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.

They See Me Rollin'

We do a lot of lift assists in my district. Elderly folks who just slipped out of a chair or the bed or whatever and don't have the strength to get up again. For the most part we just pick them back up and put them to bed or wherever they would like to be. Usually they are pretty quick and easy unless the patient is very heavy or in an awkward position. This most recent one was easy but not quick.

When we arrived we were met by our patient's daughter, who turned out to be no help at all. She directed us to the bedroom where our patient was on the floor between the bed and the dresser. She had grabbed some pillows and propped herself up a bit but she had been on the floor for a couple of hours. She is 98 years old and very open and chatty. We got to hear all about the virtues of her 'underwear with pillows' (Depends diapers) and many details of her past few weeks and other completely unrelated subjects in between me trying to ask pertinent medical questions.

It turns out that she had been trying to get out of bed to go to the bathroom and slid down to the floor. We checked her for injuries and then lifted her up and back onto the bed. We suggested she go use the bathroom now so this doesn't happen again later. At first she said she would just rest first and that she would be fine to go later. We really didn't want to have to come back in a few hours so we again suggested that she go now. She agreed and we grabbed her wheeled walker for her. Meanwhile she somehow wriggled out of her diaper and kicked it off. We mentioned it to the daughter who did nothing. So, we began to help our patient down to the bathroom.

This is where it got funny. The bathroom is directly down the hall from the bedroom about 25 feet. Our patient began moving with the walker in that direction so unbelievably slowly I felt like I was  listening to a 45 rpm recording of Andy Griffith speaking played back at 33 and a 1/3. All I had to do to keep pace with her down the hall was lean forward slightly. All the while she was chatting on about this and that. It was frustratingly amusing, but I'm glad that I have a crew that just laughed it off and stuck with it to help this woman out. When we got to the bathroom we knew she might need some help. Again, the patients daughter was just standing there doing nothing. We asked her to please come up here and help her mother out. Our patient used the bathroom and began the long trek back down the hall to the bedroom where we put her back to bed and covered her up.

And speaking of rolling along:

Our next lift assist happened to be a 400 pound man who slipped in the shower. We were able to dry him off enough to get a carry-all behind him and lift him to standing. The funny part about this one was this couple's ingenuity. The wife was not as large as her husband but on her way. She was in a rolling desk chair and seemed to use that as her primary conveyance. She was also on home O2 with about a 50' tube. She had installed little hanger hooks all down the hallway and around the house to rest the tubing on so it didn't get tangled up as she scooted around the house. We were able to move our patient to a similar chair which I'm assuming he uses all the time as well. As we said goodbye and left the couple rolling around their house I noticed that everywhere you looked around the house were a variety of tongs strategically placed for reaching things from a sitting position.

That's just how they roll in my district.

From Drain To Crane

There's a man made lake in my old district that is home to a million geese and ducks. The little ducklings occasionally follow their parents right across the sewer grate and drop right down. They can't fly and so they end up trapped. Inevitably someone will call us to rescue the ducks. Most of the time it is a pretty simple operation: we lift up the sewer grate, drop a small ladder in, climb down, block off the other exit with a shovel so they don't run away and scoop up the ducklings. It's a happy ending, feel-good, positive PR kind of call. Unless, that is, you're the B-shift crew that this happened to:

The lake is also home to an annual fishing derby for kids. The city pays to stock the lake with hundreds of fish and hundreds of kids come out to the park to drop their lines in and pluck the unwary suckers out of the water.

It happened to be a beautiful day and there was a big turnout. Of course, with so many people around the avian residents were on the move and one little guy, as expected, dropped into the storm drain. The call went out and Engine 52 came to the rescue. With all the kids gathered around them they descended into the storm drain and heroically re-emerged with the duckling. The mama duck had retreated to the waters edge due to all the commotion. Amidst a chorus of cheering, the duckling was brought to the water and released, quickly falling in behind its mother and swimming out into the lake.

That is when, according to the crew, the shadow appeared and time slowed down. From somewhere in the trees behind them a crane took flight and passed right over their heads. It bore down on the rescued duckling, snatched it from the water, and flew off with it in its talons into the trees above the crowd. There it proceeded to eat the duckling as the shocked and horrified children drew silent. "Hey kids, how many of you have seen The Lion King? Circle of life remember? Right kids? Kids?" Of course, the actual exclamation from the firefighter was, I believe, "Oh my god! Did you see that god-damn vulture?"

 

The next morning I was on duty and this whole story was relaid to us with much laughing and teasing. Later that day we responded to a grass fire in an open field. After extinguishing the flames we traced the fire back to its starting point and found a very dead KFC (Kentucky Fried Crane). It had apparently landed on the power pole and spread its wings out contacting the wires and electrocuting itself. It must have caught fire and fell dead into the tall dry grass by the power pole. We all agreed that this must be the crane from the fishing derby and that karma is, indeed, a bitch. Lion King.

Tennis Anyone? or People of Walmart

We were returning from picking up some equipment and happened to be in another station's district when a call came in just a few blocks from us. We radioed dispatch and told them we would take it for the other engine. The call was for an assault in the WalMart parking lot with one suspect still inside the WalMart. Police were on scene with the victim as we rolled into the parking lot.

Our victim/combatant was pacing around with some cuts and bruising to his face and neck when I introduced myself. He explained that he was in his car leaving the parking lot when another guy started hitting him (through the open window) with a tennis racquet. I looked over at the other police car and saw two tennis racquets on the hood that were completely bent up and destroyed.

 

 My patient told me that he then stopped his car and got out to fight, naturally. Since there were two destroyed tennis racquets on the hood, I like to think that he got out, reached into his coat, and pulled out his own racquet, Highlander style, and the two began to duel.

 

I believe the truth is something closer to him leaping out of the car and charging a guy wielding two tennis rackets and getting beaten down windmill style. Either way, I bet it was a site to see.

Other than being very angry and quite bruised up my patient didn't have any serious injuries and declined ambulance transport. I have a feeling, though, that tomorrow he is going to look and feel like he was in a racquet fight.  "Jesus, man, what happened to you?"  "I got in a tennis racquet fight."  "Oh. Yeah, that looks about right."

The police came out shortly with the Andy Roddick of the WalMart parking lot. Instead of some wild eyed crazy random attacker he turned out to be a guy in his early 20s who looked pretty normal. He stated that the guy in the car ran in to him in the parking lot and didn't stop, which led to the beating. He was unharmed in the melee and needed no medical attention.  What a shock - the guy with two tennis racquets and the element of surprise won the fist fight.

What never ceases to amaze me is how surprised people are when they get arrested for the most obvious things. It seems they honestly don't understand why the cops are even talking to them. This kid was getting the bracelets hooked up as the officer explained that he was being charged with assault. He looked at her, aghast, saying "But he ran into me. Why am I in trouble?"

(should say, I Served Time)

The capper to this whole fiasco, though, was all the other drivers in the vast WalMart parking lot who could not figure out for the life of them how to deal with one aisle full of emergency vehicles and still go about their day. A whole line of cars pulled out and instead of going the opposite direction, headed straight down the aisle towards a fire engine, an ambulance, and two cop cars. They proceeded to just stack up in the aisle until I finally went and moved a bunch of shopping carts and started directing traffic away from us and into the next aisle. Meanwhile, a car parked right by one of the cop cars decided to back up and leave. They began backing up and my firefighter was directing them away from the cop car but they wouldn't turn. They just kept backing up towards the cop car, where incidentally the kid was getting cuffed. One of the officers went up to the passenger window and began telling the driver to turn the wheel. They turned the wrong way. He pointed and told them louder to turn the other way. They straightened the wheel. He opened the door and pointed again and said, "Turn the wheel that way and slowly back up!" They finally got turned the right direction and proceeded to back up at about 1/8th of a mile per hour. I didn't know cars could actually go that slowly and still be moving. The cop actually looked up at all of us, threw his hands in the air and said, "I did say slowly didn't I?"

This Just Pissed Me Off

The vast majority of ambulance crews who respond to our calls are good ones. On occasion you get the burnouts and it sucks. I hate being the caring professional who treats my patient with respect and then have to hand them over to some uncaring idiots. Normally it doesn't stick with me or bother me for long but for some reason I was fuming over these dipwads all four day.

Our patient was an elderly man who just went on hospice care a few days ago. He was having some difficulty breathing and really needed supportive care. We set him up with some increased O2 and did our best to comfort his wife as well. He was pretty much ready to go when the ambulance arrived.

This ambulance crew happened to have an intern with them. Now, I was an intern once and I know what it is like so I try to let them do their thing and kind of help them out. However, the regular ambulance crew came in and didn't say a word. Not one word to me, my crew, or their intern. I usually look to the preceptor to get an idea of what he expects out of the intern and how the guy is doing. I got nothing from this guy. So, I gave the intern a complete rundown and told him we would have to carry the patient out to the gurney. The intern asked if the patient had a DNR which was an excellent question although it was most likely not going to be needed on this call. The patient's wife said yes, but was obviously not prepared for this to come up so soon and was very flustered by the thought of him needing it. I tried to reassure her that we just needed to know what kind of directives he had but would not even be going lights and sirens to the hospital. She could not seem to locate the DNR and this seemed to be hanging up the intern. The other two "medical professionals" still had not said a word and were standing shoulder to shoulder in the doorway of the bedroom blocking any access or egress.

 

I went outside to see where the gurney was and which way it was facing so I could plan how to take the patient out. When I arrived back inside the scene was unchanged. Our patient needed to get to the hospital and this crew was still standing there doing nothing. My firefighter, probably reading the expression on my face, had taken up position behind the patient ready to help lift and carry him. My way was blocked by the ambulance tools so I merely looked my firefighter in the eye and said, quite loudly, "Are you ready?" and pushed my way unceremoniously into the room between them. I took the patient's legs and my firefighter took his upper body and we took him out to the gurney and started bringing the gurney to the ambulance.

Now, my firefighter and I do a lot of lifting and carrying of patients in our district and we don't mind it at all. But, when the ambulance crew doesn't even feign assistance and behave like these bozos did it really bothers me. Normally, I am able to just shake my head, talk smack and berate them when I get back in the engine, then move on and forget about it. But, for some reason, these clowns really got to me and every time I thought about it over the next few days it made me angry all over again.

Happy Windsday!

It was a very blustery day....

The day started off nice and sunny and we decided it would be a good day to get our new captain some practice at launching and recovering the rescue boat from the trailer (which he hadn't done yet). We were all set to go after lunch. However, all through the morning the wind continued to pick up and by the time we got to the marina there were waves and little white caps at the boat launch which is pretty unheard of. We, stupidly, decided to give it a try anyway. Based on the conditions I offered to try it out first to see how tough the recovery was going to be but the captain decided to give it a shot.  We figured if you can succeed in the worst conditions then all other attempts will be a piece of cake, right?

As soon as he backed the boat off the trailer the wind started pushing us back into the dock and towards the rocks. My captain struggled to get us straightened out and turned around for a run at the trailer. We were in a substantial crosswind and the cabin of our boat basically turns the middle and ass-end of the boat into a giant sail. 

The wind was coming from our left and as we made the approach to the trailer things were actually looking good. Then things started to go sideways...literally. The wind was pushing us sideways past the trailer and towards the starboard side dock. We have bumpers out to protect the boat and the firefighter at the trailer ran over to push the bow of the boat away while I leaned out and pushed against the dock from inside the boat. The firefighter suggested that we reposition the trailer and just pull the boat onto it by hand, a simple and practical solution. However, being a firefighter faced with a challenge and slipping into single-minded, "this thing isn't going to beat me" mode I said I wanted to give it one shot before we resorted to towing it in. I figured the worst that would happen is that we wind up in the same spot and go with the firefighters plan.

I backed the boat up and fought the wind to loop around for my run at the trailer. Now, normally in recovering the boat I only use one motor and only power it up to make steering adjustments with small on/off bursts. The expression we use is, "Slow is pro". This day, I found myself using both motors just to get lined up into position. I aimed for the corner of the port side dock to hopefully give myself some wiggle room and came in under power, though with only one motor. The rear of the boat immediately started swinging out to the right as I approached. I wound up coming in almost completely sideways to the trailer and under power, scary. Just before I got to the trailer I turned the bow hard right toward the trailer and killed the power. I got a thumbs up from the firefighter at the trailer and as the boat came up on the rollers and centered itself I popped it back into gear and drove up onto the trailer. The firefighter secured the bow hooks and  brought us out of the water. It was probably a one in a thousand lucky shot and I doubt I could possibly repeat it, but damn it felt good. That recovery alone made me happy all day.

We weren't the only ones battling the wind that day, though.

Our next call, after giving up on further boat ops and getting back to the station, was for a woman in the trailer park whose carport was being ripped apart by the wind and threatening to fly away. When we arrived we saw that two of the supports had already been pulled loose and the roof itself had buckled. The entire carport was about 40 feet long and made of corrugated metal.

My firefighter grabbed a pike pole and hooked it over the roof where it had buckled and pulled down to bring the roof back down to the sheared supports. He wrapped his legs around the pole like he was flying on a broomstick and even with that when a gust came along he was lifted off the ground about six inches. I threw a ladder for the captain and handed him tools while he tried to reattach the supports with some metal strapping. We soon discovered that the strapping was not going to hold and decided to try securing the whole thing with rope.  I found myself lying on my back on top of a shed under the carport with a sawzall cutting holes in the metal as the roof blew up away from me and bounced back down within a foot of my face. We fed ropes through the holes I had cut and tied them off to secure anchors on the ground. Of course the next gust that came along caused the rope to rip through the corrugated metal like butter.

Okay, that did it, this thing had to come down. We decided just to cut the damaged section of roof off entirely, a section about twenty feet long. I took over duty on the pike pole trying to keep the roof pinned down while my firefighter sat on the roof of the mobile home with the sawzall cutting the carport away from the home. The sheets of corrugated metal were pulling loose from the gutter/flashing I had hooked with the pike pole so every once in awhile when the firefighter cut a sheet loose it would whip back at him like he was holding onto an airplane wing. It's amazing none of us got hurt. But, it worked. We even went back the next day to check on it and make sure everything was okay and all was in order.

We rounded out the shift with an overdose, a combative woman with encephalopathy, and a DOA early the next morning.