I know this has nothing to do with the documentary, but Michael is a very dear friend and as you've read, I had the honor and privilege of riding with him and Ray Thibault a couple of Saturdays ago.

The photograph to the left was taken by me earlier this year at Chester Barrows Elementary School in Cranston, RI. The man in the foreground is Lt. Michael Morse. The man in the background is his brother, SFC Robert Morse of the RI National Guard's 1207th Transportation Company. A little background on why they were at the school... My Mom, Pat Blackman, is known as "Grandma Muggle" to several classes at three different Cranston elementary schools. She started out about six years ago visiting my niece, Amberlee's class at Chester Barrows to read to the class. The teachers fell in love with her, as did the kids and it turned into what is now known as the "Grandma Muggle Club". The kids have done numerous service projects, including making place cards for the food trays at the Veterans' Hospital, donating to the "Put Your Two-Cents' Worth In" campaign which has raised money for various charity events and they have also adopted RI soldiers serving in Iraq, sending them letters and care packages. Robert Morse was "adopted" by the Grandma Muggle Club. When he came home on an "R & R" leave, he only had two weeks to spend with his wife, kids and family. He took an entire afternoon out of that time and he and Michael visited the kids at Chester Barrows Elementary School. Not only did he do that, but he also schleped home two Muslim prayer rugs that he had made for the kids, which had the logo of the 1207th and the name of the school in English and Arabic, as well as certificates from the commander of the 1207th officially thanking the kids for their support. The kids were fascinated with both Robert and Michael - asking all kinds of questions about Iraq and the fire department. I skulked around the classrooms while Robert talked to the kids and as I was photographing the event, I noticed something. Every time Robert mentioned returning to Iraq, Michael would suddenly look absolutely forlorn. The kids didn't notice - in fact, I'm sure I was the only one who did. I decided to try to capture that image... the love of brothers - never really spoken, but always there.

I caught this image after several tries. It had gotten to the point where Michael was pretty much ignoring the fact that I was shooting at all. Knowing Michael, he probably assumed that I was taking a picture of Robert. But I got the image and I'm so glad that I did, because Robert is home now - safe and home. Thank God for that. I look forward to having a chance someday to take another photograph of them, simply enjoying each other's company and content in the fact that they've each endured so much in their own right, but survived.

I am honored to know such wonderful men... men who lay their lives on the line for the protection of others. Selflessly dedicated, loyal, kindhearted... that is what I see in "The Morse Boys".

See? Everybody Gets Their Fifteen Minutes

<--- photo taken at Chester Barrows Elementary School - June, 2007 by Erin L. Blackman (Handsome bugger, isn't he?) :-D

It gives me GREAT pleasure to post this piece. The following article appeared in today's Providence Sunday Journal about Lt. Michael Morse and his book, "Rescuing Providence", which I am very much looking forward to reading. I am so excited for Michael and so proud to call him "friend". Congratulations, Michael.

Bob Kerr: The story of the city with feeling

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, September 16, 2007

I don’t like lying to people who I know will be dead in minutes because it doesn’t seem fair. It’s hypnotic in the back of a rescue when the fight for life is lost and resignation appears in the victims’ faces. I tell them to hang on, to keep fighting, but they know the truth. I can see it in their eyes. I am the last thing they see before leaving this earth forever.
— Lt. Michael Morse in Rescuing Providence



Many of us try to peel back the cover on the city now and then — look into those seldom-seen places where people do crazy, mean, loving, funny, desperate things. But Michael Morse does it again and again and again. There are times when he might want a break from it, maybe a whole hour to put his head back and not deal with all that injury and pain and assorted madness.

But then comes the call: “Rescue 3 and Engine 12, respond to Hawkins and Admiral for a reported shooting.”

And he is off again, into the rescue wagon and off to another human pileup in Providence — and another chance to see the city with a writer’s eyes.

Morse has been an emergency medical technician (EMT) and firefighter in Providence for 16 years. He is one of those people, like most who work at firehouses, who are hooked on the job. Despite the falling-down fatigue that comes with call after call, he would have it no other way.

He has been a writer for a lot of years too. It is tough to say just when that part of him kicked in. He remembers his days at Bishop Hendricken High School, where he did not light up the honor roll. But he got that B in English once. There were some early indications that he could do things with the language.

And he has. He’s written a book, and it’s so damn good that I can’t stand this guy. I mean, just where does he get off climbing out of a rescue wagon and writing with this kind of feeling and pace and vivid recollection?

It’s called Rescuing Providence, and it covers one 34-hour shift around Easter weekend of 2004.

“I was driving to work one day and just decided to write a book about this,” he told me.

He started taking notes. He would finish a call and write down the most memorable details. When he got home, he typed up the notes.

“I would live it, then relive it.”

Sometimes, he says, he would remember something a couple of days later and think, “that was interesting.” And he would write it down.

He has been published before, in Rhode Island Monthly and on the editorial pages of The Providence Journal. He wrote a wonderful piece about the challenges EMTs face when removing drunks from city streets.

When he finished his book, he says, he sat back and waited for the publishers to knock down his door. Instead, they sent rejection slips. Morse’s wife, Cheryl, says there really were enough rejection slips to paper a good part of a room in their house in Warwick.

Then came the day when Morse was mowing the lawn and Cheryl came out to tell him that the call had come from his agent: A publisher had picked up Rescuing Providence.

It will be officially released in a few weeks by Paladin Press. Morse isn’t sure how much promotion he’ll do. This is all very new to him.

But buy this book, and not just because it is drawn from the streets of Providence. Buy it because it gives us all the chance to go to the places and meet the people that we too quickly pass by. Buy it for the opportunity to know the incredible things that happen when a stranger from the Fire Department shows up to sew people up and calm people down and sometimes deal with the mean and dangerous side of the city.

There was the time Morse was called to the scene of a stabbing after a street brawl. As he approached the injured man, he was told by another man, “If he dies, you die.”

“You stupid bastard,” I told him, focused on the patient and annoyed at the interruption. “Your friend is bleeding to death and you have to bust my balls. Get out of the way, or your friend will die on those steps.”

What makes Morse’s book such a pleasure to read is not just the accounts of the rescue calls but the way he blends in the memories of the way the city used to be and his life with Cheryl and their two daughters and the special connection that develops with the people who work alongside him. He tells of going food shopping with his grandmother on Federal Hill. And he tells of dealing with the changes that had to be made when Cheryl discovered she had multiple sclerosis.

Then, late in the book, is the reminder that on any call, an EMT can face the worst kind of human tragedy. Morse was working out of the Branch Avenue station when a fire call came in. A mother had left two babies with a babysitter and gone out for a drink. The babysitter left the babies because she wanted to have some fun and assumed the babies were asleep. Both babies were burned to death.

Morse recalls he was in the station the next day, blaming himself for the disaster and saying, “I’ll never wish for another fire.” Chief Ronny Moura, whom he describes as a “grizzled veteran firefighter and all-around tough guy,” overheard him.
“Kid,” says Moura, “any firefighter worth half a sh— wants fires. Quit crying and get off the cross. We need the wood.”
And so it goes for those who do the work that EMTs and firefighters do. No one on the outside can possibly understand.
But we can read Rescuing Providence and get a rich and varied taste of it.

“I hope people feel what I feel,” says Morse. “I hope they come away with a better understanding of our profession.”

A reader of this truly fine book will surely do that.

bkerr@projo.com

Rescue 1 – Mundane to Amazing

Saturday, 15 September '07

So, I dragged myself out of bed at quarter to five this morning and got ready to ride along with Lt. Michael Morse and FF Ray Thibault on Rescue 1, which is housed on Allens Avenue. I say I dragged myself out of bed – but that really isn’t true. I was excited to be riding with Michael. We had talked about it several times, then as I stated in my last blog, he was injured, so it had to be postponed. We finally had our day, though – and what a day it was. Got to see a bunch of guys I hadn't seen in a while and others I'd seen only last week, but it was quite nice to see all of them.

I arrived at the station at seven this morning, just about the same time as Michael. It was quiet for the first couple of hours, but as per usual, the boys at the station did their morning cleaning. The weather was gross – rainy and depressing, but I was looking forward to the sun coming out in the afternoon. That was what they were claiming on the news, anyway.

We got a call to assist a young man who was having some sort of blood pressure issue, turned out he hadn’t taken his medication today - a “taxi ride”, essentially, to RI Hospital. Our next call was to the scene of a motor vehicle accident on Elmwood Avenue. One of the parties involved was extremely disoriented and it was thought he might have a head injury. Turned out that the man is a regular customer at Borders, where I work. That was somewhat odd. We brought him to RIH to get checked out because he was exhibiting signs of a TIA. We had a couple of calls for pregnant women with abdominal pains, but no babies born on the rescue today – another call for a woman with low blood sugar.

It was fairly quiet after that, until we got a call to Pine Street for a man with a head injury. When we arrived on scene, Engine 3 was already there. I knew two of the people on the Engine – FF Donna Luce and FF Vinny Clemens; the other two guys were fresh out of the academy. There was a palpable difference with this call. Things happen so fast on these runs that I barely know what’s happening until it’s all over. This time, though, there was an extreme sense of urgency. Turns out the guy that we were picking up had fallen down a narrow, cement staircase in the basement of a house. He was unresponsive, but still breathing. When the team brought him out and placed him onto the gurney, I could see that the guy was completely out of it. His arm was falling off the backboard – they had to keep laying it over his stomach. They got him to the rig, got the gurney in and Michael, Ray, Donna and one of the new guys all got into the back of the rescue. I hopped into the front seat to film through the opening. The scene was incredible to me – no one said much, they just each did their job. Ray got the vitals, Donna set up an IV and Ray started the line, Donna got the guy’s blood sugar level, Michael took down all of the information and tried to get the guy’s friend to give some information. He wasn’t much help, so finally Michael gave the patient’s cell phone to the friend and told him to look for a home number. He apparently found it and called the patient’s wife. I filmed as this was happening and it was truly a remarkable sight. Each firefighter did their job and Michael clearly led the team through the whole run.

That having been said let me digress and tell you a little bit about Michael. He is a very laid-back kind of person and does not consider himself to be a “leader” – and maybe he isn’t, in the traditional “barking orders” sense of the word. He just knows what he’s doing and he is probably one of the best EMTs on the job, so people just naturally look to him for guidance. At least that is what I witnessed today.

Now, back to the patient with the head injury – a forty-seven or forty-eight year old male, pupils dilated, unresponsive and (as Michael said) a “cracked melon”. The team had to take every precaution – apparently, they were made aware of the fact that the patient was intoxicated. They did not know whether he had taken any drugs or had a seizure – no idea what had caused the fall. They tried administering a drug that is used on people who have overdosed on illegal drugs to counteract the overdose. If the man responded to the drug, then they would know that he had overdosed. If not, then it was something far more serious. Unfortunately, the man did not respond to the medication. As a precaution, Michael decided to keep two other firefighters in the back of the Rescue with him. Quite often, when a patient has overdosed or been the victim of a head injury, they can awaken and become extremely violent. In a case such as that, they will have other firefighters remain onboard the rescue. This is another reason why an Engine company is dispatched to all Rescue calls. Ray Thibault and Vinny Clemens stayed in the back of the rig with Michael while we transported the patient to RIH. One of the new guys from Engine 3 drove Rescue 1 and Donna and the other new recruit took Engine 3 to the hospital. The patient was brought to the hospital and the whole time we were en route, the patient’s cell phone was ringing.

All I could think was that his wife must not have answered when the friend called her. She was probably trying to call him back.

After he was brought into the ER at RIH, the crew from Engine 3 headed back to quarters and a while after that, Michael and Ray came back out. Michael was telling me what was happening. In the space of less than twenty minutes, Engine 3 had arrived on scene and begun treatment. Rescue 1 arrived and everyone pitched in to get the guy stabilized and rushed to the ER. The ER immediately brought him to the Trauma Unit and the Trauma Team had him intubated and were evaluating him for further treatment.

We arrived back at the station a short time later and I was actually getting ready to leave when we caught another call. There was a woman suffering from complications of diabetes. She had already lost a couple of toes and would probably lose another. We got her to the ER – it was probably less than an hour since we had picked up the guy on Pine Street and Michael emerged from the ER and told me that he was in surgery. They believed that he had a bleed in his brain.

I witnessed something truly remarkable today – the Providence Fire Department’s amazing teamwork. I feel very privileged to have been party to that sight. I feel badly for the patient and his family and I do hope that he recovers and will be all right. His chances of that are much, much higher because of the speed and precision of the work done by the men and women of the PFD.

As amazing as that was, it was just as amazing to me that Michael really doesn’t realize what he and his Brothers and Sisters really do. I showed him part of the film footage from that run and he was amazed, himself. He sat watching it and saying, “wow” through it. He’s so focused on his own duties and has faith in what his fellow firefighters are doing that he has never had the chance to see just how incredibly impressive it really is.

So I also had the privilege of showing one of my Everyday Heroes just why it is that I call him that. With any luck, the others will also see just how incredible their job really is – and so will my audience when this is all said and done. I got something else out of it, too - again, that sense of having been adopted. "Hey, Erin, can you grab that glucometer for me? Thanks." "Hey, would you mind helping us transfer her to the hospital's gurney?" (That was answered with a, "sorry, Cap, I'm not on the job - I'll get Ray for you.") I even saved a c-collar from blowing away in the wind, hauled a bag back to the Rescue, held doors, closed compartments... stupid, maybe, but it was very telling to me. I'm trusted - and that means more than I could ever express in words. I'm proud - VERY proud - to feel that from these people. So thanks for that, Michael and Ray... you made me feel like one of your own.

Michael got a call back – he will be working tonight, as well as tomorrow’s day shift. Who knows if he’ll see home tomorrow evening? The beat goes on, people… never ending – twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Just when you think it’s gonna be all taxi rides and drunks, someone who truly needs you comes along – and you’re THERE for them; on your game, go team go – Bless them all.

My eternal thanks to all who participated today, especially Michael and Ray for dealing with the third wheel. Hope I stayed out of the way… and maybe showed you just how special you really are.