The world of emergency services is complex, intense, and we should be talking about it. Welcome to Code 3; the new hub for all things firefighting, law enforcement, and emergency medicine here on Kinja. We'll discuss technology, techniques, events, and everything else that comes back to first response.
You see firemen, police officers, and EMTs every day; in real life and probably more often on television. But how much do you really know about what goes on in the minds and working lives of the folks who wear badges and PPE*?
* That's "Personal Protective Equipment" in fireman-speak. You've already learned something here.
Code 3 will aim to appeal to active-duty first responders, but also engage the "every(wo)man" by delivering stories about this world that's so visible yet largely mysterious to most.
You might recognize my byline as a Jalopnik contributor and Contributing Editor of Truck Yeah!. I'm also a firefighter, and from where I'm standing the first responder community is underserved by the websites I've seen on the subject.
We'll be experimenting a lot here. I hope anyone who stumbles across this post will share their ideas about what they'd like to see in a first response site, and let us know if you've got any affiliation to the industry.
I'll also be looking for people with an interest and expertise in this area to come onboard and contribute, so please get my attention on Twitter or shoot me an email with "Code 3" in the subject line. Nobody's getting paid yet (hence the ".Kinja" URL) but the beauty of Kinja is that this site automatically has immense reach potential and portability across the Gawker Media universe, so there's a lot of room for the site to grow up.
Image: Chicago Warehouse Fire/YouTube