'Firefighting, Climbing, Losing Tobin, and Finding My Way'

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Bushman

Social climber
The island of Tristan da Cunha
Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 31, 2014 - 07:13pm PT
It was hard to do, but the previous year’s drinking at age twenty one had bounced me right out of the California Conservation Corps. It was by then the summer of 1978 and that experience had planted a seed in me. For the next four years I believed that I knew what I was going to do for a career. My first season with CDF (formerly the California Department of Forestry, presently Cal Fire) was spent at a little known out-of-the-way fire station in the Las Padres National Forest called La Panza. It was a safe enough and an out of the way place where they stuck the green firefighters that were either slackers, possible stoners, or otherwise challenged athletically. I put in for a transfer for two summers in a row but was turned down while acquiring the much-needed basic firefighting skills and physical training needed. My weekends were spent climbing at Bishops Peak in San Luis Obispo or for short weekends in Yosemite.

At La Panza we fought several types of fires during those two summers in that hot dry boring landscape of the Central Coast range. We fought fuel fires, grain fires, grass fires, forest fires, vehicle fires, and structure fires and I began to get in decent shape as well as developing a handle on my abilities. On occasion I was called upon to drive the fire truck for a tired captain or engineer and even did so once during a wildfire in grassland as the captain ran alongside the engine with the firehouse on the fire's flank. It was one of the first times in my life that I was being given that kind of real responsibility. Even so, after two years I longed to be at the busier fire stations with the veteran firefighters that I had begun to know and hang out with. I had tested and failed on a couple of engineer and firemen exams on the oral part because of being overly honest about my rock climbing experiences and the hierarchy expressed doubts about my loyalty to the position due to this complication. They told me that I might not be insurable if I continued to rock climb. It was a quandary I didn't see a way out of so I had taken some courses and received my EMT certification in the hope that it would better qualify me for advancement.

This was in the spring of 1980 just before being transferred to the Nipomo fire station between Santa Maria and Arroyo Grande on Highway 101. It was only a few miles from my father's home and it was also where I was a member of the San Luis Obispo County Volunteer Fire Department during the winter months so it was a great fit for me. During the season and a half that I remained there I worked with one of the SLO county fireman engineers who was also a rock climber (under the radar of course) and he and I made a memorable trip to Joshua tree where we climbed for a week. He was a vegetarian and his tofu, kale, and cottage cheese diet took a little getting used to, but he provided the wheels and all the meals so I was fair game, and I got to serve as guide and instructor in one of my old stomping grounds.

That summer I was to serve with and to live among some of the finest firemen and firefighters that I have ever had the pleasure to meet. In the previous year, before I arrived, they had gone through a tragedy losing four of their team on a runaway wildfire called the Spanish Ranch fire along state route 166 east of Santa Maria. It was a really tough time for them then. They had lost one of their captains who was an old guard career fireman and three of their best and brightest young men. I could see it in their faces, and how they carried it in their shoulders, the pain and the misty eyes whenever the memories of those brave men were revisited.

But being young and new to such things I was sympathetic but otherwise oblivious and wanted only action. As one of the few firefighters at the busy station trained as an EMT, I was to be put to the test, and the true difficulty of the job began in earnest. We were called upon to respond to emergency medical situations that were stressful, and difficult, and that no amount of training would prepare me for. Through all the human suffering I was exposed to I tried to hold my chin up and to put my emotions on a shelf. But the memories carried with me, seeing people critically or fatally injured as I tried to save their lives, using CPR and the other medical equipment and techniques at our disposal. I recall in particular the attempted rescue a young mother who had only moments before been involved in a terrible collision. I broke into the vehicle and we extricated her on a backboard while I did CPR for a full hour before she was declared dead by a physician at the emergency room. Another time I was preparing to do CPR on an elderly woman who had only minutes before expired from a heart attack. The condition of the poor woman was so deteriorated that I remember looking into the eyes of my the friend the engineer, knowing that due to the level of her decline how hopeless it was, but I was pledged to do a job and her ribs began cracking as I carefully began CPR. Then there was a time when we treated a boy who blew off all the fingers of both hands while trying to build a homemade pipe bomb. As we picked the tattered remnants of his digits from the walls of his bedroom and placed them into a bag of saline, we knew they would never be reattached.

There were the good times, the girls I dated, the climbing that I pushed myself on at the local crag, and climbing and leading every pitch on the Northwest Face of Half Dome in four days with two friends, my second grade VI. But that summer in 1980 at Nipomo fire station was also to be marked by a personal tragedy, the loss of my older brother, Tobin Sorenson, during a climbing accident in Canada. That August at the fire station would be the last time I would see him alive when he and my younger brother Tom, my mother, and my grandmother came by to visit while taking him up north to his position as a counselor in Edmonton, Alberta.

I recall with fondness telling him about the route on Half Dome and how the aid climbing and the nailing went smoothly. How that chimney up to the right side of Big Sandy was just disgusting and fowl. How I had to calm down one of my partners who became gripped out of his mind halfway up the route. I remember his laughter and the pride he showed for me, and the pride I felt when he asked me if I would come up and climb with him, and the sadness I felt for not taking him up on it. He talked about his commitment to join the ministry and of his plans to retire from climbing after a few more big climbs, he spoke fondly of his fiancée Elizabeth, and he asked me to be the best man at his wedding. He also mentioned his plans for Canadian citizenship. I was so happy for him. But things played out the way they did when we got the call that he had died, through the shock, the pain, the heart ache, and the suffering of my family members. When I think back about after he was gone, after all was said and done, though I knew I wanted a career as a fireman in my mind, I did not know what I wanted any longer in my heart, for the man that I had looked up to, and who I wanted to be so much like was now gone. I was pulled in one direction by my family to retire from climbing while I was pulled in the other direction by his legacy to proceed.

So that winter after Tobin died I was swept up into a year of climbing and climbed at a level and seriousness that I had never allowed myself to go to, climbing several big walls and numerous hard free climbs, and have not repeated a season of climbing like that to this day.
In the summer of 1981 I served at the Nipomo station for only a few weeks before I was transferred to hot and sunny San Bernardino County where I served at the Yucaipa station with a paramedic fireman.

From what I recall the Yucaipa station was medical aid city and it seemed to be all about going from the fire station to the accident scene to the hospital and back again in an around-the-clock carousel of accidents and human suffering topped off with a heaping helping of misery. I learned that there is no end to the manner in which people are capable of being injured or injuring themselves. The endless trips to the retirement homes to treat people in their final stages of life were beginning to take a toll on me. The memories of the victims and their accidents stayed with me in my dreams and my thoughts during the waking hours were turning all but morbid. At the same time I was planning to go to school to become a paramedic I was also beginning to figure out that I wasn't quite cut out for a life in the first responder field.

I could say it would have been easier had my personal life been not so full of turmoil, but that was probably not the case. I resigned my position with the fire service and sought employment elsewhere. After a few more odd jobs and moving around from family to friend, I started working in tree service in Sacramento, met the woman who would later become my wife, and settled in Sacramento. Of course, I was never the climber that Tobin was, but did go on to be the father, the uncle, the grandfather, and otherwise friend and family member to those who needed me. Little by little I put away the concerns of boyhood and concentrated on a career less stressful, though still a dangerous occupation, but am now only supervising and do rarely place myself in harm’s way.

Looking back upon my days as a firefighter I remember them fondly. Like climbing, it taught me about organization, about discipline, and how to handle myself in a crisis. But also like climbing, it taught me about comradeship and loyalty to one's friends and family in a way that I could only have understood by serving in that capacity, as a servant to my fellow man, bonded through suffering and calamity with the fellow fire service personnel I was so fortunate to have served with. Whenever and wherever I see them go I hold a special place in my heart for all the men and women who serve in the fire service.


-Tim Sorenson
10/31/2014










Flip Flop

Trad climber
Truckee, CA
Oct 31, 2014 - 07:29pm PT
Thank you. Nice post.
Batrock

Trad climber
Burbank
Oct 31, 2014 - 07:35pm PT
Tim,
Thanks for sharing a story that i can partly relate to. I was climbing in Yosemite with some friends who went to school at Biola when news of your brothers death came, I was new to climbing and only in jr. high and had not heard of your brother except through my friends and saw the shock on their faces when they heard the terrible news.
Later in 1987 I became a paramedic and the next year was hired by the Los Angeles City Fire Department where I still work, in fact i'm writing this from my office at Fire Station 24 in Sunland. I know the very feelings you struggled with and struggle with the same. It seemed easier when iwas younger, I could let things go and forget about it or so i thought. Now, after 26 years it is harder than ever.

Thanks again for your openness and letting us in to that part of your life.

Kevin Mokracek
SC seagoat

Trad climber
Santa Cruz, or In What Time Zone Am I?
Oct 31, 2014 - 07:51pm PT
So full of heart.
Thank you.

Susan
Peter Haan

Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
Oct 31, 2014 - 07:56pm PT
Tim, thank you for your important, valuable account.

It fleshes out some of the rest of the large story that your family had experienced back then. I always wondered how your life turned out. We met in the Lounge in the Valley around the time you and your brother did the Cobra free on the Arches. I watched the two of you and it seemed challenging for you being in his shadow; of course it would have. I always have hoped the best for you and it seems that the best has taken place!

So: do you live on Tristan da Cunha now?!?!? Wow, if so. Please advise.
Scrubber

climber
Straight outta Squampton
Oct 31, 2014 - 08:10pm PT
That was a lovely story Tim. Thank you for sharing it.

Kris
nah000

climber
canuckistan
Oct 31, 2014 - 09:33pm PT
understatedly soulful.

thank you.
Mungeclimber

Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
Oct 31, 2014 - 09:45pm PT
Those things and people that make us excel, make us better, are always worth telling the tale about.

Thank you for the insight.
ShawnInPaso

climber
Paso Robles, CA
Oct 31, 2014 - 10:21pm PT
Great story Tim. Been by that La Panza station many times...probably a few while you were there. Props to you for helping so many others along the way.

survival

Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
Oct 31, 2014 - 10:26pm PT
Wow. What a great write up.

Thanks man.
Kalimon

Social climber
Ridgway, CO
Oct 31, 2014 - 10:27pm PT
Way to lay it out there Tim!

Thank you for sharing this . . . keep it coming.
Todd Eastman

climber
Bellingham, WA
Oct 31, 2014 - 10:32pm PT
Thanks Tim.
WBraun

climber
Oct 31, 2014 - 10:34pm PT
That was really nice and from the heart, Tim .......
BLUEBLOCR

Social climber
joshua tree
Oct 31, 2014 - 11:23pm PT
i'm bowing down to you here now sir, that is Very nicely written! How long have you been practicing that? Seems as though we bumped elbows in the spiritual realm riding the California Wave!?Cept i started out up there in the Placer Co. and went to Sac. High, (next time ur in Elk Grove Factory Outlets mall look up, i put in all those firesprinkler heads. i think in 89'? {my Grt,Grt Granfather started the fire depatment in Penryn}). Now i live in San Burnbabyburnadino, JT precisely. This turkeyday, my daughter and i are going to my sisters family's house of 13yrs. Which is directly behind Santa Maria Racetrack. Where we'll be met by my Brother's Family, my other Sister, and my Mom, who are from SM, Santa Ynez and Pismo respectively. Haven't seen them for a year, it'll be Awesome! My sister just moved back to Santa Ynez last month,
where she went to high school, after living in Rocklin for the past 30yrs, where she went to grade school.

What trips me out about my life is, looking at other peoples live's.

Happy Turkeyday!

Goble!Goble!
Bushman

Social climber
The island of Tristan da Cunha
Topic Author's Reply - Oct 31, 2014 - 11:43pm PT
In my other life, my virtual internet life, I preside on the remote, exotic, and little known island of Tristan da Cunha in the south Atlantic. As a small child, I was the only survivor of a shipwreck on that island where I was marooned to wander the slopes of an ancient volcano until the locals found me, and returned me to civilization. I could go on about it at length but it's quite late and I must return now to my actual modest home in rural Sacramento county.

So no such luck, Peter, I'm not really from nor have I ever been to The Island of Tristan da Cunha. I'm really from the land of Easy to Kid and am no stranger to Gullible's Travels as well.

On a more serious note; thank you to all who posted for the kind words and encouragement. I have just recently begun attempting to pen some of my impressions and memories from past climbing years, some of which a few of us shared.
perswig

climber
Nov 1, 2014 - 03:51am PT
You'll find an audience here, anytime you want.
Thanks for this, and your other thoughtful and poetic posts.

Dale
John M

climber
Nov 1, 2014 - 08:22am PT
You'll find an audience here, anytime you want.

Yep.. there is a group of people here who enjoy the stories and the ramblings and musings. You have to have a thick skin to wander into the "thar be dragons here" political and philosophical threads. But its stories like yours that keep me coming back.
john bald

climber
Nov 1, 2014 - 09:29am PT
Tim,
Thanks for sharing your special life story.
Never knew you would come to work for CDF. Firefighting is right up there in one of the most honorable professions along with teachers and health care workers. Nice to know you made a difference when you go home at night. In another aspect of your work, time in trees is also rewarding as you create an aesthetic on a living structure that would otherwise self-destruct prematurely.
Hope to run into you sometime on one of my rambles through CA. We have had much in common through the years and I feel a special kinship to you.
Cheers, John
survival

Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
Nov 1, 2014 - 10:25am PT
Tim, I now realize that I met you in the valley, the summer you did the Direct on Half Dome I think.

I also did the Direct, in the fall of 78.

I love the internet, for rediscovering people from a bygone era.
Thanks again,
Bruce
Charlie D.

Trad climber
Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra
Nov 1, 2014 - 10:37am PT
I didn't get to know your brother Tim during his early years at Tahquitz when I rambled about after returning from the PNW. He and his buddies certainly pushed in a new era as the last of the Tyrolean hats and knickers desolved into yesterday. I did remember Tobin had a brother and I feel grateful and amazed to read your post. As your heart speaks we can all feel the love of brothers, Tobins energy and spirit is with us all. Thanks for the gift this morning, hope to meet you in person.......we're in the neighborhood.

Charlie D.

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