Right Man At The Right Time

For the last month we have been running on a nuisance false alarm at a manufacturing warehouse in our district. Our shift alone has gone there ten times this month. The worst part about it for us is that we usually get the calls at about 9pm, 11pm, 1am, and 3am. And that's in the same shift. Spaced just perfectly enough to allow for almost zero sleep.

The place is open with workers inside until between 2-3am so at least there is usually someone there to let us in. We go in, we silence the alarm and reset the system and go back to the station. After 3am there is a security guard who sits in his personal car in the parking lot watching the building. He does not, however, have access to the building (I don't know if he even has a radio) and there is no fire department lock box for us.

It is only because we know this is a false alarm and that we are trying not to make the situation worse that we have not broken the door down when we go there after 3am. Nothing gets a business owners attention and lights a fire under them (so to speak) like property damage.

After our first call of the tour to this business we contacted the alarm company ourselves and were told that they required someone on the official contact list with a password to take the alarm offline. No one working in the plant had this info. The fire alarm rep was very honest in explaining that he was not surprised they had not received a repair order since that costs money and we were resetting the alarm for free. Unfortunately we can't just not go to the alarm so we decided that this would be the day that we break in if no one was there to let us in. The captain also sent the info off to Fire Prevention so the business would start being fined every time we went out there. We were done messing around.

We got our second call of the shift to the business around 9pm and we were silencing the alarm with our usual contact, the floor production manager, when a stern looking man with a clipboard and a camera appeared from the warehouse and followed us to the alarm panel.

He stated that he was the corporate safety inspector and just happened to be down here from Kansas City doing an audit of the facility. Without prompting, he informed us that, in his words, "They're failing by the way. This place is a shithole." We told him the whole saga of the month long alarms and he was not a happy camper. No one outside of the plant had been informed and he was pretty upset that this was the first he was hearing of it. He told us he would be calling corporate right away. Considering it would be 1am where he was calling I got the feeling he was going to get some attention and some action. He asked if he could get a picture of us as proof that we were here. I though it odd that they wouldn't believe him but we obliged and he snapped a picture of our big smiling crew with the floor manager.

We haven't been back since.

Will this be for pick-up or delivery?

I've seen a lot of people abuse the EMS system and use the ambulance as their personal taxi but this was a new one.

 

The call came in for a medical in the next district over. That engine was out on another call so we took it. On the way we got an update from dispatch that this was for someone who was in a car accident earlier and now wanted an ambulance. Already I felt that this would be a waste of time as this type of call usually is, but there's always a chance it's legit. We arrived at the address and knocked on the door. No answer. I rang the bell and knocked louder while announcing, "Fire Department"! I didn't see it, but the firefighter said someone peeked out of the blinds at us and then disappeared. Well somebody was obviously home. I knocked and called out again. Nothing.

We went around to the back of the unit and before I could even knock on the back door it opened and a woman (the same one who had peered out) stepped out. We told her someone had called 9-1-1 from here. She then told us that the person who had called had been in an auto accident and went to the hospital but had been waiting in the ER for a "long time" so they called an ambulance. Okay...well, let's take a look, where are they? She responded, "Oh, they're on their way back now".

Are you serious?

They left the hospital to come home to get an ambulance ride to the hospital?  And they pre-ordered the ambulance?!?!?! 

Oh, my captain was pissed. To his credit he was polite and we returned to the engine. He said we're giving this guy two minutes and then we are out of here. A few minutes came and went, the captain radioed dispatch that no one was here, and we returned to quarters. Just as I was pulling back in to the station the call came in for the same address. This time the in-district engine was available and they got the call but we wanted to let them know what went down and give these folks a little "education" so we headed back.

The other engine was on scene and into their assessment (no obvious injury or problem that anyone could find, by the way) when we arrived. We gave them the rundown of how this had all gone down. The ambulance arrived and got the rundown as well. The ambulance, of course, was taking them right back to the hospital they had left. The beauty of this was that they probably would have been seen within the hour they wasted coming home and going back in the ambulance. Now they would be starting the process all over again and adding an ambulance bill on top of it.

 

Here's the "education" part for those that don't know. For some reason, people think that arriving by ambulance to the hospital means you are seen quicker. This is not at all true. Everyone who comes in to the ER is triaged according to the severity of their condition or injury compared to everyone else in the ER. Those who are stable are going to wait longer, that's just the way it is; it doesn't matter how you get to the hospital. And I can guarantee that the triage nurse who had already triaged this guy, probably called his name while he was gone, and then sees him arrive again by ambulance is not going to put him at the front of the line. Just the opposite I suspect.

 

Hopefully he learned an expensive lesson about the EMS system today. You don't call 9-1-1 for take out.