know, I felt like I've learned how to become a fireman at 19. You know, I, other places I'd been. We just we had them intermittently. And then I had a slew of fires at NINETEEN'S in the early 90s, especially. And so where do you think you really cut your T sixes? Yeah,
Pat Murphy:I was there for six years. And that was again, at a time that I felt like the world is burning down. But I wanted to learn I wanted to be more busy, I actually had actually made a couple of transfers in my career just to go to somewhere busier. This was kind of my way I wanted to do, I wanted to be busy and busy trying to stay on top of everything. So but again, I have some fantastic crews working to fantastic stations, who did a couple that I didn't particularly care about. But for the most part 18 years of South Dallas, probably 10 or 12 years in East Dallas a little bit, no Cliff a little bit here, it all paid off. I
Mike Otto:think the guys coming up today, we don't have near the fires that we used to, I mean, the the, the dynamics of the fire service have changed so much, you know, Chuck and I got on an 83 baguettes on in 1668. From 83 on, you know, we had so many more fires back in the day, and in so many less other calls. And now we're our call volume is through the roof. And but yet our fire calls are down substantially, and we're a lot busier. But that's not because we're putting out fires. And it's just so important that when you don't have those on the job training opportunities, you know that you make opportunities to train and understand. And I think the department some of the younger officers in the department a we were really trying to make a conscious effort to do just that, which I'm really glad to see,
Pat Murphy:let me revert back to what I was doing the training division that's going to bring this up. That's just scratching the surface, we're just given the basic fundamentals that the state requires him to have this many hours of this subject and everything to be a firefighter. I can't tell you how many times we've seen recruits out to the station in our being the captain of the academy commander, I'd get phone call, say hey, he said soldiers sort of Oh, here's my fire station. And he can't do diddly squat, he can't pull this out of a booty cable, whatever. And I said, timeout I said surely surely you've been working long enough, or you know well enough that 95% of the training these individuals need is on the job, you need to take this individual and teach him this, we can only give us some fundamental stuff in training, I get so frustrated because it's like they think they're gonna come out there and be a super Superman firefighter with just a little stuff that we give them in rookie school in that that's not the case, they've got to learn on duty in the field, on the job that they have, the more you do, the
Chuck Hampton:better firefighter, you're going to be think you're exactly right. And I think that's more true than ever, because now, the training, division really has to focus on the state level requirements. And they've had budget cuts, and, you know, so they're literally teaching them to get their state certification and leaving out a lot of the stuff that they need to learn the Dallas way to do so
Pat Murphy:you hit the nail on the head, if we used to have, we didn't have enough time to do everything the state wanted to do. For the most part in some of the recruit classes that are trained, we actually tried to cut short their lunch period they were they were taking pots and pans home and bringing food in the next day to eat and they're so good. We can get all the time for training and not for, you know, everything else. It just it was a little frustrating. But especially when these guys would call and say he doesn't know or he or she doesn't know anything about this and the other. And I'd say that's your job and your crew, you need to take these people out, put them under your wing, and teach them what they didn't know, they got to learn it in the field. We can't do it all out here and trying to do scratching the surface.
Chuck Hampton:That's true. And I think that what Mark said was right, I think a lot of our officers nowadays are making a greater effort to conduct station level training. That honestly was something that was kind of lacking at the stations that I grew up in in the 80s. So I've been very pleased seeing a lot of people that are a lot of the station captains that are engaging in this will say one impediment is the other deal you refer to though, and that's the call volume. For instance at 25. I mean, engine 25 is as busy as any ambulance, they're they're out there making over 20 runs a shift on the engine. It's hard to get much training and when you're making over 20 runs a shift on the engine you really so Well, looking back over this career, is there anything you're particularly proud of any thing there that you'd want to share?
Pat Murphy:Yeah, actually, the thing I'm most proud of is to give you a little history lesson first. I was on the fire department for 40 plus years. I have a brother who was on the Dallas Police Department for 35 years. I have another brother that worked for the police property room for a few years then work for the EMF division in the fire department for 28 years. The three of us had 103 years of service with the city of Dallas. And I'm proud of that, but what I'm most proud of is how proud my mother and father were. For their three sons it is, every time I think about my mom just passed away recently, but every time I think about all these careers together, I was a pretty decent firefighter. My brother was an exceptional police officer. My other brothers did good at everything he did. And not and but my mom and dad did. My dad would listen to a scanner, till the wee hours of the morning and moments they turned me on thing alternatively, he would monitor the police in fire because they knew where we were going and knew whom we were doing things. And anytime we had a big deal or heard about anybody getting hurt, my phone rang my mom, you okay? Chico, might you Okay, I'm okay, mom. So this is kind of it's something you firefighters will just discount that is a little bit corny. But I was also proud that I took no sick time. I took off no sick time, the last 27 years that I worked, never took off a sick day.
Chuck Hampton:None no last 27
Pat Murphy:years. 27 years old. Wow. But then I didn't burn my sick. I want to retire as the guys in the States. But you're insane. You're crazy. And I say well, I wasn't sick. I don't. I don't even take enough sick if you're not sick. Now, earlier in my career, I might have finished a couple of days and stuff and took a day off for this and another or whatever. But that exists got to work or not. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna report off second if I'm not sick.
Chuck Hampton:That's awesome. Yeah. So what a family legacy between you and your brothers, your parents must have done something, right.
Unknown:Oh,
Pat Murphy:I was. It amazes me sometimes how we all grew up in Canada. nanosec went to jail. None was ever gotten any major trouble. And this counts, I'll do this. And we were just robbing kids doesn't grow. And it likes even when Barry Smith talked about the fire department. The more he talked about it. I thought I had been working in Freightliner. I've been working in coal and radio. I've been doing some odd jobs here and there and everything. But when he talked with the fire department, I thought man, that sounds so exciting. But you need to do so much good for so many people and get paid for it today. What more could you What more could you
Mike Otto:pair to mentioned Barry Smith, more than one so I thought the listener might enjoy it. Barry Smith passed away a few years ago after a lengthy battle with cancer. But Barry Smith was retired as a captain it was it three is when he retired when he but he it was for years. He was a captain at age rotate engine. Just somebody that everybody that knew him really looked up to and he was a Dallas guy. And you know, I was really proud to have known him and enjoyed a great relationship with Him. And but just just to give the listener a perspective on
Chuck Hampton:and he was a
Mike Otto:really gifted athlete, oh, volleyball and well at the Texas Olympic sports. He participated in pretty much everything I think but oh yeah, if you showed up at his fire station, you better bring something play volleyball because your volleyball is gonna be played and you're going to participate.
Pat Murphy:here when you played with this team, the Dallas rockets, he had probably four or five NFL teams, looking at him to see if maybe it's an athlete. thing that held him back was his age. He was getting up close to 30. And he don't most teams don't have 30 year old rookies, but he he was exceptional athletes, anything anything he did. competitive. Yeah, he was really I gotta tell you a story. When, when he was working in station 11 I used to live right down the street, but but I also served there sometimes. And we'd go out and pitch corners. And he'd have a wall there and you'd pitch corner and whoever got close to the wall would take take the coins as well. We're getting hot and heavy. And of course there's always a lot of agitation going on. Yeah, I can be that and he's not gonna be dead blindfolded. He'd go on and on. Well, I think a quarter and I swear it was probably about a 16th of an inch off the wall. And after gotcha, yeah, buddy, I'm gonna get a belly washer from you. He flipped quarter up there. But it is a book. And I swear to God, that quarter jumped up and leaned against the wall. He said, I've got a leaner, I beat you. But he had placed some of the guys in ping pong, he'd use a scrub brush from the station instead of a paddle in between. him just exceptionally competitive. Yep. I love that man. He's probably one of our best, best, best best friends of the many that I think I have. In my career, I was fortunate enough, I got four Distinguished Service Awards. And nearly every one of them was kind of a fluke. I was either at a position here out of pocket there are and I had this, why me? Why me? I wouldn't want it when it came down. When I took those awards and stuff and got the plaques on me. I'm thinking it could have been any anybody on the fire pump open? It'll give you an example. Let me see here. And work in it. CBA versus single service water got. That was we were new, fairly new in a mess. But we were up at the paramedic level. And some of the powers that be in the IMS. They've said Well, let's let's come up with a. They chose paramedics of the year. I don't know if you're familiar with a way. Well, the first year Gary Taylor, Jeevan, Dutton, and myself, were selected as paramedics of the year, got the bar, got all this kind of stuff. But then I got to looking and thinking that all three of us worked at the same fire station, not on the same ship. But we all three came from 44 station. And I'm thinking of all these paramedics that busted their butt to get trained and go out here and do this work that's been busier than we ever anticipated. Why me? Wow, you know, why are these three guys from this one fire station? I didn't. It just didn't. I mean, I was glad I was proud of it. I worked hard. I tried to be good and do well. And, you know, I'm not. I just said kind of wire me.
Chuck Hampton:Okay, Pat, in there was a fire on Lafayette street that you responded to at one time. Can you tell me about that particular rescue? Sure.
Pat Murphy:It was kind of ironic because I was scheduled to be on the MSE that day and someone came in, swung in. And they chose the route, the MSE, they said, you're around any day. And I thought, well, I'll ride the tail board of the engine anytime I get a chance. So I was on the the table dimension three and march came in on Lafayette Street, which for anybody not familiar with the Dallas area. Right now the Tom Landry center sets where Lafayette street used to be that used to be the projects and whatever. But we pull up on the same first on the scene, a lot of smoke coming from the apartment. And we noticed there were a couple of people on there was a porch over the front doorway. And there were two people in they appeared to be trying to get in the windows of the upstairs part of the apartment. And if did for Christmas time, the Christmas tree gifts isn't another word on fire downstairs. And when we pulled up, I looked in and they told us that there were two babies upstairs. Well, that got everybody really pumped and adrenaline was flowing. And the lieutenant told him to lay across land whatever. Well I looked at where the fire was and how much fire there was. And there was the stairs. They went straight ups. These were like two storey apartment deals live in and kitchen downstairs and bedrooms and bathrooms stuff upstairs. And I thought well if I want to go upstairs This was one of that console talking at wander saying hey Luke, and I do this and do that. I just thought if there's some babies up there if I'm gonna go I need to go now up the stairs. So slept on air masks and I went upstairs without a handle on in whatever. It was a little toasty. Very, very smoke field. So basically out going by Braille got to the top of the stairs. I was down on my hands and knees feeling and feeling feeling went into a bathroom that I found out when I got in it was a bathroom. Check that out checked out the tub around the commode When have you backed out, went into the next room and bumped into a bit felt under the band all as far as I could feel Get up high enough to lay on the bed. And when I laid on the bed, I can even reach the other side of the bed and now suddenly realize, in after the fact it was a king sized bed and this small project department didn't find anything on the bed, or make it down to the end of the bed. And there was about a two foot space between the end of the bed and a dresser. And I'm down on my hands and knees, and I'm crawling through there, and I bump into something. And when it's dark, and when you bump into something, it kind of gets the adrenaline going again. First of all, I didn't know is it a child? Is it a dog? Is it a toy or whatever. But then I felt enough that it was a child picked it up live as a dish Ray, and I'm thinking oh, my goodness, we didn't get here in time, I really thought the child was deceased. I already had pre planned in my mind that if I'm going to go down stairs, I don't know how if the fires progressed, or if they're knocking it down. But I've already told myself if I have to come down, I'm gonna have to come down to one of the windows in the front part of the apartment. So I've got to challenge one arm and I'm kind of like a one armed man crawling through there and I found the wall, found one of the windows and they hit these. They're called your lousy windows, these crank metal Windows is sometimes they're very cantankerous, I tried to open the first one too, and wasn't having a lot of success one handed. And then I hear a muffled voice to my left saying, Come down to the next window. Well, I made my way feel my way down to the next window. And Steve who he had thrown up a ladder and he was on the ladder. So he on the outside and me on the inside with one hand. We got to jelastic windows open, patched the child down. But he's still I really thought he was deceived. But I passed him to Steve. We were to block from Baylor hospital, they rushed him over to Baylor, and he survived, which made me feel really well. Matter of fact, there's been times I actually tried a couple times to try to track him down to see where he was in the you know, all that ails. A lot of things ran through my mind, because this has been several years. I think he would be in his 40s now, but I thought you know, it, I think it'd be kind of neat to find him if I could, but and as I climb down the ladder, thinking, What do I do I need to make that loop again. Because he said initially they were two people do babies but then he said No, the other ones were next door. So everything worked out really good on that run. Here's a I don't like to call them highlight with it was a little peak thing in my career that I'm very, very proud of it is. I guess they This was golden. The guards that they in? It worked out really well.
Chuck Hampton:that's a that's a great story. And imagine you you were supposed to be on the ambulance that
Pat Murphy:I was supposed to be able to get dragged the tail board is a driver and yeah,
Chuck Hampton:things just worked out. Good for everybody. That's awesome. And it's so unfortunate, but so common that we don't get to follow up. Yeah, it would be fantastic to see you know how that young man's life turned out. But that's that's kind of the way it usually is, is we don't we don't get to know.
Pat Murphy:I'm not I've I don't know how many times mercury I know I've done it a few times, is how it actually would have a really bad incident or maybe a rescue on a major accident. It took us quite a while of doing an ad. I don't know if I was supposed to or not. But sometimes I'd go to the hospital after the fact that they are to later check on them and see and in some cases, we have people come by the station that we've done a rescue on and whatever you are, they'll bring soda waters and cakes and cookies in this Nether. So a lot of times I really kind of wanted to check to see well how wonder how that person is doing or has this person do it? Yeah. So
Chuck Hampton:I often wanted to also but but most of the time did not find out and you mentioned you know, occasionally somebody coming by the station and thanking you. My experience was I got a lot of thanks for the things that were the most inconsequential, you know, and you know, so most time you have an incident like that where you really make a difference in difference in somebody's life or death. You never hear never hear, right? But if you get their dog out of a sewer that they would have eventually gotten out of anyway, man, they're coming with their friends and their cakes and their cookies.
Pat Murphy:Oh, we're gonna kick it seemed like it happened more times than not would people would come and bring the cakes and cookies and thank everybody in. Actually it was the bishop that did the run. And he says, you know,
Chuck Hampton:Ed will your honor bound to eat all of that before they get there.
Pat Murphy:As part of it. Then in 1988 had a smoking area called home granted homes in Word Tilden over there. And sure enough, we saw this smoker stuff. Well What happened? A car, apparently the man and woman his car got in the argument while they were driving. And they ran into a one of these big telephone box things. And either his foot stuck on the accelerator or something. The tires are just spinning on the Cadillac and smoking up the whole area. And I thought, well, we'll try to figure this out. Well, unbeknownst to me, they had seen an angle serve for the major accident. And they were down about a half a block down, kind of had behind his building. And they got on there. They said, We wouldn't bother. You want to go in the two people. They're fighting over a gun. Oh, yeah. And I'm thinking, Wait a minute. Anyway, we get off the engine. And sure enough, they're almost out of the car. They're tugging and pulling and tugging and pulling nothing Gosh. And at first I thought that was way the police get here. But then the school bus pulls up in stops. And about 50 kids get out, start walking down the sidewalk. And I'm talking like 40 or 50 feet from where they are. And I'm thinking Oh, and I didn't really know what to tell my crew. So Addis was trying to get the two people's attention. So they quit talking and all this kind of stuff. And I just kept making more, a little closer and a little closer look when I get close enough. They were just a man or woman they were pulling and tugging she had a hold of the barrel. He had a hold of the stock. But I can see the hammer wasn't caught and nobody had their finger in the trigger whale there. So I'm thinking so when I finally got him settled down a little bit, I just grab all I can grab in the pistol just pop right back up the hill. And simultaneously when I grabbed the gun, I think it was Jimmy waters and August galley one was in front of the car and it was a bag they grabbed both of them and took them down to make sure everything was okay. But I kind of got I'm not gonna meet you at night, but I got my butt chewed by a senior officer who accused me of being john wayne, or acting like john and i tried to explain I said you would did this had to been there. He's not gone. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. You don't do that kind of stuff. I said you but he never did take myself out of the story. But I was so concerned about all those kids. I mean, they were just right over there. And plus the two people that were fine. So anyway, that was another one with why I'm meeting here we get a call to a smoking area and and there's a being drawn Wayne deal. So anyway, and one more and then I'll be quiet here. 1995. back I used to use hiring back is when the guy told me not to get a part time job. Yeah. Most time I didn't know. But when they started hiring people back that was my part time job. Which was over time.
Mike Otto:The listener doesn't know Yeah, that's what we call getting overtime shift was a higher back exactly. It Anyway, I
Pat Murphy:got hired back station to nice, quiet semi quiet station, not Dallas. Probably don't have three, four fires a year and everything. Well, we're sitting there and boom, bell hits we'll go out have a good house fire. Supposed to be a lady inside. So not one of these deals. Me and Mike Mike house would go in. We don't have a liner thing. We're gonna go in and try to find out what's going on. And Jason Hall, he was right and easy. 35 that day, we in micronesian to Jason whole house land, but in Georgia, but he's playing it smart. He's going he's getting ready to get back and he's waiting for him to give him some water. Well, we go into two different parts of the house. And me and Mike can't find anything that we rarely can keep up with where each other. Yes. And then we're here, Jason Holman. Over here, over here over here. Well, he had found the lady in a bad stuff. And but he couldn't get her out by himself. So it took all we could all three of us to get that lady out of out of the house and stuff. And again, I'm thinking I'm a higher back. I'm working on the house fires me Why Why am I here in this in in I you know, I think a lot of people said what it was divine intervention. It was it may well have been it may well have been on all four of these cases. But still, I mean, I'm proud of them. I'm glad I get to do some good things. But there's so many other people in this department that could have done exactly the thing and some of them even more or whatever. And now this think
Mike Otto:well, I have an opinion on this, actually. I mean, I can't tell why why you were in those situations, you know, but at post 911 you know, the whole public attitude towards the fire service and whatnot changed drastically, you know, into this day. You know, if I got a fire department t shirt on somebody saying thank you for your service and whatnot, which is very nice for people to do, you know, but after I went to the New York compliments a local 58, wound up to go to the firefighters memorial services, and I thought about later, this the this hero stuff, which I'm really, you know, uncomfortable, and I don't think that anybody is a hero, by virtue of their profession, I think they can do heroic things, when presented with an opportunity to do something that they totally didn't expect to have or whatever. And then they respond, you know, they respond to their training, or just their gut, their heart, their whatever. But, but for whatever reason, they do heroic things, as opposed to saying, oh, he's a fireman, or a police officer, or he's a veteran, and he's a hero. Very well, maybe. But I'm saying that, that a true hero is somebody that is presented with a situation that where he can either act or not act, and if his actions and if he acts, he's a hero in my book,
Pat Murphy:I mean, I'm very fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time. And everything fell in place. And, and I mean, I felt good about doing some of the things I did, but it wasn't that I was looking forward it was it just kind of fell in my lap, I guess you'd say and,
Mike Otto:like, see that the head, but you did what it took to mitigate the situation. You know, your how you got there. That's another story. But you know, you were there. And you did what you had to do.
Chuck Hampton:My next question for Pat was if he had any lessons learned from his career that he could share with us? Here's his response.
Pat Murphy:Well, yeah, I've learned but I want to pass them on, especially to the younger people to get on the fire department. This is advice from me, you can take it or leave it, but I think it works sometimes. When you're on the job and on the department, you need to keep your mind open and clear until you arrive on the scene. And then make decisions based on a little common sense. A lot of safety, and you're trusting your co workers and your training and experiences. Everyone goes home. Very good. Very good. So On a related note, any,
Chuck Hampton:any major mistakes, anything that you think boy, I screwed that up. I wish I had done that differently.
Pat Murphy:Okay, I'm probably not going in the same direction you want me to. But for me, personally, the biggest mistake when I go back and think about my career, the biggest mistake that I didn't make it intentionally but it ended up being I was I got where I got so kind of engrossed in my job in what I was doing and where I was going and where I was heading, that I kind of started slacking off with my family. And if I could go back and change anything in my career, it would be that Okay,
Mike Otto:that's good advice. Always keep keep those priorities in line.
Pat Murphy:It took me a while to realize that it had occurred or was occurring, but it did in in some of it can't be changed now because it's been so long, right? So
Chuck Hampton:and over the course your career, any close calls, actually,
Pat Murphy:for 40 years, I was very, very fortunate that I did have on a ambulance called d h. JOHN T. May he rest in peace, my partner, Dr. Rhonda angles, we were headed to an unconscious call on Lafayette Street, which was about two districts out of our district. So he was pretty much in a hurry. We went through an intersection and got nailed with a dart bus that hit just in front of the Danny's brand front of him in the left hand wheel. The MCU did 180 degrees. The bumper, the MSU tour sat out of the bus when all the commotion stopped out. I wasn't knocked out, but I was pretty groggy, and I looked over it and I was swore my partner was dead. I mean he was slumped over and not moving. I wasn't even sure he was breathing. But we basically some people from around came out and got the doors open. God got me out. Then he started picking up a little bit and everything so it was a I believe if it had been three foot farther towards Donnie he probably would have been killed and it was a pretty good wreck here. He was going probably 3540 miles an hour and a big bus. So john T.
Chuck Hampton:Did he smoke apart?
Pat Murphy:He Yes, he did. Maybe retired out of 50 threes. Does that sound right? Yes. Oh, yeah, remember him he was out I love man. He has a very good paramedic. Yep. But you could put Donnie an $800 suit. And he still was Donnie. I guarantee he ended up burning holes in it. He almost always had a pipe, mouth. And in a lot of times, he talked out the side of his mouth because of the power of
Chuck Hampton:a few characters like that one of them in particular. Every time I saw him, he looked like he'd been shot with a double barreled wrinkle gun.
Pat Murphy:Donny would, when we were running out of 40 fours, nearly every time we go to park and inspect in the wee hours of the morning, we'd get through, we'd go out we'll hit up in the back and get on the stretch and go to sleep. And I'd drive back to station in most of them. I just back in I go to bed next time we had a run hit in the back of the ambulance. And I'd go bang under Danny get out front. Yeah, he was he was very good partner. I really enjoyed him low demand. And we had some some fun times in South Dallas.
Chuck Hampton:As we continue to chat, the conversation naturally turned towards station laugh. And Pat told us about some of his experiences that occurred, not at the scene of an emergency, but just there with the characters at the Firehouse.
Pat Murphy:I was I was a fairly new officer and went to the station as a new lieutenant. And I've learned that you never should change things. Really, if you're like, if you're new officer go into a station, don't go in there and say, oh, we're gonna change this and change that change it. I didn't want to do that. I want to try to see how they handle things. But one thing that I did want to do it this particular station was I wanted to rotate the cooking. You know, you have some stations for one person would go buy groceries and cook all the meals and everything in it. Sometimes I thought that that's a good deal. But it might not be a good deal for that individual and listen anyway. I said we're going to rotate to cook in Nice. Well get one of these young men came to me. He said, they said Lou he said, I don't I don't cook very well. And I said that's okay. I said this, you know, we'll make it do you know, we'll we'll have the hours guys. we rotated around we'll finally when he got to use rotation without cleaning up the apparatus and doing everything that we do in the morning and doing all reports and whatever. And he gets on the intercom says staff for lunch. We walk in to table he's already set the table. He's got a plate out there. There were this see six plates there with a half a cantaloupe on each plate. And each one of those cantaloupe was full of chili What? And we walked in there and I looked at goodness. And I looked at him he said cap I told you
Chuck Hampton:earlier that Antonia couldn't cook.
Pat Murphy:We didn't have him cooking. In another station deal. I just took the call it wasn't for me. There was a gentleman who was kinda maybe semi abused is sick time occasionally. And he called him one morning and go where to get who's, who's gonna be sick, and it's nothing really reported to the deputy chief and all this kind of business. And he said, report me off sick and then just hung up the phone. I knew that was I said, Hey, I got to tell the chief What's wrong with you, you know, you got a you got a headache, whatever. He said, I've got anal cataracts. And I said, cataracts. He did an anal cataract. I said, I don't know that. I know that when he said, My eyes don't see my eyes coming to work today.
Chuck Hampton:It's pretty good.
Pat Murphy:I can tell you something funny. But this nation right here.
Chuck Hampton:Tell me something about eds. And for our listeners. We're in the Dallas firefighters Museum, which is the old fire station number five for the Dallas Fire Department. So you say you've got a story about this particular fire station.
Pat Murphy:I used to swing I've worked in this district and I've swung to this station periodically. And in the little phone booth you have out here one day, I'm mostly across the street over here and I got the phone numbers to these two payphones across the street right there in front of the airport right by the gates fair, Martin. When you're standing in the phone booth, you can see the people over there. Okay. dial the number. Somebody would eventually answer the payphone across the street and say Hey, how you doing today. Fine, I said, Hey, I work for the telephone company. And I'm down the street here. I'm on the telephone pole above the white owl cafe right down the street here. And I will make sure you can hear me, okay? If this lines, okay? And they say what I said, I said, I'm down here on a pole above the White House. I say, look, look down to your south, in there did kind of sorta nice, well, I don't see it. I said, Well, look, I see you just look down to the south. And if you can hear me, wave, and then wave and as well, if you can give him a real good way with two hands on having jumping up and down and waving and or I'd make a comment, especially if it was a lady answered the phone. I say Ma'am, I said, I'm on the telephone pole down the street here. I said, That's a beautiful red dress you have. And she's looking looking. And I said, just look down to Jeff Dean, where the wild ale Cafe is. We'll just look down to the south. I'm up on polar if you can, if you can hear me this way. We do that pretty pretty often just for a little entertainment between Ron's
Chuck Hampton:habit, a fireman with a little bit of free time is a very dangerous thing. So looking back over your career, I know you worked with a lot of great people. Was there anyone that stood out that you hold in particularly high esteem?
Pat Murphy:Yeah, but in fact, there's a few probably even several, but I'll give you the top of my list. First of all, I had to save Denny burrs Dini in our rookie school together. His brother in law actually was in rookie class with us. It was like a big family. But Danny has done so much in is still doing so much for the fire department. I have the utmost respect for him. And Matter of fact, if you talk to Danny about Pat Murphy, we call I always call him Padre leave. But Danny,
Chuck Hampton:Paul, Michael Freeman,
Pat Murphy:most respect for power, Michael Freeman. Good, Chief good, man. Good everything. That's the best time best way I can put it. Now the the other ones or trailblazers that a lot of people may disagree with me on this, but I feel very strongly about these people here. Andy and rica's Caleb Parker, and Sherry Wilson. Now, for those of you that aren't up on all the fire department issues, any was the first Hispanic, the fire department, Howard, Kenneth Parker was the first African African American. And Sherry Wilson was the first female. And I know there were several people that followed in their tracks. But I don't think anybody had to endure some of the things that all three of these people did by being the first, the first the first. So yeah, I have the utmost respect for those five people, and hopefully are the people on down the line.
Chuck Hampton:I can imagine, you know, you were talking earlier about the agitation certainly can be difficult starting this job for anybody. If you were the first member of one of those minority groups, back in the 70s. Economically imagine, it probably would have been even that much tougher.
Pat Murphy:The firearm has gone through a lot of changes. And personally, for me, I think most of them were for the good for the better. And now I've heard a lot of negativity, headed towards all three of these people. And that's kind of why I have all the respect for because they took so much flak to to be a part of this wonderful fire department that we have.
Chuck Hampton:What to say Pat Murphy for being on the show today, along with Mark Otto and Mark Hoskins for their participation. There'll be more information about Pat Murphy and other topics that were mentioned in today's show, such as links to newspaper articles on the website firehouse talk comm if you enjoyed today's show, be sure to leave us a five star review on your podcast app. Also, I know that a lot of you are listening from your computer, which is cool. But if you're not taking advantage of one of the many apps that are out there, which enable you to listen to podcasts, like this one while you're driving you are missing out far has taught can be found on Apple podcast, Spotify, Amazon, music, Pandora, and many other listening apps. The next episode will feature Kristin Whitaker and Byron tibble. I hope you'll be able to join us for that. I'm also planning deep dives on numerous topics relevant to Dallas Fire Department history. If you responded to a major incident where we had a line of duty death or close call and have information you'd like to share about that incident. Send me a message. The same goes for historically important incidents like the Swiss gondola incident that pat touched on. If you don't have my contact information You can always send a message to the firehouse talk.com website. Until next time, that is all kk in 377 Fire Department city of Dallas.