Fox’s “9-1-1” depicts the daily lives of first responders like firefighters.
What’s Your Emergency?
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Calling people heroes in America has become cliché.
Everyone seems to get the label heroic just because of his or her profession like first responders.
Nevertheless, many people think of the work of first responders as heroic (and rightfully so) because they put their own lives on the line for others. But what effect does their stressful jobs have on their personal lives?
FOX’s new drama, “9-1-1” gives a riveting, edge of your seat account of how the stress of emergencies affect the everyday lives of people considered heroic by the public, but who are simply real people with real problems when their uniform is taken off.
In the opening scene of “9-1-1,” Abby Clark (Connie Britton, “Friday Night Lights”) asks, what’s your emergency?
Connie states that everyone experiences emergencies everyday.
There are everyday, normal emergencies and there are emergencies that first responders have to handle.
Abby has to take care of an ailing mother while also taking care of the people of Los Angeles who are going through immediate emergencies like home burglaries.
The 9-1-1 operator has to also deal with non-emergencies like when a customer at a fast food restaurant calls 9-1-1 because an employee did not give her all of the chicken nuggets that she ordered.
Athena Grant (Angela Bassett) has to deal with the emergency of being a police officer, a job that puts her life in jeopardy everyday, while also dealing with a family emergency that might destroy her home.
The stress of seeing so much death as a firefighter has stressed Bobby (Peter Krause) out to the point of driving him to addiction.
He states that many first responders turn to vices to deal with the horrors they see on a daily basis.
Bobby goes to confessional on a regular basis to handle the pressure of his job.
While many first responders turn to alcohol and drug addiction, some become addicted to sex to relieve the stress of the job.
Regardless of how first responders deal with their emergencies, it is possible that the stress from their jobs produces more emergencies that they have to handle in everyday life.
Fox’s “9-1-1” manages to make the characters human without losing the dramatic effects of their jobs that make the show a thrill, which will keep audiences on pins and needles.
There’s the little girl trapped alone on the second floor in a new house with burglars ransacking the first floor.
The girl does not even know her new address because the family has not even fully moved in yet.
Finding her exact location is up to the ingenuity of Abby.
There’s the possibility that a baby is stuck in the bathroom pipes of an apartment or it might be the figment of the imagination of the stoner who called 9-1-1 with the alleged emergency.
And there’s the pet snake that is choking its owner to death, giving firefighters limited means to save the owner and snake’s lives.
The decisions that first responders have to make can mean life or death for those in perilous situations.
The question is will the first defenders know how to cope with their decisions if and when they make a fatal mistake.
That is the real emergency.
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