Different Priorities

Let me start off by saying I am not bashing the CHP or law enforcement here. It is just a fact that different branches of public safety have different priorities and perceptions and that can cause problems for us.

When we, the fire department, come up to an emergency scene we position our apparatus to provide maximum safety for our personnel and to provide the most advantageous angle of attack or deployment of equipment. The most common move is the "fend off" position where the rig is parked at an angle providing a barrier for the engineer at the pump panel and the crew and victims on scene. This way, also, if the rig is hit by another vehicle it is not pushed into the scene but away from it. This maneuver usually involves "taking a lane" that is blocking an additional lane of traffic. We are not that concerned with traffic flow or other considerations beyond the safety of those at the scene. If it is a true emergency we will probably ask for traffic control or for the road to be closed anyway.

CHP doesn't seem to share this view.

Their primary goal is to keep the roadway/freeway open and traffic flowing. I recently responded to a motorcycle down on the freeway in the number one lane, that's the left hand fast lane. I had to travel up the left shoulder most of the way, barely squeezing by the cars in that lane just to get there. As I approached the scene we could see two CHP cars on the left shoulder and then the motorcycle and motorcyclist and two more cars beyond that. The motorcyclist was standing and the bike was upright so that was a good sign. The Captain advised me to "take a lane" and we would check it out. As I approached, I was positioned partly on the shoulder and mostly in the number one lane. The CHP officer in front of me was motioning for me to move onto the shoulder.

As I continued to approach and didn't comply, he began vigorously motioning me over to the shoulder. I was looking directly at him and couldn't pretend I didn't see his directions but the Captain just gave him a "we know, we know" kind of gesture. I stopped the rig and the officer came to my window and said, "Hey, the guy's ok, please don't block the lane". At least he said please. I looked to the captain for direction and he looked at the motorcyclist and told me to go ahead and move the rig. I had no choice but to go beyond the accident now, a few cars ahead and onto the left shoulder. There really wasn't much shoulder to work with though. I squeezed as close to the K rail as I could get and still be able to open my door, which meant the Captain and firefighter's doors opened directly into the number one lane of now still-moving traffic. That is exactly why we don't do this. It is endangering our crew just getting out of the rig and limiting our protection while working on scene.

The rider was alright and the ambulance arrived right after us so we were able to clear quickly and get out of there. But, I was not at all happy with how the whole thing had played out.

The situation reminded me of a call that happened down South where a fire captain was actually handcuffed for taking the side of safety over the CHP. Check it out:



(To be fair: I can't help but notice and must comment on the humorous fact that the "safety conscious" Captain leapt off a still moving vehicle with no safety gear on at all to work on the side of a freeway. Notice the firefighter is in full turnouts and helmet.)

P.S. There was a lawsuit after this and the Captain won to the tune of $17,500.

Working Nights - Our New Typical

We work a 24 hour a day shift, 48 in a row for the tour, and with overtime it could be 72. We get paid for the whole 24 but the system is designed so that you are supposed to get some sleep. It's just a safety issue.


It seems that our new 'typical' tour at my station is to have limited calls during the day and be up running calls all night.

I'm not happy about this.

Our days are spent training, doing inspections, studying, cleaning, going to classes, etc. We aren't napping and watching TV all day (at least the majority of us aren't) so being up all night means limited to no sleep in that full 24 to 48 hour time period.

Here's a look at how it's been going lately. This is a rundown of my last couple of tours.

The first day started with a call right out of the chute at 08:12. Then we had a break and got our reports done, exercised, ate lunch and trained on some rescue equipment. In the afternoon we had made our dinner plan and were all set to go to the store and shop. I drove us to the store and we were just walking in when we got a call for a four vehicle accident at an intersection in the neighboring district. Oh well. It was now 17:46 as we responded to the crash. After dealing with a couple patients and cleaning up we were released. We were really pushing the time for getting our shopping and cooking done at a reasonable hour but we thought we would try it. We headed back to the store but got called to an EMS on the way - it is now 18:17. OK. So, we diverted over to the medical. After that it was definitely too late to shop and cook, so, we stopped off and picked up a couple of pizzas to bring back to the station. I got to sleep sometime around 23:00 that night and was awoken at 01:34 for one of our regulars who falls out of her chair and can't get up. That's an easy call that doesn't take too long. At least, it wouldn't if she and her husband didn't chain smoke every day of their lives. We literally have to put our clothes in the wash and take a shower after going in that house because we reek of cigarette smoke. The shower wakes me up and makes it very tough to go back to sleep.


The calls on the second day occurred at 13:15, 18:28, 19:52, 20:55 (a lot of physical work on that one), 22:04, 23:16 (our smoke house lady from the day before), and 02:16. I got up at 07:00 and was more than ready to go home at 08:00.

My very next tour started on Easter Sunday. I had overtime scheduled for Tuesday so I was on a 72 hour tour this time.
We had an overtime captain for Easter and the day was slow and quiet. It was a holiday schedule so, I caught up on my computer based training and my bimonthly EMS quiz, exercised, and basically took it easy. The calls started at 22:10 so I didn't get to sleep until between 23:00 and 24:00. Then we had calls at 01:44, 04:36, and 06:06. Just spaced out evenly enough to never be able to get back to sleep in between and no time left to go back to bed in the morning before it was time to start the second shift.
The second shift was call free all day which meant we were doomed to be running at night again. We got our first call at 22:30 and I can't even remember what it was for. After that we actually got away with sleeping until 04:00 when we caught a car fire in one of our residential neighborhoods. This car was really tough to get into and cut the battery cables and secure it properly, so we were on scene for awhile. We got back and I took a shower, packed up all my stuff, ate a little and got ready to go to my overtime station as soon as my relief arrived.

I am writing this from the overtime station and we have already run two freeway accidents and got our dinner shopping done before noon. Maybe that is a good sign. I could really use some sleep.

The Electric Mayhem? or Broom Operator

We heard another station go out on a call for an alarm sounding at our local Chuck E. Cheese's. As one of the two trucks in our battalion we were also assigned. En route the other captain gave an update that they had what appeared to be a sheared hydrant on the backside of the building. We arrived and I drove around back and we met up with the other crew's captain. We could see a jet of water shooting out of the drain on the back wall of the restaurant. It was really coming out, enough so that it looked like it was under pressure.

We were assigned to grab however many salvage covers we could get and to go inside and "protect the band". If you haven't been to one, Chuck E. Cheese has an animatronic band of fuzzy stuffed creatures that plays repeatedly to the kid's amusement and the parent's chagrin.

As you can probably guess, fuzzy and electric doesn't mix well with water and it was pretty much raining inside the building right over the band. We hopped up on stage and started throwing salvage covers over them. The water was really only coming down on one half of the stage so we were able to quickly get the creatures tucked in safe and dry. The rest of our time was spent moving all the tables, benches, and booths from the main dining area and attempting to push all the water outside with broom handled squeegees. It is amazing how much water even the thinnest of rugs can absorb. We were there for awhile.

It turns out that the FDC (Fire Department Connection -that thing you see on posts outside or attached to the walls of buildings that allow us to augment the sprinkler system or the standpipe) had failed somehow.

I still don't know how as the threads on the pipe and on the fitting were intact and undamaged. It looked as if a giant had come along and just unscrewed it. Well, there was enough pressure in that pipe to shoot a geyser up about twenty feet up onto the roof and turn that roof (surrounded by a parapet) into a monstrous bathtub. That's why the water was jetting out of the drain so hard, it had twenty feet of head pressure and must have been about 3-4 feet deep across most of their roof. Which also explains why it was raining inside.

It will take an actual salvage company to deal with the water damage and restore the place to normal and, in the end, the rug may have to come up. I really don't know who you call to clean and fluff your giant singing electric rat.

Yeah, it's a process.

Hazmat! The dreaded word. It can mean danger, mess, or an extended boring call that lasts forever. What we got last night was a little bit of all of the above but mostly in the last category.

An alarm call came in for our local gas refinery about 8:30 pm. We go there frequently for high gas alarms caused by surges or spikes or errors and rarely is it anything requiring mitigation. The refinery is actually in the next district over but it is right on the border and we almost always get there first (I have to start driving slower). The place is a big hazard though, full of methyl ethyl bad stuff and if it ever really blows it's going to be a big problem.

We met up with the plant workers who are usually very helpful in informing us of what the problem is and what product we might be dealing with. Tonight they were clueless and really just milled about offering no assistance whatever. We finally got someone on scene who knew what was happening and based on which sensors were going and where the problem was it seemed we did have a leak or other problem this time. This led to a call to dispatch with those three special words, "Assemble the team", or something like that. The County Hazmat team was mobilized and on their way to our city. A Level A Entry was about to go down. Level A is a fully encapsulated suit complete with SCBA inside used for hazardous atmospheres and potential chemical exposure.

This means that we also had to set up a decontamination corridor to scrub down the entry team when they came back. And that meant three more personnel in Level B suits to do the decon.

The entry and decon teams all need Medical Monitoring before and after the incident to check changes in their vital signs and/or weight to make sure they are safe to continue working. As the first arriving unit we were initial IC (Incident Command) and as the paramedic on our crew I was assigned Medical Monitoring. I set up chairs and monitors and lights off to the side, enlisted another medic and an EMT to assist me and started filling out forms with all the team members info.

Next, the teams had to assemble all their gear and suits. The County guys hopped to it and were rapidly ready to get this thing moving. The plant personnel was not quite so speedy. In fact the same guys who were milling about clueless when we arrived turned out to be the ERT (emergency response team) members as well. With a little direction and prodding from the fire department they got ready to make the entry.

The media had shown up by this time and was filming the proceedings so everybody had to behave even though we had been standing around in the cold for about an hour and a half now and were quite bored. It can be hard for a social group like firemen to stand around for that long without assignments or work to do and still behave themselves with a level of decorum befitting the potential emergency at hand (we tend to start joking, teasing, practicing golf swings, etc).

The team finally went in and flipped the switch that needed flipping to end this whole scenario and went through the decon process and were medically re-evaluated. Again, as the initial unit on scene we were last to leave, assisting in the clean up, information gathering, paperwork, etc.

It was past 11:30 when we finally wrapped up and went back to the station. Fortunately, after a shower and a midnight snack I was able to go to bed. My captain however, had the entire incident report to write which had to include everything that happened, what each unit did (there were three engines, a truck, and the three hazmat rigs to account for), info from the plant about the product, all the paperwork gathered, etc.

He was still working on it the next day.

Bad Luck 55

Well, I've found my bad luck station and it is Station 55. I've only worked there twice but I'm afraid to go back because if I do I'm pretty sure a fire engine is likely to explode. Here are the stories.

My first trip to St. 55 was due to a mando, meaning a forced overtime. Whenever there is a vacancy due to vacation or illness and no one is signed up to work the shift on overtime, someone has to fill the spot. There is a master list for scheduling and if you are next up on the list and there's a hole to fill then you don't get to go home, you go work the vacancy. The fire department can't run a person short so that's just the way it is.

I was originally scheduled to take a required paramedic update class that day being taught at the classroom behind St. 55. I let my captain know and he told the scheduling BC (Battalion Chief). The Chief offered me the choice of staying in the class and they would mando the next guy or keeping the overtime myself. I figured my day would have been shot anyway and I didn't want to screw the next guy so I took the mando. I was told to make sure I let the instructors know that I would not be in class. When I arrived at the station I immediately went to the class and told the instructor and one of our new training captains that I got mando'd and asked if I could get into a class on a different day. I was told most classes were full but we could work it out and not to worry. It was suggested that I sit in on the class anyway since I'm already at the same location.

So, I went into the station and introduced myself to the captain and gave him the rundown on the whole scenario. I was told we had a meeting to attend that morning so I could not sit in on the class and by the way, it is against department policy to accept overtime when you have a required class to attend. Crap - great first impression. I was thinking to myself, 'then why didn't the battalion chief or the training captain inform me of this?'. My department just recently merged with this larger organization and I am still learning all the ins and outs.

I went back to the classroom and told them I couldn't sit in. Meanwhile, the EMS director had arrived and discovered what had happened and she was not happy. I suddenly found myself and the captain called into the BC's office (a different one than the one who had mando'd me) where I was sternly lectured about policy by the BC and the EMS director. Again, I thought to myself, "how about the three levels of administration above me who screwed this up, mando'd me against policy, and never said a word about it to me?", but I kept my mouth shut and promised it would never happen again. My first impression was just getting better and better.

Now I needed to get my engine checked out and ready to go so I could get my captain to the meeting. I pulled the rig out onto the apron and proceeded to drive around the station to the back to do my morning check out. I got as far as the side driveway and the rig began sputtering and losing power. I stopped and was checking my gauges for some clue as to what was going on when I noticed another Chief waiting behind me, blocked from entering the station. I decided to try to limp the engine around back and get out of his way. As I did this I drove past the crowd of firemen waiting to go into the class I was supposed to be in. It was at that point that the rig issued forth a huge cloud of black smoke from the exhaust which sent the crowd scattering and coughing. I pulled up to the apparatus bay, shut down and went to inform my captain that his new favorite engineer had just put the rig out of service. I told him I would get my bedding and sleep in the apparatus bay because at this point I was sure he wouldn't let me back in the station. The mechanics were called out and were able to diagnose the problem quickly and get us back on the road and we did make the meeting. Thank god.

Most of the rest of the shift was uneventful until around 8pm when I started to feel a little uncomfortable. At the time, I had had a kidney stone that was slowly working it's way out over the past few weeks (I had been to the E.R. twice already) and I was praying that it was not going to flare up here. Not now. Well, I woke up about 2 a.m. in pain. Not 'get me to the emergency room' pain, but enough that I spent the next five hours pacing the day room praying that we wouldn't get a call. I was not about to go and wake the captain and tell him I had to go home and put us out of service again until another engineer could be called in at this ungodly hour. I just wanted to tough it out until after 7 a.m. when hopefully my relief would arrive. I was able to keep it together until 7:20 when the next engineer arrived on shift. I then let the captain know what was going on and that the new engineer would be taking over for me.

I wound up in the emergency room that night.

As you might guess, I didn't hurry back to work at that station again. But, I signed up for overtime at a different station and when staffing needs changed I got bumped over to 55 again. This time with a different crew.

This time I had met the captain previously and liked him so I had my hopes up a bit. There was nothing on the training calendar that day but it was the service day for the engines, which means a little more work for the engineer. I was informed, however, that we would be attending a funeral in the morning and doing a hospital tour in the afternoon. The funeral was for another firemen's father. This firemen had worked at 55 and with this crew for much of the past ten years and they wanted to be there for him. So, I spent the morning at a funeral service for the father of someone I'd never met. I had no problem being there and was glad we could make a show of support for a fellow firefighter, it's just not how I expected to be spending my morning.

We ran a bunch of calls after that and missed the hospital tour. The ambulance was on scene before us on most of the calls which saved us the report writing so the captain actually commented on me being good luck.

He spoke too soon.

We got a call just around the block from the station. A nothing medical which took no time at all. As I was waiting at the stop light to turn back onto the street the station is on, we all smelled the overpowering odor of overheated brakes. We were next to a bunch of road construction and trucks and couldn't tell if it was our rig or one of the construction crew's. I proceeded to the station where we discovered it was indeed the rear brakes on my rig that were burning. We could tell by the continuous horrible smell and the brown cloud spewing from the rear tires. Another rig out of service.

I was told, though, that they had been having ongoing brake problems on that side and that the same thing happened about six months ago. Good news, but it doesn't change the fact that I am the St. 55 jinx. The quickest way for us to get another rig was just to stay out of service and to have the BC (yet another one) drive me to another station to pick up a reserve and bring it back. I picked up the rig and did a pre-trip inspection to make sure nothing bad would happen on the freeway back to 55. I got a report from the rig's home station crew saying it was all good to go, fueled, and topped off with water.

When I arrived back at 55 we swapped all our gear onto the new rig, I finished checking it out, plugged in the shore power and went inside. By this time I had a big headache. I took some tylenol and sat down to watch a little of the baseball game. About an hour later, the firefighter on the truck came into the day room and called the truck engineer out to the ap bay. He sounded hushed but urgent. I wanted to follow but he hadn't called for me so I stayed put. A couple of minutes later the intercom crackled and out came this message: "Captain Johnson will you please report to the ap bay. Captain Johnson to the ap bay, your engine is on fire."
Whaaaaaat? I jumped up and ran out to the ap bay where I saw the truck engineer with the cowling to the engine compartment open and the firefighter standing by with a fire extinguisher.

Apparently the firefighter had gone out to the ap bay to talk on his cell phone and heard a sizzling sound. He looked around to try to find where it was coming from when he saw a flickering orange glow from the wheel well of the engine. That's when he went and got the other engineer. The tiny fire blew itself out as soon as the cowling was lifted and we could see what we thought was a gauge sensor with all of it's wires burned through. All the gauges still worked and it seemed to have no negative effect on the engine's performance. We were able to cut and cap the wires and stay in service, fortunately. I really didn't want to have killed two rigs in one shift. We found out from the mechanics the next day that it was the engine block heater and that it had been overcharged by the shorepower and shorted out. They told us it was fine to keep in service until the brakes were fixed on the front line rig.

We had one more run that night and the engine was fine, but I just wanted to get through the rest of the night without any calls and go back to my home station for the next 48 hours of my 72.