My Life After Firefighting: What the Job Took and What It Left Behind
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 1 January 2026
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, James Pritchard spent his career running toward danger as a firefighter and fire captain, responding to car wrecks, house fires, and emergencies most people spend their lives hoping never to see. What he did not expect was how much of that job would follow him home. James reflects on the life of a firefighter, the emotional toll of repeated trauma, and what happens when years of pushing everything down finally catch up.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:14.0 | This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything, including your stories. |
| 0:20.6 | Send them to Our American Stories.com. That's Our American Stories and we tell stories about everything including your stories send them to our |
| 0:21.6 | American Stories.com that's our American Stories.com they're some of our favorites and by the way as |
| 0:28.3 | you know we are a non-profit and what we do well it's free to listen to but it is not free to make |
| 0:34.7 | and if you love the stories we're telling, go to Our American Stories.com, |
| 0:39.1 | click the donate button, |
| 0:40.6 | and do what you can to help us out. |
| 0:42.8 | Today you're going to hear from James Pritchard, |
| 0:45.1 | a retired fire captain right here in Oxford, Mississippi, |
| 0:48.7 | where we broadcast. |
| 0:49.9 | James is going to share with us the realities |
| 0:51.8 | of working in the fire service |
| 0:53.5 | and how pushing down your emotions catches realities of working in the fire service and how pushing |
| 0:54.4 | down your emotions catches up with you in the long run. |
| 1:00.4 | I guess I kind of always wanted to be a firefighter. I think that's why God put me here. |
| 1:07.2 | But beforehand, I was just a kid. I was working with the city, electric department, actually. |
| 1:14.6 | And I was in a bucket truck right across from the fire department, |
| 1:19.5 | working with hot power lines. |
| 1:21.8 | And I let one of the wires go, and it blew a fuse, and it pout. |
| 1:27.4 | And I hunkered down in the bottom of the bucket |
... |
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