Whether he’s dissecting Fox TV’s 9-1-1 and how its practices would get real first responders fired, observing the range of characters found in every fire/EMS training session, or adapting a plastic chicken into an audio tracking device for firefighters, Facebook/Instagram/YouTube video satirist (and firefighter/paramedic) Jason Patton is drop-dead funny. (Just search Fire Department Chronicles to find his videos.)
The dramatic but dead wrong EMS practices of 9-1-1 are nicely skewered in the video “How to Get Fired 101 (9-1-1 Reviews Continued).” After showing a clip where one of the show’s EMTs digs into a conscious patient’s leg to stop bleeding before a) asking a teammate to hold the agonized patient’s shoulders and b) then applying a tourniquet, Patton cuts into the action to say, “Anyone else wonder why they didn’t just use a tourniquet in the first place? Hey, did you know that tourniquet comes from the Latin to keep your job?”
In the Fire Department Chronicles video “Every Fire and EMS Training,” Patton plays the instructor plus archetypal students such as “the complainer,” “the brown nose,” “the texter,” “the joker,” “the idiot,” “the cocky know-it-all,” “the sleeper,” “the miniature bladder,” “the Inappropriate guy,” and “the snacker”—all with different voices and body languages in 75 quick seconds.
Meanwhile, in a mock infomercial for the “emergency chicken air breathing system,” Patton inserts the head of a gag-shop plastic chicken with built-in noisemaker into an SCBA face mask. Whenever the wearer exhales, the ECAB’s “patented poultry filtration device” makes a horrible honking sound. As Patton’s smooth infomercial announcer puts it, “Your fellow firefighters will be able to find you using our patented ‘squawk technology,’ which penetrates all ear drums and walls.”
These are just some of the many extremely funny videos found on Patton’s Fire Department Chronicles pages. Although most are produced using just a smartphone and basic editing software, all are fast-paced and engaging thanks to Patton’s smart, snappy scripting, mobile face, and confident on-camera presence.
The humor in the Fire Department Chronicles speaks directly to the life experiences of firefighters and EMTs/paramedics, and it isn’t surprising Patton has nearly 700,000 Facebook and 231,000 Instagram followers, plus 57,300 YouTube subscribers. This last number doesn’t include thousands of nonsubscribers who have watched Fire Department Chronicles videos. For his first video, which featured Patton fiendishly riding an exercise bike in sync with the Flashdance song “Maniac” in various stationhouse locations, “I got over a million views,” Patton tells EMS World.
Patton shot and posted that first video four years ago just for the heck of it. Its content and the content in successive Fire Department Chronicles videos reflects his take on first responder humor—namely that it needs to be simple, relevant, and PG-13.
“People want humor that they can relate to,” says Patton. “As a result, 99% of what I do is based on my own life experiences and what I find personally funny. That said, people do offer me suggestions, and if I think I can do something based on them that is really funny, then I do.”
One of these suggestions was based on a Wall Street Journal video entitled, “The Top 5 Things Firefighters Won’t Tell You.” One example: “While paramedics in the U.S. also typically have doctors to consult with via radio,” said the WSJ announcer, “most jurisdictions discourage consultations.”
Visibly appalled by the WSJ’s false-and-possibly-defamatory claim, Patton cut into their video to ask, “Who did you have fact-checking this? Was it an intern you forced to sit down and watch all six seasons of the show Emergency!?” His subsequent comments demolished the pretensions of such mainstream media “reports” in fire/EMS and nicely underlined how little the media understands the realities of fire/EMS life.
Patton’s grounded-in-experience videos have received positive reviews. “Everybody enjoys it; it’s all harmless stuff,” he says. “My department doesn’t mind me doing it because there’s no cursing, it’s all PG-13, and I do my best not to offend people.” And although his videos have led to Patton being recognized at fire/EMS events and working with the firefighter-owned Fire Department Coffee gourmet food company, fame has not gone to his head. In fact, Patton is still amazed by the popularity of his videos.
“I put out a video about the natural mating call of paramedics—which is complaining, by the way—and got 100,000 views in eight hours,” he says. “This was monstrous. I couldn’t believe it. It was so cool!”
What really matters to Patton, though, is that his fire/EMS humor videos are making life better for his public safety viewers.
“I found out really quickly that there is a huge mental health aspect to the popularity of Fire Department Chronicles,” he says. “A lot of fire and EMS people are watching the videos after bad calls or having a rough shift, and they tell me my humor helps raise their spirits a bit. I am grateful to be able to do this for them while having fun making the videos at the same time.”
James Careless is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to EMS World.
The Link LonkAugust 30, 2020 at 01:09PM
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Fire Department Chronicles Brings the Funny to Fire/EMS - EMSWorld
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