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.