Fire chief, trailblazer announces leave
By Ashley B. Craig, Charleston Daily Mail, W.Va. | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
A lifelong resident of
"I didn't want to make a big deal about it," he said. "My main thing is just to do it -- do it and keep your integrity while you're here."
But his role as a youth mentor at
Overstreet wasn't the kid who grew up with dreams of fighting fires.
He was working at Bert Wolfe car dealership with two degrees, one in electronics and another in math, when his stepfather told him he ought to apply at the department.
It was 1989 and the city had reached a settlement with a group of black first responders over a racial discrimination lawsuit. As part of the settlement, the city had to develop a campaign to recruit more minorities, including women, and change hiring and promotion practices.
Had that not happened, Overstreet said he never would have given the fire department a second thought.
"They needed more minorities on the job," he said. "My stepfather said, 'You need to go on and apply for that job.'
"I had no inkling of wanting to be a firefighter, but I've loved it ever since," he said. "Once it gets in you it never leaves you. It's a rush."
When he signed up in 1991 he was looking for a new job, a change of scenery and a paycheck. He quickly learned there was more to it than that.
Any time firefighters are dealing with the public, grief is involved. Maybe someone has lost property in a fire or their life in a crash. But firefighters, Overstreet said, are in the business of helping people.
"We're fixers. We want to help people and fix things," he said. "When things go bad -- maybe we're not able to save someone -- we feel bad.
"If there's somebody to be saved or something to be saved, we want to do it."
It's not always dramatic. Firefighters and medics often respond to medical calls or smoke alarm calls after someone has burned food. In some stations, firefighters will go months without seeing a fire in their response area.
Some stations see more action than others.
The same shift that had been on duty for a
"Those guys -- they're still dealing with it," Overstreet said. "I was devastated."
He said the firefighters' morale was already low at that point because of contention with
Overstreet missed being on the truck and said being chief was much different than the first 20 years of his career.
"The biggest thing in here -- I was used to dealing with things out there, I wasn't used to dealing with things in here like the budget and administrative things," he said, adding that with city officials, it's the opposite.
"They know the budget side. They don't know the fire side.
"I always consider us like an insurance policy. You hate paying for it but you want it to be there when you need it."
He has twice been on the other end of things -- once when a rental house he owned burned and again when he suffered a heart attack just before he was named chief.
He said firefighters aged 47 to 52 are more likely to die from a heart attack than anything else.
Aside from the issues firefighters face when they enter burning buildings, he said sleep deprivation is another factor. Each time there's a call for service in
"I know what it's like," he said of hearing the sirens coming for him. "They had to come to my house. Average response time is supposed to be something like four minutes. My guys were there fast, but that four minutes felt like a lifetime."
The downtime after his heart attack allowed him to study for the chief's exam. He told his friend and co-worker, Assistant Chief
Having lived as a first responder for more than two decades, he's looking forward to a slower pace. He still does everything with haste. His wife, Jane, has to constantly remind him to slow down while eating.
A father of five grown daughters, Overstreet is also a grandfather and great-grandfather. He said he and Jane, who have been married for 26 years, plan to travel. He also plans on doing work around his house. He joked that in a few years he might be found as a
He also plans on working more with the children at his church.
"I want to help these kids over here on the
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