Engine 3 beeped as it inched into the stall at the fire station just west of downtown, back from a medical call late on a Wednesday morning.
It's one of the busiest stations for medical calls, especially on home football game weekends in the fall, firefighter Lamar Reil said.
And he wouldn't have it any other way.
Five years ago, he and five others graduated from Lincoln Fire & Rescue's recruit class. Today, they're all spread out, like spokes from a wheel, at fire stations across the city.
Adam "MAV" Vorderstrasse at Station 7, at the center of town. Cole Henn at Station 2, just west of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's East Campus. Jordan Petersen at Havelock's Station 5. Parry Siebenaler at Station 14 in the Highlands. Jon Wright at Station 8 in Irvingdale.
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And Reil at Station 3.
Asked how the past five years have gone, he's quick to answer.
"Good, real good actually," said Reil, who worked for 10 years in construction before switching careers.
About a year ago, he transferred to this station for its crew, which includes a lot of veterans, the firefighter/EMT said. Crew is everything in this job, Reil said. It's like another family.
In 30 seconds, he said, they could take off on a call and Jay or Eddie or Travis might have to save his life. Or the other way around.
Reil was at another station, straight out of the recruit class, when the alarm kicked in on a working fire. His first.Â
"I just remember getting in the truck and screaming down Highway 2," Reil said.
When they got there, flames engulfed the garage and stretched into the house. His crew's job: Go in, make sure no one was trapped inside.
At the door, he barely could see anything but smoke. Down the hallway, it was worse.
"It just went lights out," Reil said. "That's when I said 'OK. This is the real deal.'"
On hands and knees, he worked through the house and could tell from training when the attack team hit the flames with water and the heat turned up. Â
No one was inside, so they got out.
"That was my first fire," Reil said. "And I won't forget it."
At Station 2, by East Campus, Henn's interview on a Thursday afternoon gets cut short when a man walks up with a pain in his sternum. Henn, who drives Medic 2 every other 24-hour shift, has to leave.
The ambulance goes out on two more calls before it returns.
"We stay busy," Henn said later, back at the station.
Some days they might start running at 1 o'clock and not get back until supper. Some 24-hour shifts it's hard to find time to eat. Most days he likes the high speed of the station, but it can be relentless, he said, and turning off the radio isn't an option.Â
He said coming out of LFR's training five years ago he felt like he was ready, or at least as ready as he could be considering the endless amount of knowledge required for the job.
"I still feel like I'm learning every day," said Henn, who was a firefighter for three and a half years at Hastings before he got hired on at LFR. "All day it's just one decision after another."
It's a high-stress job, he said, and sometimes things don't go the way they want, despite doing everything they can to help. Henn said his faith in God helps — not necessarily in answering why things happen the way they do but in knowing that God has a bigger plan.
There have been times, too, where they have gone out on heart attack calls and brought people back.
It's pretty gratifying, he said, "And it makes you feel like what you're doing is worthwhile."
Over at Station 7, Vorderstrasse said LFR is kind of an extension of his family now, his co-workers like brothers and sisters.
Sometimes it's hard to believe it's been five years, he said. But he's got a reminder: a daughter born in May just before he finished his recruit training. He and his wife have two kids now.
Today, Vorderstrasse said he would tell new recruits to listen to the old guys and ask a ton of questions. LFR's class started him off with a solid foundation, he said, but each captain does things his or her own way, and what they teach them can help save their lives.
"I've learned 10 different ways to fight a fire since I've started," he said.
He remembers his biggest fire, at Thomasbrook Apartments in 2008, when he felt the adrenalin pumping and saw how a trench cut in the roof could help stop a fire from spreading.
Training can simulate a fire, but it can't replicate the adrenalin when it happens for real, Vorderstrasse said.
Still, he said, he was 30 when he came into this job, and it's probably the first he's had where he can't wait for his shifts to start.
When his captains talk about life after LFR, they say it sometimes feels like they never had a real job, and that's how he feels, too.
"I have no regrets whatsoever," Vorderstrasse said.Â