!Please Remain Calm‪!‬ Ben Gonzalez

We break down all of the Fire Department tv shows & movies of our lifetime. Scripted network tv shows from “9-1-1” to “Rescue Me” to “Emergency”. We tell you why things hit or miss & how dumb technical mistakes can ruin these shows for firefighters & paramedics. We tell you why the great ones are so great, & what would make a perfect show for us. Then we do the same thing with movies, we tell you which ones were the best & worst & why Backdraft is still the goat. We also talk about emergency driving & some disturbing trends Danny is seeing in the streets 

We talk about unexpected things in life, like more crazy airline incidents after our last airport episode, planes coming apart midflight, an earthquake on vacation, auto fire operations gone wrong, Danny's first fire, the Katt Williams interview, Hollywood child actor life, & Harvey Weinstein. Plus, Danny tells his "Weekend at Bernies" call story of a guy partying with his not alive friend for a while before calling 911, Ben gets bit by a dog, & we learn how to get banned from 911. 

We're joined by LAFD Firefighter Dan Meier, who joined the department at the ripe age of 48. Dan is super interesting & has worked literally every firefighting job you can think of: US Forestry, Bureau of Land Management, Air Force, dispatcher, Airport firefighter, aircraft firefighting instructor, & even the airport police. Dan tells us about working as a dual firefighter/policeman at the Ontario Airport, where he would work single shifts split between being a firefighter and being a cop. He worked with the DEA. He tells us how to spot people flying with drugs, what its like to work undercover, running into Snoop Dogg, responding to helicopter crashes, eridicating drug crops, landfills full of weed, aircraft firefighting, landing gear malfunctions, sliding down the rear chute, why you shouldnt wear high heels on a flight, older rookies, & more. This episode lands successfully.

We come back after taking most of last year off & catch up on all kinds of stuff: Dannys pool, the economy, the good and bad of too much overtime, staffing crisises at both of our jobs, stacking PTO vs using it up, flunking a paramedic intern, open neck wounds, freezing on calls, what its like being a Fire Inspector, Grey's Anatomy, promoting vs being happy at work, missing your partner, real life Weekend at Bernies situations, the difference between co star, guest star, top of show guest star, & why it sucks to go back to co star, & finally, dog bites in unimaginable places. This is a good start to the new year.  

We’re back with a deep philosophical dive into focus on the job, how you view interactions with patients & coworkers, flow state on the fireground, holographic multiverse, aging, synchronicity, losing weight, how we got into fitness, Mexican psychic readings, zen philosophy, & the final update on Danny’s pool (it’s done). 

We're joined by Army Veteran, & veteran Fresno County paramedic Mario Torralva. Mario was enjoying the county fair with his wife and friends, when he began to feel ill. He rapidly got worse, & his wife called for help and had him transported (by his coworkers) to the nearest ER. Doctors assumed he had a stroke based on his symptoms, but all scans were negative. When Mario would improve and be close to being released home, he would suddenly become very ill again and was even transferred back to the ICU. Mario winds up staying in the hospital for 3 weeks, baffling teams of doctors as they try to find out what his actual illness was. He has to endure exploratory surgery attempts, a 2.5 hour MRI, a lumbar puncture, a Nasogastric tube insertion, & more. Mario describes all the emotion of the hospital stay & trying to figure out his own diagnosis as well. You wont believe what it winds up being, how they discover it, & how his surgery goes. On top of that, he finds out how much damage was done, and has even more complications post surgery.  Mario explains it all from the perspective of a veteran paramedic, & discusses his recovery, & how it changed the extent to which he listens to his body. This is a real life episode of "House".