So, I worked Christmas Eve this year. I had an overtime captain and my usual firefighter. We got our food shopping done early in the morning and even then the store was pretty crowded and crazy. We thought we might be in for a crazy day.
Turns out that we only had one medical call during the shift, which was nice, because I usually get at least one code-blue around Christmas time every year. Beyond that, the most excitement we got was when an apartment fire in a Senior Living complex came in in the next district over. It was close to the border of our district but we were not on the first alarm, which was frustrating because it was so close. But, we couldn't just assign ourselves to the call without causing problems (and probably getting in trouble). We knew we would be the first engine in if it went to a second alarm. We grabbed a radio and listened in on the tac channel. Rigs started to arrive and they had smoke showing and were grabbing a water supply. We quickly donned our gear and rushed out to the rig to await the inevitable second alarm. Unfortunately (for us, anyway) it never came. They quickly got it under control and released the other units.
We put our gear away and were able to relax again.
We slept peacefully through the night, which has become unusual at my station, and came home to our families on a chilly Christmas morning.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Friday, December 16, 2011
What Has Been Seen....
Just down the street from the station is the house of one of our regulars with some psychological issues. We got called over there most recently by his family because he was unresponsive on the floor of his room. However, when we arrived he was standing in his bathrobe in the middle of the living room. Now, while I was standing on the porch waiting for someone to open the door I had set my equipment down at my feet. I was the second one to enter the house and as I bent down to pick up my gear I heard our patient say, "Hey, wanna see something gross?" Usually this is a bad sign, and this was no exception. I was already bent over and involuntarily looked up to find him standing directly in front of me with his bathrobe open and, right at eye level, were his testicles that were swollen to the size of a cantaloupe. Fortunately he closed his robe immediately as we were followed in by the police.
As to the report of unresponsiveness, he tried to explain that he had been faking unconsciousness as an April Fool's Day practical joke on his family. When we pointed out that it was October he said that he had not done anything on the actual first of April so he was making up for it now. We informed him that we would like to examine him and that he might have to go to the hospital. He was not at all happy about this and proceeded to pace laps around the room ranting about a whole host of nonsensical and bizarre things. He wasn't behaving in an overtly threatening manner and, eventually, he seemed to be losing steam, so all we could do was watch the spectacle. He finally ran out of ravings and stopped, leaning against the living room wall. In a delicious stroke of timing, he stopped directly beneath a clock at exactly the turn of the hour. As he completed his last lunatic statement and leaned on the wall, the clock over his head chimed in with what we were all thinking, "Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!". The beauty of it was that the humor and serendipity of this was not lost on any of us and I don't think anyone held in their laughter.
The ambulance arrived and the patient was 5150ed by the police. We wound up having to restrain him onto the gurney. The ambulance medic, who had not been witness to the earlier flashing incident and didn't know about the testicular malady wound up leaning on and across the patient's lower half to secure the seatbelt and restraint. As you can imagine, this elicited quite a reaction from our patient who screamed out in pain at the very confused medic.
There's one police officer who still thinks I'm the one who leaned on the patient and he frequently tells the story of this call.
As to the report of unresponsiveness, he tried to explain that he had been faking unconsciousness as an April Fool's Day practical joke on his family. When we pointed out that it was October he said that he had not done anything on the actual first of April so he was making up for it now. We informed him that we would like to examine him and that he might have to go to the hospital. He was not at all happy about this and proceeded to pace laps around the room ranting about a whole host of nonsensical and bizarre things. He wasn't behaving in an overtly threatening manner and, eventually, he seemed to be losing steam, so all we could do was watch the spectacle. He finally ran out of ravings and stopped, leaning against the living room wall. In a delicious stroke of timing, he stopped directly beneath a clock at exactly the turn of the hour. As he completed his last lunatic statement and leaned on the wall, the clock over his head chimed in with what we were all thinking, "Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!". The beauty of it was that the humor and serendipity of this was not lost on any of us and I don't think anyone held in their laughter.
The ambulance arrived and the patient was 5150ed by the police. We wound up having to restrain him onto the gurney. The ambulance medic, who had not been witness to the earlier flashing incident and didn't know about the testicular malady wound up leaning on and across the patient's lower half to secure the seatbelt and restraint. As you can imagine, this elicited quite a reaction from our patient who screamed out in pain at the very confused medic.
There's one police officer who still thinks I'm the one who leaned on the patient and he frequently tells the story of this call.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Are We First In?
We were just about to clear a false alarm in the East end of our district when a structure fire call came in. It was on the Northwest border of our district and the next one over, technically the next station's first in, but there were a lot of units from our battalion working another structure fire at the time. As I turned the rig around and put on the lights and siren, my firefighter said, "Guys, we've got smoke behind us". When I got out onto the main streets again, we could indeed see a pretty good column starting to form.
Since we were on this other call when the fire was reported we were not initially attached to the alarm assignment. My captain kept trying to tell dispatch to attach us so we could get the address sent to our MDC (mobile data computer in our rig). There was so much radio traffic that they weren't answering him. Fortunately, I knew the street and could pretty much follow the smoke. When I got within a couple blocks of the street I needed to turn on, Truck 56 showed up behind us and followed us in. The smoke was really pumping now, dark and heavy. Finding the address was easy enough with the smoke and flames and crowd of people on the street, but not having a chance to see the map and not having it on our MDC, we didn't know where the hydrants were on this street and so far I hadn't seen any on the whole block driving in. As we approached the address, my firefighter suddenly spoke up from the backseat, "Are we first in?" Hard to believe, but we were. Now he would get to fight fire.
Turns out the fire was burning up an awning, a fence, some trees, and a boat in the backyard of the residence. The fuel and fiberglass of the boat were causing the thick, black smoke. I committed the rig to the long driveway but had to stop short due to some very low hanging cable/phone wires. I angled the rig to the left and my crew pulled a mobile standpipe (2 1/2 inch supply hose with 100 feet of 1 3/4 inch attack hose) to attack the fire. I heard some radio traffic about another engine who found a hydrant and would be bringing me a water supply (thank god) and more engines going to the court behind this house for a better point of attack. I got my crew's line flowing and waited for the engine to show up with my water supply before my tank ran out. I have a 500 gallon tank and the attack line flows 160 gallons per minute, so there really isn't much time.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Ahh, hell...no engine and no other crews or rigs except the empty truck on the block with me. A second BC pulled up and I asked him if there was a rig coming to give me a supply and he said he didn't know. Great. I radioed my crew and told them we were at 1/4 tank and had no supply. A minute later I radioed that I was shutting down their line. Fortunately, this was an outside fire, had they been inside a burning structure this could have been very bad.
Turns out, the supply engine went to the street behind and supplied the engine on that side and I was forgotten about. Meanwhile, another engine was getting ready to clear the scene as most of the fire had been knocked down. I stopped the captain of that rig and told him I needed his water. They quickly pumped their tank into mine so we could continue with our operation. It was pretty much just mop up work at that point so we were able to do it with just the newly filled tank.
A lot of little lessons learned on that one and fortunately a positive outcome despite all the miscommunications.
Since we were on this other call when the fire was reported we were not initially attached to the alarm assignment. My captain kept trying to tell dispatch to attach us so we could get the address sent to our MDC (mobile data computer in our rig). There was so much radio traffic that they weren't answering him. Fortunately, I knew the street and could pretty much follow the smoke. When I got within a couple blocks of the street I needed to turn on, Truck 56 showed up behind us and followed us in. The smoke was really pumping now, dark and heavy. Finding the address was easy enough with the smoke and flames and crowd of people on the street, but not having a chance to see the map and not having it on our MDC, we didn't know where the hydrants were on this street and so far I hadn't seen any on the whole block driving in. As we approached the address, my firefighter suddenly spoke up from the backseat, "Are we first in?" Hard to believe, but we were. Now he would get to fight fire.
Turns out the fire was burning up an awning, a fence, some trees, and a boat in the backyard of the residence. The fuel and fiberglass of the boat were causing the thick, black smoke. I committed the rig to the long driveway but had to stop short due to some very low hanging cable/phone wires. I angled the rig to the left and my crew pulled a mobile standpipe (2 1/2 inch supply hose with 100 feet of 1 3/4 inch attack hose) to attack the fire. I heard some radio traffic about another engine who found a hydrant and would be bringing me a water supply (thank god) and more engines going to the court behind this house for a better point of attack. I got my crew's line flowing and waited for the engine to show up with my water supply before my tank ran out. I have a 500 gallon tank and the attack line flows 160 gallons per minute, so there really isn't much time.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Ahh, hell...no engine and no other crews or rigs except the empty truck on the block with me. A second BC pulled up and I asked him if there was a rig coming to give me a supply and he said he didn't know. Great. I radioed my crew and told them we were at 1/4 tank and had no supply. A minute later I radioed that I was shutting down their line. Fortunately, this was an outside fire, had they been inside a burning structure this could have been very bad.
Turns out, the supply engine went to the street behind and supplied the engine on that side and I was forgotten about. Meanwhile, another engine was getting ready to clear the scene as most of the fire had been knocked down. I stopped the captain of that rig and told him I needed his water. They quickly pumped their tank into mine so we could continue with our operation. It was pretty much just mop up work at that point so we were able to do it with just the newly filled tank.
A lot of little lessons learned on that one and fortunately a positive outcome despite all the miscommunications.
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