Risking our lives for YOU!

I was one of the firefighters who attended Grenfell Tower. I’m very proud of the job my colleagues and I do week in, week out, and we usually laugh off insults.

But after incidents such as the one in west London, it is especially hard to be called greedy just because we got angry over our 1 per cent pay rise when MPs got 11pc

People imagine firefighters have gold-plated pensions: in fact, we pay more than 12pc of our monthly wage — £300 to £400 — into our pension pots.

and we’ll carry on with our extremely dangerous job until we are 60 — unless, of course, the powersthat-be get rid of us because the physical demands have taken their toll. Or maybe they will decide to move our pension age again.

To give you an idea of what we go through, when we received the call to Grenfell Tower, I’d just lain down less than a hour earlier.

as we entered the building, my breathing apparatus (Ba) partner received our brief: go to the 23rd floor, residents stuck in their flat.

weighed down with 30kg-plus of equipment, we struggled up a stairwell full of other crews bringing residents down. around the 9th floor we lost all visibility.

at around the 20th floor we found a couple panicking and blinded by the toxic air. They shouted there were five more people on the floor above.

I had to decide whether we had enough air left to leave them and try to reach the next floor. and was the information even correct?

would this couple be able to carry on down on their own if we went to rescue the others? was saving two lives better than taking the risk to go up and potentially save no one?

we managed to make radio contact and requested another crew to try to reach the people on the floor above.

Taking a casualty each, we set off down. soon, one of them became unconscious and my partner had to drag her down alone. Two floors more and I handed my casualty to a firefighter so I could go back up.

another firefighter was helping my partner, but he had no helmet and no breathing apparatus — he’d given it to a casualty and was delirious from the heat and smoke. But helping others was still his priority.

Eventually, we got the casualty and the stricken firefighter to safety.

Nineteen hours after starting our night shift, we made it back to the fire station. Just four hours later we had to be back on duty.

My colleagues and I nipped out for a bite to eat, people around us laughing and joking with friends, oblivious to what we’d just been doing all night.

so when you next hear emergency services workers being called lazy because we are seen eating or having a coffee while on duty, consider what that person might already have done that day.

Think about the thousands of incidents attended every year that don’t make the news. Or those that are reported but where something went wrong and someone needs to be blamed, so an MP can demand that public services are in meltdown and should be privatised.

so if, at some point, we ask for your support or go out on strike, know it’s not because we want to. It’s because government cuts are dangerous and ultimately it’s you, the public, whom we want to protect.

Consider the sacrifices the men and women of the emergency services are willing to make. Because we will be looking out for you every day. Name and address supplied.