The alarm bell rings. The pounding of rapid footsteps can be heard, mingled with the sound of people calling to each other and then the creaking of protective clothing being pulled on quickly. Rapid footsteps can be heard once again. Within less than a minute, the firefighters are in the fire engine and driving away, accompanied by the deafening sound of the siren. They arrive at the scene of the fire. Smoke is billowing out of a third-floor window. The officer-in-charge gives the commands. The fire engine driver raises the ladder, two firefighters get the hoses ready and another two run to the front door of the apartment block. A window opens. “Hello, what’s going on?” “Fire! Stay where you are! We’ll rescue you!” “But I don’t need rescuing! The room next door is my kitchen – the cake I was baking started to burn while I was out at the shops, so I opened the window to get rid of the smoke. Why don’t you come in and have a cup of coffee? I’m sure you won’t mind the smell of smoke.” The firefighters are taken aback at first, but then they laugh. “Mission abort!” calls out the officer-in-charge. “False alarm!” The hoses are rolled up again and the ladder lowered. The men at the entrance to the apartment block stroll casually back to the fire engine, grinning. They take off their helmets and protective clothing and place them in the fire engine. Then they go upstairs, where mugs of hot coffee are already waiting for them. “I think you should overhaul your alarm system,” says the owner of the apartment. The officer-in-charge nods. The alarm system needs an overhaul. “We review every call-out, particularly call-outs of this kind,” he says with a wink. “We’ll tell the control room so that the same thing doesn’t happen again in the future. Great coffee though!”
The story “Call-Out” is another intervention which can be used to heal inflammation, and which can be used (like the following story) to strengthen the immune system, cure or reduce the severity of allergies and autoimmune diseases and cure inflammation. I have used the story for patients suffering from conditions including inflammation and Crohn’s disease. For patients suffering from bowel conditions, I refer to the fact that the hoses are stable and made from strong fire-proof materials.
One client responded to this story with a similar tale; “Once I was called out with the volunteer fire brigade, and we set out with sirens blaring. We arrived at the scene of the fire and extinguished it. While we were driving back, the sirens were still sounding.”
(From: Stefan Hammel: Handbook of Therapeutic Storytelling. Sories and Metaphors in Psychotherapy, Child and Family Therapy, Medical Treatment, Coaching and Supervision, Routledge 2019)