Just wasn't my day

Got called out to a kid that fell. The mom is picking herself up off the ice when we pulled up. The patient was inside the house already. Mom meets us near street level and says to follow her, so we do.

See that lovely waterfall thing to the left of the driveway? She apparently thought it'd be a good idea to turn it on yesterday. The driveway is obviously iced over, as is half the yard.

I had the EMS bag on my right shoulder and as I was stepping from the yard onto the driveway, my left foot shot out from under me. I landed hard on my left hip, on top of my radio. I also slammed my left wrist into the ground trying to break my fall. I slid at least 10' down the driveway.

I managed to pick myself up and get up the hill and deal with the patient.

Back at the station, I was in enough pain I decided to go on and fill out OJI (on-the-job injury) paperwork.

I got clearance from risk management to see a doctor, and was at the dr's office by 11.

4 X-rays, 1 wrist brace, and a very cool doctor later, I was on my way back to the station. I didn't break/fracture/sprain anything, I'm just bruised and achy.

THEN......



Took this right before I grabbed the nozzle and walked up to the front of the compactor. I had the nozzle over my right shoulder, it has a pistol-grip so I wasn't really holding it, it was hooked into me. Had my arms draped over the other part of the nozzle to aim it down into the compactor.

We ran out of tank water on the quint so I had to stand back and wait until they had hydrant water. When we got water, I opened the line back up halfway and stepped back up to the compactor. I only opened it halfway because there was a lot of pressure on the line and I was waiting on the driver to adjust for the extra pressure from the hydrant.

Once the pressure was adjusted, I opened the line up all the way and resumed my former stance, both hands over the nozzle angling it down.

What I didn't know, was that the driver was refilling the tank on the truck. When it was full, he closed the refill valve, inadvertently sending all the extra pressure down my line.

I remember feeling the extra pressure hitting, and trying to reach for the bale to close the nozzle. I woke up flat on my back with the guys standing over me. My captain asked if I was ok and I asked to just lay there for a minute. He called radio and asked for a couple more units, and told them that there was a firefighter down.

The first unit arrived and got me backboarded and collared (our backboard was used and not replaced by the other shift's crew).

The ambulance arrived shortly and I was loaded into it and transported to the ER. They ran me in lights and siren, much to my suprise, especially at 1am.

The ER put me into a trauma room and got me off the backboard very quickly. Normally, I wouldn't complain about that, but my neck and head hurt so bad, I was worried. My neck still hurts a lot. They didn't do any x-rays or CT scans or anything, even though I'm missing part of what happened. They gave me narcotics, but I forget what they were now.

My battalion chief was there, and was going to take me back to the station when the hospital released me. I was sent home of course, and am off on OJI next shift.


I have a killer headache and my neck feels stiff. My hip hurts worse than anything else. I don't know how I landed to know if I hit it when I fell, or if it's just from busting my ass on the icy driveway yesterday morning. Either way, I have a nasty bruise from the radio from that one.

And now, I'm gonna go take the drugs I was given and goof off online till I pass out asleep.