Firehouse philosophers
Although it was a Friday night following a tough week of classes, junior Lionel Conacher had hoped to spend the evening catching up on his economics reading. But instead of immersing himself in numbers on that January night, Conacher found himself speeding through the zero-degree cold six different times in a fire engine or ambulance. Conacher, who hails from Cambridge in Ontario, Canada, is participating along with Stuart Chandler, also a junior, from Chappaqua, N.Y., in an unusual living arrangement at the Hanover Fire Department. The pair receives full-time lodging and a small monthly stipend in exchange for parttime firefighting and paramedical help.
Dartmouth student "live-ins." as they are called, have been giving the Hanover Fire Department "an extra set of good hands" since 1971, according to Fire Chief Stuart Corpieri. Conacher and Chandler, the only two students currently enrolled in the program, are expected to answer alarms with the onduty firefighters whenever they are in the station. In addition, they are on call two nights a week, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m., to assist Hanover's only ambulance service, which the fire department operates. It can make for a busy schedule, as the department responds to about 500 fire calls and 700 ambulance calls each year.
"For the most part, it's a great place to study." Chandler said of his station house accommodations. "But when it is bad, it's really bad. You never, never wait until the last night [before a deadline] to do your work."
Interested Dartmouth students usually are referred to Chief Corpieri by the College's housing office. Chandler learned of the program from his former Little League coach in Chappaqua, who worked as a firefighter in New York City. Chandler told Conacher about the program during their freshman year and the two decided to apply for the following year.
The students are trained on the job in support tasks to a level comparable to or beyond that of local volunteers, and they often complete 140 hours of emergency medical training on their own. According to Corpieri, many of the nearly 50 students who have participated in the program since its inception have been interested in health, and seven have gone on to become physicians.
More challenging than their technical training, Conacher and Chandler said, was gaining the acceptance of the professional firefighters who sometimes voice irritation with college students because of the frequency of false alarms in dormitories. "It was almost like hazing at a fraternity when you come down to it," Conacher said of his early days at the station. "But it was more important for me to be accepted at the firehouse than at my fraternity house."
"One term will make or break you," Chandler added. "But once you get to know them, those guys will do anything for you."
Conacher and Chandler say they plan to continue with the live-in program until graduation. "You are pretty much expected to," Chandler said. "For the first two terms, you don't really know what you're doing. After getting in the way and standing around looking dumb a while, though, you start to learn quickly."
The station's pace can be exhausting at times for students with rigorous academic loads. Conacher and Chandler describe stretches when they are called out on fire alarms on 10 to 12 consecutive nights. And after getting used to almost daily doses of excitement, they say, the periods when there are no calls can be just as frustrating. "It's one of those Catch-22 situations," Chandler said. "When you don't get a call, you want one." Only about 80 of the more than 500 fire calls the department handies annually turn out to be real fires; the rest are usually false alarms. Chandler has yet to be "in the heat," as he calls fighting a fire, while Conacher had his first experience at battling a blaze last summer.
Despite the time pressure and long hours, Conacher and Chandler say the firehouse experience has been worth it, particularly for the opportunity to experience other parts of the community outside of the campus environs. "It changes your perspective on school work when you see somebody try to commit suicide, when you are seeing people who are really suffering and then look at students who complain about making themselves work too hard," Conacher said.
Neither Chandler nor Conacher plans a career in firefighting or medicine when they are graduated. Chandler, an anthropology and Chinese major, said he hopes to study at Beijing Normal University in the People's Republic of China after graduating in June 1985. Conacher, an economics and art history major, said he hopes to compete for his native Canada in the decathlon event in the 1988 Seoul, Korea, Olympiad and later possibly enroll in a master's of business administration program.
However, they both say they will never be able to let go of their firefighting experience completely. "I'll be a vollie [volunteer firefighter] for the rest of my life," Conacher said. "There's a culture and a life-style to it that just grow on you, and you can't get rid of it. Whenever a fire truck passes at home, I just want to be on the back of it, riding the engine again."
As much at home in a firehouse as in a frat house, these two juniors are participatingin an unusual living arrangement at the Hanover Fire Department. Stuart Chandler'85, left, and Lionel Conacher '85, right, receive lodging and a small stipend in returnfor helping put all those shiny gauges and massive hoses to use as the need arises.
