I joined a group of Santa Clara County firefighters and friends at 6 o’clock this morning for a bike ride to remember Jimmy McCluskey. You may have noticed that this site is dedicated to Jimmy’s memory. I met him and his partner Ryan (both firefighter/paramedics, SWAT team medics and CISM team members) a couple of years ago doing a fairly hairy debriefing at our county 911 dispatch center. I have learned a lot from both of those guys and thus this site is largely about sharing what we learn, the practical stuff that we can’t teach in every class. (Your contributions are always welcome here.)
The last time I saw Jimmy was a year ago today, when I stopped by the Los Gatos station to see if either he or Ryan could help me with a Calfire debriefing. As it happens, it was Jimmy’s birthday, so my last words to him were “Happy Birthday!” with a strong handshake – definitely a happy memory. Jimmy usually said yes to any request for help for firefighters, but he decided not to join me, saying he really needed a mental health day. He died the day we would have been doing the debriefing. He was on his bicycle and was hit by a fast-moving motorcycle.
This morning’s ride was up into the hills above Los Gatos and I must report that I couldn’t make it. Although I’ve been biking a lot the last few months, it has been almost entirely on flat land. I wasn’t ready for sustained hill climbing (I kept hoping to find one more low gear, but it just wasn’t there!). So I turned around and joined the other flatlanders, including Jimmy’s brother Bill, also a county firefighter, at a coffee shop. When the hill climbers joined us, out came the Drumsticks. Mmm, coffee and ice cream at 7 a.m. Not my usual breakfast, but it was all to remember Jimmy, whose favorite dessert (or was it favorite food?) was Drumsticks. Apparently there’s a chant to go with them, or perhaps to invoke them – Drumsticks! Drumsticks! Drumsticks!
The hardest thing for me about losing Jimmy was that I really didn’t get a chance to get to know him well. But even though he’s not here any more, I’m continuing to get to know him through his friends, in whom his spirit certainly lives on.
Nick Arnett has been part of the Bay Area CISM Team since 2005, has led or help lead dozens of defusings and debriefings for first responders, schools and communities, including the Haiti earthquake, and assists in CISM training and events. He was a paramedic in the Pittsburgh, Pa. area in the late 1970s and 1980s, where he also headed the volunteer program for the