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Savannah Dupree

Professor Debra Jizi

UWRT 1103-012

23 March 2018

1. How does being a firefighter/paramedic effect an individual and their family?

2. The reason that I chose this topic is because my dad is a firefighter. For 17 years of my

life he was gone for 24 hour shifts at a time. With him being gone so much, my mom had

to take over disciplining and making decisions for our family. This put a strain on their

relationship because she was seen as the “mean” parent and he was seen as the “fun”

parent. Due to his work schedule, I was not able to have as close of a relationship with

him. The physical strain of being a firefighter is more than most people can take. As my

dad has aged, he definitely has more health problems and looks older than most people

his age. He has knee and shoulder problems from all of the years of running in and out of

fires carrying bodies and crawling into tight spaces. Through this inquiry, I hope to find

out if other families of firefighters/paramedics experience similar struggles. I would like

to know what exactly the health risks are of being a firefighter and if you can do anything

to prevent them. I would also like to find out why they are paid so little for the great,

heroic work they do.

3. Since my dad is a firefighter, I have many preconceptions about the job and the effects of

the job. I believe that having a parent or a spouse that is a firefighter/paramedic can cause

a great amount of stress. I believe that there is a huge physical strain on firefighters’

bodies from crawling in and out of tight spaces and from carrying bodies of all sizes out

of fires. I believe that there may be a link between shorter life span and being a firefighter
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due to smoke inhalation causing strain on the lungs and even death while fighting a fire. I

believe that their pay should increase dramatically because they run into fires to save

lives. There’s not too many people out there that would voluntarily do that, but they do!

This inquiry will require me to put my bias aside in order to find out if scientific research

proves my beliefs to be true.