Sounds Good On Paper & The Dangers Of Code 3 Driving

I worked a trade for the engineer at my old station the other day. The captain was an overtime captain and the firefighter was one of our new probies and we had a reserve firefighter riding along for the first eight hours. We did some rescue training during the day but the ride along curse was in full effect and we were shut out for calls...until bedtime.

I was just turning in for the night knowing that the odds of us getting up later was pretty good. Then in the space of a couple of hours we responded to a series of calls that all sounded very exciting and dramatic.

The first came in as an unknown medical with staging required, which means police are on the way and it is not safe for us to enter until police have secured the scene. Our update stated we were responding for a possible stabbing/shooting/penetrating trauma. When we arrived on scene at the gated apartment complex, the police were trying to punch in the code to activate the gate. I have a remote for the gate on my rig so I opened it for them as we pulled up and followed them into the complex where a man came running up towards us waving and directing us in.

As we rolled in the radio dispatched a call for the next district over that we would have gone to if we weren't already engaged: "Enging 59, Truck 41 respond to a vehicle accident with rescue - police car on its roof". I thought, damn, I'd much rather be going to that call, although I do have a pretty good trauma waiting for me just ahead. Dispatch immediately updated that the officer is fine and no medical needed, all units can cancel.

We were waved in by the cops in front of us and we approached the patient and the small crowd around her. She was a 20 year old girl who was bleeding from her........pinky.


Apparently she got in an argument with her boyfriend who grabbed her keychain out of her hands. Her keychain has a very small knife on it and her finger got cut. This happened approximately a half hour ago several cities away. She got her keys back and drove home and then called 9-1-1. And, in responding code 3 to this dangerous stabbing, a police car flipped over. We wrapped her finger with guaze and sent her away with the ambulance.

We decided to drive by the police accident scene to check it out and go over vehicle stabilization with our probie. The officer was fine, though covered in coffee. The car looked terrible. The right front end was pushed in and it was still upside down with the lights on and airbags deployed.

The funny thing is that the car was by itself in an empty school parking lot. Turns out that the officer was patroling by the school when the stabbing call came in and when he went to turn on his lights, he hit his radio instead. He momentarily looked down to correct it and when he looked up he was running into a stanchion pole. He was only going about 15 mph because he hadn't hit the gas yet but the impact caused his foot, hovering over the gas pedal, to "punch it" which sent him flying off the stanchion and on to his roof. We waited until we got back to our rig before we started laughing.

We got back to the station and headed for bed. I was pulling my sweatshirt off over my head when the lights and tones went off again. I slid back down the pole and we responded to a man having a heart attack at the gas station. This could be another good call for the probie. Of course, when we arrived on scene we found one of our new regular drunks sitting on the planter. He does have a cardiac history but by his own admission he was drunk and not all of his symptoms were jiving with a real cardiac event. I did a 12 lead ekg to be sure, shaving enough hair off his chest to cover a small animal in the process, and there was nothing glaring or alarming at all on the printout. The ambulance was right on our heels so we let them have the patient and headed home.

Of course, the next morning during shift change, my report to the oncoming medic just said that we had a busy night with a stabbing, a heart attack, and a code 3 police rollover. They don't need to know the details.