Lost & Found

A little over a year ago, my small town, three station department merged with the County Department (now 28 stations big). When that happened, of course, all of our uniforms changed. Our badges, patches, t shirts, jackets, hats, etc. had to have the County name and logo instead of the old City name. The one uniform piece that the County FD didn't have that the City FD did was a Tilly or Boonie style shade hat. As a balding guy, I viewed my City FD Tilly hat as a piece of safety equipment and even though I'm not technically allowed to wear it, I held on to it. I carry it in my wildland bag and I will use it around my station if I'm out in the sun detailing the rig or doing yard work.
Today, I was out doing the weekly service of our reserve rig and wearing my shade hat. My captain told me we had to go out to a station a couple of districts over and retrieve some equipment left by the previous shift. I must have set my hat and gloves down on the sideboard of the front line rig while getting ready to go and forgotten about them. We headed out to the other station and just before getting there we got a call for an auto accident one district over from where we started but in the opposite direction. I put the Code 3 lights on and we drove all the way back to the accident. After treating one of the patients on scene we were released and set off back to retrieve the equipment. When we got to that station I noticed my gloves were on the sideboard and put them away. It didn't occur to me that my hat was missing. When we got back to our station I needed to finish up with the reserve rig and couldn't find my hat. I then put two and two together and realized what I had done and that the hat must have blown off somewhere while we were driving around. It's amazing to me that the gloves stayed put that whole time. We had gone all over and in and out of other districts so we couldn't just go retrace our steps to go look for it. I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I had lost my hat. I used that hat for camping and other things too and although I could always get another one of that style, it wouldn't have the fire department logo on it and it had sentimental value.

Later that night we responded to a small house fire and after going to the roof and raking shingles and checking for extension I decided it would be worth mentioning to the other crews in case someone turned in my hat to another station. Unfortunately, I don't think the hat had my name in it. Although, there were really only two of us who wore that style hat in my old department and the other guy is now retired. Well, as we were cleaning up I stopped the other engineer and told him what had happened. He started laughing and called his firefighter over. He then told me to tell the firefighter my story, which I did, and he started laughing and shaking his head.

They then told me the story of their day:

They had started off responding to the corner at the freeway offramp for the homeless guy in the wheelchair I have written about previously (see blog entry 'They Just Keep Rolling Along'). He refused ambulance transport and they went on their way. After that they responded to the next city over for an apartment fire. It turned out to be nothing and they were released to go back to quarters. They took the freeway back and as they came down the offramp they saw our wheelchair bound homeless regular giving them a big smile and a thumbs up while pointing at his head with the other hand. He was, of course, pointing at the fire department shade hat he was wearing. My hat! They knew it must have been mine but didn't know the story until I told them what happened while at the fire that night.

Now I'm very conflicted. I really like that hat and would love to have it back, but, knowing what I know about the person wearing it now, I wonder if there is any amount of washing and sterilizing that would make me comfortable about putting it on my head again. Plus, they said he looked so happy about having it I would almost feel bad about reclaiming it. However, this is not exactly the advertisement or endorsement I think is best for our department, now defunct or not. And who knows, maybe it does have my name in it.