Ambulance driver and Firetruck rider

2011-11-13T17:12:00.002-05:00

As usual, I've been neglecting this blog. I've been neglecting talking about work in general to be honest.

There have been more changes in my department, and in my own station. Most have been for the better.

We now have a cohort of mine from the academy, and I'm seriously pleased with this turn of events in every way but 1. He has a little seniority on me and I've been rolled a small step back down the seniority ladder in-house. I'm still driving almost every shift, just not always on my first rig of choice.

We've run some very interesting calls that I'm afraid writing about will give away who I am/where I work/etc. These calls weren't exactly newsworthy, but they were the talk around the houses.

Most of my ambulance shifts I'm paired with a medic that prefers to tech all the calls, so I don't have much I can report on there either.

Trust your fellow man

2011-08-05T22:39:00.001-04:00

Trust is a strange beast. It can be earned over time, demanded in extreme moments, and it's hard to build. And yet trust is fragile.

The job of a firefighter, EMT, or Medic comes with a heavy dose of trust. You have to trust the guys around you to not only know what the right thing to do is, but to actually do it. It doesn't matter if you're pulling a line into a raging house fire or guiding the guys carrying the stairchair. You have to trust them to be there and not lead you astray.

Trust can be shattered easily, and like a precious piece of china, it's never quite the same once it's been broken.

By design or necessity, we have to trust our leaders, have faith in them, respect the rank (if not the person as well).

Recently, my leader shattered my trust completely. It was a simple act, so simple it seems quite stupid. I'd fueled the truck and he was helping me get turned around. It was dusk and he was using what I call "flapping fingers" instead of a proper hand signal. I made it known that I couldn't see his signals clearly.

In front of the station, he used the same flapping fingers gesture and backed me into a curb before blaming me in front of the whole crew. The trust was shattered right then and there.

I've been on the fence about this captain since he was moved here. He's recently promoted and has done so many things in his short time here that I truly question many of his actions daily. It's as if he can't draw the line between leader and friend. We have too many rookies here to have another friend. We need him to be a leader, a strong leader who can lead by example. We don't need another buddy who never removes his bluetooth and doesn't even notice when the tailboard man has wandered off.

Then again, what do I know? I should have just stopped the truck until he could use the proper signals. Next time, I will. Until then, I'll be damned if I'm going to buy curb cream for hitting a curb I couldn't see while my backer wasn't using the proper signals and never motioned for me to stop.

It will take a long time for me to ever trust him on a personal level again. The first building block of that trust would be owning up to the improper hand signals or apologizing for a callout in front of the whole crew. Captain or not, I'm not holding my breath for either of those.

Yes, it may seem petty to some. I'm still a girl, I'm supposed to be complicated to figure out. Welcome to the mind and thought process of Firelady.

2011-07-05T19:00:00.002-04:00

Life has been nothing short of crazy the last few months.

Home life has been hectic. I've gone through some changes that were years overdue. As much as I wanted some of these changes, I wasn't truely ready for them. I'm embracing them all the same and making the best of my situation.

Things are looking up, overall. I still have my house and my pets, there's still food in the kitchen, and my level of happiness is finally on the rise now that my stress is levelling out/going down.

I've started a new business endeavor. It's something I can do on my days off and at a somewhat leisurely pace. It's enough to help cover my expenses and put a little play money in my pocket as well.

Work has been a challenge mentally. Not because of the calls, but because of a couple of conversations I've had. It's given me a lot to think about and I hope the other persons involved have been trying to reassess their actions and motives in the past as well. I'm not happy with the way things were handled or said, but I've also spoken my piece, it's time I to try to heal and get over it. No, I'm not in any kind of trouble, no worries.

Our call volume has been crazy. Things always get busier in the summer, but not quite like this. We've been getting our teeth kicked in every shift it seems. There's no easy solution the department will accept. There's not even a tough decision they'll take. We just take our beatings and eat, potty, or sleep at every opportunity.

I suppose that's it for now, I haven't had the muse for a "normal" post for quite some time now. I'm still around though, I won't be shutting this blog down. I'm hopeful the break will do me some good, actually.

Ladder Lessons

2011-05-14T15:07:00.002-04:00

Every firefighter gets ribbed about having to pull a cat out of a tree. It's like cops and donuts. It doesn't matter if it never happens, you will always be teased about it by friends.

We learn in the academy about how to carry ladders, raise ladders, set a proper climbing angle, have 3 rungs over the edge, etc.

We pulled 14' roof ladders off wall hooks and set them up many times. We carried various sizes of ladders all over the property, some that require 6 guys to carry. In the field, you learn to navigate houses with attic ladders. without making too big of a mess hopefully.

I never really imagined I'd have to pull a guy off of a house. Well, not when he had a ladder in place and buddies on the ground to heel the ladder.

A group of guys come to clean/pressure wash the gutters. Their ladder reached a whopping 4 inches above the eave. The guy stuck on the roof felt like he was sliding and was too scared to try for the ladder.

We asked radio for an aerial to be en route, then grabbed the roof ladder and tried to see what we could do. We managed to get the roof ladder set, and I'm still surprised the guy didn't kiss the ground when he made it down.

The aerial was cancelled and we left.

Lessons they should have learned:
Tall houses need tall ladders
If you can't see the top of the ladder from the roof, you shouldn't have gotten off the ladder in the first place.
Nice, new, wooden patios are pretty...and get very slippery when water and gutter junk are added.
Slippery patios means someone needs to make sure the ladder doesn't slide.
If you think you're sliding off the roof, straddle the ridge. Especially if it's level.
Yes, they make female firefighters (they even let me drive the big red trucks). I saw that funny glance.

Family Funnies

2011-01-05T21:45:00.002-05:00

Many times on a call, the patient or a family member does something to engrain themselves into our memories for some time. Lately, this has been happening more often.

Frequent fliers can be some of the best for this since you see them so often and become familiar. Knowing their address when dispatch calls it out, knowing what medical problems they actually have versus what they tell you. This can be especially fun if the patient is a known seeker.

Sadly, there's just no way to write out what was said and be able to properly convey the way it was said. It's just nowhere near as funny without the proper pronounciation, emphasis, and accent.

Old folks

2010-12-13T10:56:00.002-05:00

No, I don't mean seniors. I mean really old folks, in their 90's and up.

Old people calls generally fall into a couple of categories.
~Just want someone to talk to
~Are actually sick
~Family called

We had the pleasure of meeting a much older gentleman who's daughter thought he was having a stroke. Fortunately, there was nothing going on medically that was out of the norm for this gentleman. The whole call had us giggling while talking to the gentleman, his daughter shared our humor as well.

EMT: Sir, how many fingers am I holding up?

Old Guy: Yep

EMT: (Louder) How many fingers?

OG: Yep

Daughter: His cataracts are pretty bad.

EMT: So would he normally see how many?

Daughter: No

EMT: Oh.

Everything we asked him, we got a "Yep" in response. Everyone was giggling, even the old man at some point.

These are the old folks I love the most. They may not have a damn clue what's going on, but they manage to make you smile. They don't want anything, they just aren't ready to give up living just yet.

Just a little longer

2010-12-04T23:43:00.002-05:00

Just hang tight a little bit longer folks, I should be bringing this thing back to life soon. I'm still dealing with my own demons, but I'll learn my fate in a week. I miss blogging. I miss being able to share some of my experiences.

2010-10-13T02:49:00.002-04:00

As is my norm lately, when things seem to be looking up I get another kick in the shins. Either an illness or a step backwards in other ways. This time it's illness. There's nothing that can ruin your day as good as waking up feeling like crap.

I swear I'll get back to normal posting some day. Time to take another dose of meds and try desperately to sleep.

Help out the Colorado's Fourmile Canyon Wildfire victims

2010-09-10T16:23:00.002-04:00

I make it a point to keep ads and other things off this journal, but not this time. There's an artist who does some awesome work and has donated her time and effort to do something good.

I'm not gonna make you folks read my version of her info, so let me copy/paste.

Click here to be taken to the order page

I created this special sticker design to help the displaced families (animal and human alike) who are victims of Colorado's Fourmile Canyon Wildfire. You will receive this unique, vibrant and durable sticker in the mail for your five dollar donation. 50% of the proceeds will be donated the the Boulder Humane Society to help the displaced pets, and 50% will go to Northern Colorado Red Cross to help displaced families and individuals.

I'm going to put down the money to order these 2" stickers from printsess.com so that all proceeds go to fire relief. With your donation we can help the mountain communities effected rebuild from the ashes!

Each sticker will be 2" tall and only $5. The design is beautiful. I was able to catch the tail-end of watching her stream it's creation online and I'm very impressed.

So, please help spread the word. A link-back, a repost, anything is appreciated to help her sell out so we can raise more money to help the victims of this fire.

When good ponies go bad

2010-09-08T13:07:00.002-04:00

Just found this news story from Orlando. Their video doesn't want to imbed properly, so have a link and a copy-paste. Go check out the video though, it's pretty good.

Stuffed Pony Blown Up By Bomb Squad - Orlando News Story - WESH Orlando

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Members of the Orange County Sheriff's Office Bomb Squad blew up a 2-foot-high stuffed pony on Tuesday.

Neighbors said the placement of the stuffed toy made it appear suspicious to them.

The toy was found in a cul-de-sac next to a park near Waterbridge Elementary.

"It just looked like it was placed in a really suspicious place," resident Scott Kilwein said.

"We're right by the school, and kids walk right be here every day," resident Earline Murray said.

Deputies cordoned off the neighborhood, and a robot was sent it to examine the stuffed animal. Meanwhile, residents like Kilwein were stuck in their homes as their imaginations ran wild.

"Once you see that it's a stuffed animal, your mind starts racing with all kinds of ... crazy stuff in the world," Kilwein said.

Beyond the neighborhood, the blast startled drivers on Central Florida Parkway.

"The explosion was quite tremendous. Several people squealed tires," Witness Ronni Taylor said.

Authorities said the toy is called a Furreal Pony and requires batteries and wiring to give it lifelike sounds and movement.

A bit of burnout

2010-08-23T22:08:00.003-04:00

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. I've had a fair bit of time to sit back and assess where I'm at in life, compared to where I want to be. Sure, I've got some really neat things going for me. I also am strapped pretty tightly because of those luxuries, I have been for quite a while.

As I sit back and ponder my career, I'm not sure if I'm actually happy anymore. I love being a firefighter and an EMT, don't get me wrong, I'm just not sure if my department is the right one for me anymore.

There have been a lot of changes going on. I knew they were coming, I even joined others in wishing for some of them. I'm just not so sure anymore. Morale is still tanked. There's just as much distrust among the ranks as before, except now, we have even more evidence against those we feel are incapable of their duties (or number and arrangement of bugles). Don't even get me started on how the powers that be have really screwed things up around here.

I've been thinking more and more about jumping ship to another department. I have no clue where I'd go. The worst part would be starting over, being *the* rookie again, no longer able to drive, unfamiliar with the territory/crew/equipment. I just don't know what I want.

I do know I need to do something to rejuvinate my love for going to work. I used to have trouble sleeping the night before shift because of excitement. Now, I still have trouble sleeping, but it's not excitement that keeps me awake. This is a large part of why I've fallen so quiet with my posting. I just don't get excited about work, and it's so hard to share stories and experiences when your attitude is crushed.

Any guys/gals out there willing to offer any advice? I'd love to hear it. I'm in a real funk right now.

Trudging along

2010-08-03T18:50:00.002-04:00

My personal life is still stressful, work is still irritating me more often than not. I'm feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place. I just don't have the muse or subject for any interesting posts lately.

If anyone has any fire-related questions, feel free to hit me up. Anything from why we park our trucks the way we do, to what's ___ call like, to station life.

Respect

2010-07-15T10:42:00.003-04:00

Well, it's been over a month since I went on semi-hiatus. I've been reading everyone's blogs about once a week, vs, every other day.

Life outside of work has been hectic. There's been a lot of different things going on at home that have sent me pinging between overly stressed, and relaxed to the max. I've been more on the stressed side unfortunately. I am determined to make the remainder of this month fun. There are friends coming from out of state, and other things to keep me happy and entertained.

Work has been a strange mixture of boring and crazy. There are some potentially huge changes in the works, but only time will tell. I'm trying to stay as unbiased as I can about most of these changes. I will be affected by the changes, but not as much as many other people will be. It's been an interesting ride so far.

I've somewhat developed a new pet peeve as well. Respect.

I was visiting another station for a few minutes a short time ago. Their brand new rookie was talking smack about waxing my station's floor on a house day. Offerring to help me load their floor buffer into my rig, the works. I tried to be nice, but my patience wore thin and I finally told him since he was so concerned about us having a floor buffer, he looked like a good one. So come on over and run our machine.

Why did he feel the need to pester me about the floors? Why did he think it was ok to talk trash to someone he's never even met before?

Respect is earned, not given...BUT, there is a certain amout you must display. I would never walk up to someone I'd never met and start telling him how dirty the floor of his station was. It's just not the way you should handle something like that. Especially if you don't even actually know it's an issue (I'm pretty sure he's never even visited my station).

There are also a few people about to be promoted. It's amazing to sit back and listen to some of them talk about how they plan to take over their new stations, everyone will do _____, etc.

Why would anyone want to walk into a station and immediately start "blowing his bugles"? Other than a poor reputation preceeding you, that is the fastest way to lose any respect from your new crew.

A few years ago, my station had a new (to us) captain transferred in. On the first shift, he started making major changes. He had never worked with us before and had no idea about how the station normally ran. It pissed a lot of us off. It also took a long time for him to start regaining any real respect from the crew. We all respected that he was the captain, but there wasn't much respect for the person behind the bugles.

It's going to be very interesting to watch. My crew will be changed around and all I hope for is to get equally fun and knowledgeable people that get along as well as we currently do. My biggest fear is to be part of a crew that doesn't get along, doesn't work well together, and don't know the job. My department is getting very young and there's no amount of ego that can make up for the experience the senior guys have.

Hiatus

2010-06-08T11:32:00.001-04:00

I'm not quitting or shutting this blog down. I just have too many stressful things going on right now to be able to scrounge up the muse or the subject for an entry.

I can't go into detail without revealing too much about myself or my department.

Just have a lil faith that I will be back once my life isn't too much for me to feel I can manage. Please keep my sanity in your prayers. I need all the help I can get right now.

~Firelady

2010-05-20T16:38:00.002-04:00

I received this from my dad, and I had to share. The whole thing is sub-titled, in case you can't follow along easily.

2010-05-16T18:26:00.002-04:00

Well, I'm not too bruised or battered, but I've definately learned some things lately. I recently completed a version of defensive tactics.

Very, very good class overall. I've been attacked or been on a scene that went bad multiple times. Sadly, I can't say PD was there, or that they actually stepped in to help us fire/ems guys every time. At least now I have a better idea and some basic training to help me get out of that situation next time it happens.

When it boils down to it, I'm going home at the end of my shift. Just because I don't carry a gun doesn't mean nobody will attack me. I'm just another uniform.

2010-04-28T20:02:00.002-04:00

I say this happened a long time ago, when in all actuality, it was maybe 5 years ago.

I was riding backwards on the engine, enjoying a day of being tailboard. We were sent to a house fire in our 2nd due. I don't remember fine details, but I do remember being inside with the nozzle at some point. Much of the fire was out, but there was still a lot to be had in the walls.

I vaguely remember throwing a ladder on the C side on a balcony. There was a crew stuck there that'd run out of air. They came down the ladder before I headed up it with a hoseline in tow.

I ended up in a bedroom on the 2nd story, A side. My driver was right beside me, digging into the sheetrock with his hook, then leaning in to direct me with the nozzle. I think it was the first fire I went into, much less had some nozzle time, since the academy.

I don't know where the Captain was at that moment in time, but I preferred the driver's company more anyways. I remember being content just having the knob and my new friend there showing me what the hell I was really supposed to be doing. After all, real fire is nothing like the pallets and hay you see in the academy. You actually have to hunt for it sometimes, and there's no such thing as "pretend it's bigger, the crew before you put too much water on it."

My friend still works that area of the department. I moved to a different area not long after this fire. A different Captain was moved into that station that I just horribly clashed with personality-wise. I don't regret the move either. I've learned so much more than I think I would have if I'd stayed. Around the time I transferred, my true mentor retired, my friend was transferred, I hated the captain, and it just didn't feel like home anymore.

There's not much chance I'll be transferred from my current station right now and that's a-ok by me.

2010-04-23T22:46:00.001-04:00

Some things are proven time and time again. The following is my new favorite quote.

"The difference between genious and stupid, is that there's no limit on stupid." -unknown

2010-04-16T11:20:00.002-04:00

I haven't had anything really interesting lately. The calls I've run have been your average, boring, sick person and/or buttaches.

I did respond to an apartment fire a couple of weeks ago. We took care of shutting off the gas supplies, then sat around watching for weakness in the firewall. It was a hell of a fire overall, but it was a primarily defensive operation. 2 aerials were set up and put in service. Once the majority of the fire was out, crews took handlines into the safer areas to start overhaul.

We were released from the scene shortly before shift change. I'm sure the other shift just loved getting to roll and reload all that hose.

Range day-rifle side

2010-04-03T00:56:00.001-04:00

I love going to this range. It's owned by a county police department and the range masters/firearm instructors are always nice to us.

I sometimes throw a few shots at the targets on the 200 line, but all looked pretty old so I stayed at 100 today. It's been a while since I had a good range day, so it took me a few minutes to get myself situated.

Decent groupings at 100 the size of my palm. Definately not my best day, but I'll take it. A bad day shooting always beats a great day working. I got bored with paper (as usual) so I turned my focus to the spent shotgun shells I'd set up at the bottom of the berm. Only thing that beats those is golfball hunting. Chasing those downrange is just plain fun, especially when they fly into the air after being hit.

For those wondering, I have a bone stock RRA with removable carry handle and mamba sling. I'm saving for a red dot scope, preferrably one that takes aa or aaa batteries. Also wanting the flashlight that does steady-on or high intensity rapid strobe, can't remember the details on that one cause it's 1am right now. Otherwise, I'm content with my bare bones rifle.

2010-04-01T23:50:00.002-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I've been busy with many other projects, had friends visiting from Australia, and other things that took up my time. I'll get back to you regularly scheduled randomness eventually.

For now, I'll add something a bit more personal.

I have a registered AQHA gelding. I bought him almost 3 years ago. After taking a couple of hard falls (one of which left me with a concussion-even with a riding helmet), I stopped cantering on him. It's been at least 2.5 years, until a week ago. I finally felt comfortable enough and asked him for a canter.

The horse was hesitant, but did just fine overall. I stayed in the saddle and had a small bruise on my hand, but no worse for wear otherwise.

I've got to get that horse to slow down and be smoother, this bouncing along thing isn't very fun/comfy. (For those wondering, yes, he was on the correct lead. He's just really fast and bouncy.)

Collyer's Mansion Conditions

2010-03-17T17:00:00.002-04:00

There's an absolutely excellent article to be found in the Firehouse.com news. I would highly suggest reading the whole artice, it's mind-boggling in a way.

http://www.firehouse.com/news/news/collyers-mansion-conditions

The common translation of firefighter lingo to plain english for Collyer's Mansion Conditions is "firefighter's nightmare."

The basic jist of the story is the Collyer brothers lived in a large mansion in Harlem. One brother lost his vision and the other took care of him. They were recluse, and the sighted brother was very suspicious of the outside world, though he would venture out at night for supplies. He became a hermit and a hoarder. He eventually died when he accidently triggered one of his own booby traps. His blind brother died a few days later of starvation, dehydration, and other ailments.

This is a partial list of the valuables removed from the Collyer home, they include:
136 tons of debris
14 Grand pianos
2 organs
1 clavichord
Human medicine specimens (in glass jars)
Model-T Ford chassis
Approx 15,00 medical and engineering books
Weapons
6 US flags
1 Union jack
1 x-ray machine
34 bank deposit books: balance $3007.18
Baby carriages
Plaster statues and chandeliers
Gardner baskets and picture frames
Old Christmas trees and press makers dummies
Bundles of sheet music
Newspapers: Langley collected every newspaper published in New York City since the years 1918. He did this in the hope that Homer would someday regain his sight. Langley once stated that he did that "so when Homer regains his sight he can catch up on the news".

The irony of this is that a few weeks ago my Captain was asking us about Collyer's Mansion Conditions. Nobody knew what it was, but google helped fix that problem, and I educated myself. It was entertaining to a degree to have just learned about this, then experience it firsthand.

I'll be making a seperate post later on about the actual call, I need to walk away from the keyboard for a while and find some food.

The Real Fireman's Prayer

2010-03-16T23:55:00.001-04:00

Oh God of the bell that hangs on the wall
We pray to you to give us a call.
We don't want to see anyone hurt or in pain
We just want to see wall to wall flames.

We hate to have anyone lose their possessions
But if it happens, remember, we're tops in our profession.

So God of the bell that dispatches the call
We pray to you, KNOCK THAT SUCKER OFF THE WALL!!!!!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There's nothing better to lift the spirits of one melancholy Firelady than responding to a rockin house fire and getting my fill of nozzle time. More info to come later, for now, a homework assignment.

What is a "Collyer's Mansion"?

No cheating and using google, if you don't know, just say so. I'll be posting more about this soon anyways.

2010-03-16T09:51:00.001-04:00

Ever had one of those days that started out great and then just took nosedive after nosedive? I hate days like that.

~"Can't get right"
A.K.A.
~Firelady

2010-03-10T01:38:00.002-05:00

I'm sporadic and impatient.

I went to the mountain yesterday in the new shoes. I limited myself by only going to the halfway point though. I walked up and jogged down. The shoes are awesome.

I had 1 person stop me and ask about the shoes, saying he was considering buying a pair. I told him the truth........

It's been 3 days (at this point) and that's the first thing I've really done other than walking around the house and driveway. The only problem I've had is while jogging down the mountain and jumping around on the rocks, the material between your toes can push back pretty hard and is pretty annoying. They're really nice so far though.

Today, my calves are a bit sore, but my feet feel fine. I also went to the barn and rode my horse for almost an hour, so that didn't help any. My legs were extremely tight when I got out of the car after the hour's drive back home.

So far, I'm loving them though.

2010-03-08T09:25:00.001-05:00

This made me laugh so hard this morning. It shouldn't be nearly as funny as I thought it was.

Mama's got a new pair of shoes

2010-03-06T21:23:00.003-05:00

I was turned on to these very very recently, but I love the idea so I jumped on the bandwagon tonight.

I'll be wearing these around as much as I can and seeing how they work out. I already don't have any issues rolling my ankles or stumbling, I just enjoy toe-socks and being barefoot. I just got home with them a few minutes ago and I've been wearing them about 45 minutes so far and they're really comfortable. It's weird feeling them, but not the least bit uncomfortable.

I walked up the driveway and into the house, and feeling the bumps in the concrete and other things was so cool. I'm excited to go try them out running or hiking. The style I bought is one of the more all-around styles.

I'm just curious how well the tread will last. That's my only real question.

I'll be keeping ya'll updated.

2010-03-05T18:11:00.001-05:00

Ya know what 1 thing can make a 2-alarm structure fire even more fun?
(other than nobody being hurt, of course)

Getting said structure fire 1 hour before shift change. We get to have all the fun, the oncoming shift gets to pick up all the hose.

2010-02-27T09:15:00.002-05:00

Firelady: Hey man, when's your birthday?

Co-worker: In a couple months, why?

Firelady: I just needed to know so I could go to the bowling alley and stock up on some polish for ya.

**5 second delay**

Co-worker: Oh damn.

Yeah, I'm still around. I just haven't had anything overly interesting that I felt like sharing lately. Hopefully things will pick up soon.

2010-02-10T19:32:00.001-05:00

I learned just how heavy these suits are today, and how to extricate the tech from his suit. Wow. What an awesome experience.

2010-02-09T11:52:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posts folks. There just hasn't been anything interesting enough to post here lately. Plenty is going on in my life, but I'm afraid that I'd come closer to giving myself away if I wrote about things.

I will say that I had fun driving the engine last shift. There weren't any great calls, but we were hot on the heels on another engine company while heading to a fire call. The caller advised flames seen from the street, so everyone was moving on out. Turned out to be someone burning wood. Oh well.

car fires and cardiac issues

2010-02-04T14:11:00.003-05:00

The lack of posts lately actually has a pretty good excuse this time, other than me being lazy. A car wreck I was involved in back in 2008 has been haunting me. The past week or so has been beyond stressful and I've had to get myself an attorney. The other driver was at fault, and her insurance company has not paid my medical bills as promised. It's just a huge headache and I'm tired of catching that insurance rep. in lie after lie.

In other news, work has been nothing short of interesting lately.

I got to fight a car fire that fought back almost as hard. We arrived onscene and it was fully involved, save for part of the engine compartment. The fuel line had ruptured, so burning gasoline was under the car and kept rolling down the hill towards a storm drain.

While I was getting off the engine, masking up the rest of the way, and waiting on water, 2 tires blew. I had a fun time trying to overcome the gasoline's affinity for burning. Every time I would just about have the passenger compartment nearly out, the gas would light it all off again. I'm not quite sure what the captain was doing, but he was just standing around behind me, not helping hump hose or anything, just standing there. After scrambling to knock down the flames as the gasoline got within 3 feet of the sewer access, I asked him to grab the dry chemical extinguisher. He returned with it and it helped some, but the car wasn't going out without a fight.

As I worked my way around to the passenger's side, I was standing at the front door, putting water into the car, when the rear tire blew on that side. I won't say I was expecting it, but I'm proud to say it didn't startle me much or scare me at all. My brain finally recognized the difference between a tire and a gunshot.

Once the car was pretty much out, the driver brought me the K12 so we could open the hood. The cable had already burnt out under the dash, and the car's design prevented us from accessing it near the latch. I made the cuts and only had to go back for a small, 3" section of the frame below the skin that I somehow missed. I'll get it all the first try next time though. At least I kept the saw moving enough to not let the blade bind this time (I've had trouble with that in the past).

Once the fire was out and the car had been soaked down a few more times for good measure, we refilled the tank on the engine, put fresh bottles into our SCBAs, and returned to service.

Earlier that day, we ran a gas odor call. A rear window had been broken and more than likely, copper lines were cut and stolen from inside. I cut the gas off at the meter and the captain had dispatch notify the gas company.

The neighbor that called us was afraid the house was going to explode. I'm not a hazmat tech, but I'm pretty sure the house had too much gas inside to allow an explosion. The smell of the mercaptan could knock you down.

Back at my home station a different shift, I don't think I've laughed that hard in a while. I needed that, more than the guys knew, or than I'd let them in on. When someone would fart, SCBA masks with our hoods would go on, just for laughs. When he's not doing paperwork, the captain joins in on the joking around sometimes. One person might get ragged for cooking, but another will get it for snoring, while another gets it about their moustache, and somebody else might catch a joke for something else. There's no telling what silly thing someone will blurt out next some days. I don't want it any other way.

There's no doubt the captain is the boss, nor is there that the senior guys are senior guys, and etc. It's just nice to be in a place where we don't have to be 100% serious all the time, even when at the station and out of the public's view/earshot.

As for medical calls, we transported a 5 year old in bigeminy/trigeminy. Yes, I wrote 5, and no, it's not a typo. The little guy was brave during the IV stick, and since the hospital didn't give orders for lidocane or anything else, the IV, oxygen, and diesel drip were all we could do.

It was definitely freaky and a bit scary to see such a young person having this heart condition. I've only seen it in the elderly, or in those with known heart conditions.

Another medical call had us transporting an elderly lady after a dizziness and weakness spell. On the way to the hospital, I could hear my partner talking to her as he put the defibrillation pads on her and was explaining what would happen by pacing her. He set the monitor to pace and had a good capture at 40miliamps. Her heart was beating too slow (in the 40's) and it needed to be sped up a bit.

As we were nearing the hospital, her respirations slowed and became agonal. I opened the rear doors to find my partner bagging her. I knew she was still kicking because she would move her feet occasionally (no pun intended).

The ER staff did a great job having enough hands ready to handle her in case she crashed, respiratory was even ready for her. When we left the hospital, she was still alive and being paced. My only complaint about that call is that the ER's monitor wasn't compatible with our pads. This was the first time I'd ever seen the style connector they used. Nothing we have will fit it, and the nurse had trouble figuring out how to disconnect it to check if ours would fit. It makes me think it must be new to them as well.

Answers to keyword searches

2010-01-26T23:43:00.002-05:00

I'm in a writing mood tonight. Since I don't seem to get much email, but plenty of google hits are returning my blog, I'm thinking about occasionally pulling interesting search criteria and answering those to the best of my ability.

Here goes.

"How do they do CPR in an ambulance?"

The smart-aleck in me wants to answer with just "very carefully", but I'll try to elaborate. The biggest help we can have while doing CPR is having a driver that is actually mindful that while they need to get to the ER fast, they have to slow down to an extent. The folks in the back are standing, and won't appreciate any sudden turns or braking. Every ambulance I've seen or worked in, has a metal bar mounted to the ceiling. Common slang for it is the O.S. Bar (use your colorful imagination).

My experience with adult CPR has been standing with legs spread wide for better balance, one hand firmly gripping the OS bar, the other on the patient's chest for compressions. Sometimes, I've been known to slide open the nearest cabinet door and grab the sill instead for better balance.

For a pediatric patient, I'll sit on the stretcher with the baby.

Some ambulances have what we call center-mount stretchers, meaning it's not against a wall, and has a CPR seat. I've yet to try using a CPR seat, but I'm just not quite sure how to wrap my brain around effective compressions when I'm sitting down and having to reach over to the patient.

What's fun (to me at least), is being the one to "surf the stretcher" at the ER. Basically, you stand on the lower part of the stretcher's frame and do compressions while you and the patient are wheeled into the ER. Lowering the stretcher from it's highest level (which they all seem to be at by default when unloading), will help considerably in making compressions easier.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Comparisons of private cars to ER and ambulances to ER"

Let me preface this by saying that I do not have exact figures, nor do I advocate taking off in your own car instead of calling 911 for that heart attack, or using 911 to "be seen faster" for your stumped toe.

I'm going to address this one by taking what seems to me as the most unbiased opinion I can give. Keep in mind though, this is MY opinion. If you've been here a while, you've surely noticed I'm biased, opinionated, and I give my version of what happened. The following has plenty of truth to it, but is NOT to be taken as the be-all, end-all answer.

Every single person that walks, hops, limps, crawls, or is rolled into a hospital is triaged. That means the sickest person gets seen first. Period.

The nurses don't care if you've been there 3 hours or 3 days, the acute MI (heart attack) will be seen long before the sprained ankle.

I've had plenty of people that wanted to be transported by emergency ambulance so they would be seen quicker. Imagine their disappointment when we rolled them past the ER and out to triage, lowered the stretcher, and helped them sign in for their 5 day-old, non-medicated headache.

911, is supposed to be for emergencies. If you have an emergency, I'll be more than happy to do everything I can to help you and get you to an ER. However, I am not a taxi service, that's why we have a public transportation system. You can pay them less than $2, or pay me over $500 and possibly cost someone having a real emergency their life.

2010-01-23T04:22:00.002-05:00

One day a firefighter and a cop die saving a life. They both went to heaven and at the gates they are told that they each get a pair of wings, but if they have one dirty thought then they lose their wings.

Everything was going along wonderfully until about 3 weeks later. One day, a really good looking angel walks by and the firefighter turns his head and grins. Of course, all of a sudden, his wings fall off. Well, when he bent over to pick them up, the cops wings fell off.

Pet peeves

2010-01-22T21:58:00.002-05:00

People that don't do their job.

People that don't stand up to supervisors when given orders that directly contradict doing the right thing. Especially if doing the right thing would only take 5 more minutes (and you're already out of service anyways).

Close call

2010-01-16T20:28:00.002-05:00

Last night was another reminder of how so many little things can go wrong and create a dangerous situation for everyone.

There were problems with water supply, nozzle placement, communication, equipment, and more.

We were lucky. We were extremely lucky.

The crew assigned to water supply was not the crew that completed the assignment. Another unit said they'd dress the hydrant and the original crew moved on to a new assignment. Because of what I personally feel was a poor decision, the crew that dressed the hydrant slowed the process. They chose to flush the hydrant before attaching the 2 1/2" to Stortz, and never put a ball valve on the other side. The hydrant had to be flushed, closed, dressed, and charged. It felt a lot longer than it actually was I'm sure, but it still took a long time.

The 2nd line off the pumping engine ended up in a dead end, at the opposite end of the hallway from where it needed to be. Too many firefighters were cramming into the space and communication deteriorated. We think the crews outside were flowing water and pushed the fire onto the crews with the 2nd line. The flames rolled over 2 times, and both times I was on my knees because of the heat (most of us were pretty low) and the flames were near eye-level.

After the rollovers, the nozzle finally got moving in the right direction and we got water on the fire.

1 person experienced a major malfunction of their SCBA and was breathing hot smoke. He is doing fine now, but a rookie from his station was scared to death that he was seriously hurt. I'm unclear right now as to the finer details of the malfunction. I heard something about the facepiece may have cracked, or the regulator wasn't locked in all the way, or whatever. I'm not going to speculate because I don't know the real answer. I'm just glad he wasn't seriously hurt.

At some point or another, pretty much everyone was some degree of disoriented. I know of at least 2 guys that lost the hoseline and weren't sure exactly where they were or where the hose went.

After a short scare, all occupants were located and accounted for.

The fire was stopped and the majority of the house escaped fire and water damage. The roof was intact, the occupants are alive and unscathed, their property can be cleaned, rebuilt, or replaced.

We all went home at the end of the shift.

I'm still tired, even though I came home and slept roughly 9 hours. I'm sore, I'm sooty, and I smell like a BBQ pit. Yet, I'm content. I'm extremely dissatisfied with how the fire went, but everyone did do a good job overall, and just getting to go into a fire makes my day.

I hope we are able to get some of the crews together next shift and go over what happened and see the different perspectives. It doesn't seem to be done as much lately and this call definately needs a field-level review. I know the powers-that-be review every fire, but so should we.

My Office

2010-01-13T17:27:00.003-05:00

Part of my job for the last few years has been to cram my brain full of as much information about the engine as I can. This will continue for the rest of my career.

I take a lot of pride in trying to know as much about my truck as I can, and I have a lot of information still to learn. I want to know everything from how many GPM's my truck will pump, to how many discharges of each size it has, to how many lugnuts are on the wheels. It's part of being a good driver in my opinion.

Welcome to my office
**note- image is from photobucket, not my truck**

I have not had the fortune of working for any captains that were what's now considered "Old School." I've taken part in some training that I believe is tradition, but nothing I've seen many folks put through regularly.

My first shift out of the academy, I brought donuts, set them on the table, and sat back out of the way. Once the shift started and I was shown where to put my gear and how to work the SCBA release in the seats, I was told I was not allowed to enter any part of the station other than the bay until I knew where everything was at on my engine.

I opened every compartment and spent some time going around and around that truck. When I finally felt comfortable enough, I entered the day room and was immediately quizzed by the guys. Since I answered everything correctly, I was allowed to stay, and sit down. I understood the reasoning then, and I'm thankful for the lesson it taught me. To this day, I can walk around an engine and really look at the compartments 1 time, and I'll remember where things are. It doesn't even take 5 minutes of my time.

Once I started learning about friction loss and other driver-specific duties, I had a very difficult time getting help. I was in a different crew, and the man I once looked to as my mentor had already retired. My shifts were spent on the ambulance, every shift that passed, I was on the ambulance. The truck was extremely busy, and I rarely was able to eat a warm dinner, much less study friction loss or practice pumping the engine at my station. For this, I blame that captain.

I took my personal time and attended a fireground hydraulics class offered by the state academy. I purchased and read, cover to cover, the IFSTA manual on Engine Operator. I took more time on my days off to go drive reserve engines around the academy, under the supervision of the instructors, to help build enough hours to meet the requirements to even take the test for pump school.

I felt the need to do all of these things because I wasn't getting the experience or help I felt I needed at the station-level.

When I took the entrance test for pump school, I passed, and few have ever matched or beat my score (so I've been told). The practicals testing was nerve-wracking, you know they are looking at everything. I had to repeat 1 part. You have to flow a 1 3/4" crosslay wide open, and you better get your own water supply before you cavitate. Oh, and make sure the TPM is set, a spike of more than 30psi on the line is grounds for failure. My first attempt, I was just a bit too slow and cavitated (no harm was done to the truck, the instructor stands by the pump panel to shut it down if needed, and the firefighter on the nozzle also closes the bale when he hears the engine over-rev).

I do not have the luxury of having the experience of pumping many many fires, but I do my best at every opportunity and the guys manning my hoselines have never brought any complaints to me. I look forward to pumping more fires, it's hard work, but it's a blast. The only bad thing about pumping, is having to stay outside with the truck.

I don't want to be a 2/20 firefighter, but I'm not afraid to share what information I do know. I managed to teach a veteran guy how to pressurize a watercan by backflowing the air up the nozzle. I can't begin to list the things I've been taught.

Like I said, I take a lot of pride in the things I've learned. Any of you folks out there that are fire guys, please feel free to share random bits of info that might be helpful, or rack my brain to see what I know. Non-fire folks, send me any questions you have about the things we do, why, or how we do them. If I don't have a good answer for you, I'll do my best to find one.

A rare sight

2010-01-08T16:54:00.003-05:00

Yup, that's what it looks like outside my bedroom.

I love the snow, but that may be because I don't see it very often. Of course, everyone in town has lost their damn minds. There was a 27 or 29 car pileup, and a deputy that spun out and the off-duty officer that stopped to help had to jump off a 20 ft high bridge when another car lost control and came at them. The news is saying they'll both be ok, but no idea about their actual injuries.

I just got back from heading to the bank to make a deposit and get food, and the roads look decent. I didn't have any issues, and the only ice I crossed was in the shopping center parking lot. A roughly 250' long stretch of road that was covered. I jut let the car idle forward and didn't have any problems. My backyard is another story though. It's 22*F now, and once the sun drops, it's going to freeze solid very quickly. The ice will be over 1" thick.

I'm praying for all the guys and gals that have to work in this junk.

I was evil this morning though. I was able to make ice cream from the snow. It was awesome, very tasty. If the snow doesn't get that crunchy layer of ice on it, I might make more in the morning. I have to get my fix while the snow lasts, because it may not snow for another year around here.

Never thread a tiny needle with big yarn

2010-01-07T21:37:00.002-05:00

...Or try to thread a Crown Vic between a poured concrete wall and a telephone pole where the gap between them is between 6 and 12 inches less than the width of the vehicle.

Amazingly, these idiots were fairly unscathed. Their car will probably be totalled, since the engine dropped and was sitting at a weird angle.

The call came in as an entrapment, but all occupants of the vehicle were able to crawl out through the windows before any units arrived onscene. 2 of the 3 ended up on backboards and in C-collars since they had complaints, the other guy refused care.

I thought the driver's cell phone was going to have to be surgically removed, he interfered with his own care by ignoring our orders to stop making calls so we could assess him, and finished calling everyone in his phone book. The refusal guy just kept getting into the back of the ambulance and was pretty much just in the dang way the whole time. I finally made a smartassed comment to one of the engine guys and he got the guy out of my way.

As soon as I got in the cab to drive to the ER, refusal guy made some comment to me along the lines of "you gonna drive *this* truck?" I turned and looked at him and the filter between my brain and mouth failed (hey, it was 0230), "I've been driving it longer than you."

He said some other rude comment and I replied that I got paid to drive that truck, and he was quiet the rest of the ride.

At the hospital, the nursing staff commented about the hispanic gang that had arrived in the waiting room. I told them about the cell phone issues. They had their hands full trying to keep the driver in his room (and not walking around on the ankle he was supposed to have X-ray'd), and keeping the other visitors from sneaking into the rooms with the guys.

In other news, it's actually snowing! The ground here has a light dusting of snow and it's still falling. I'm so glad I'm off work for a couple of days, folks around here don't know how to drive even on dry roads.

I just hope enough falls so I can make ice cream. I have sugar, milk, and vanilla extract ready and waiting!

Exactly how it's supposed to work

2010-01-03T21:49:00.002-05:00

Rarely, there are times where the calls I run restore my faith in the system, even if only temporarily.

We arrived onscene and found our patient looking pretty crappy. He was complaining of chest discomfort and nausea, among other things. We didn't waste any time in getting him on the stretcher and into the ambulance. He was placed on the monitor, and a 12-lead was also run as soon as we were able. His nausea got the better of him and he vomitted. As quickly as we could manage, he got a diesel drip to the hospital. Our onscene time was between 5-10 minutes total.

On arrival at the hospital, we spent just long enough in the ER to have a STEMI chart grabbed, timer started, and for a nurse to come show us the way to the cath lab.

I kid you not when I say that we moved the patient from our stretcher onto the cath lab table, and were kicked out of the room.

I made a comment to my partner about wishing we could stay an watch, because it had to be a interesting procedure. Well, one of the nurses said to just go into the observation room and watch, stating that it's only a 15 minute procedure. Don't have to tell me twice, we moved our stretcher to an out of the way place, and went to watch.

All I can say is wow. It's so very neat to watch. Our guy had a right inferior block. The stint was placed and he converted back to a normal rhythm right before I left to go put my truck back in order.

Total time from initiation of 911 to stint placement was at or just shy of an hour. I'd have to pull the report to be sure, since we don't track arrival to the ER in our station logs.

Christmas has come and gone

2009-12-26T22:59:00.002-05:00

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

I spent Christmas Eve with my family, doing the whole food and gifts thing.

Yesterday morning, I awoke to a once-again flooded basement. There was nothing I could do though, since I had to work.

We had wonderful food, and absolutely stuffed our faces. As per usual, it got busy once it got dark. We ran calls constantly until around 430 this morning. I came home and slept afterwards.

Now, I'm just relaxing around the house, staying warm and chatting with friends online.

Many things

2009-12-20T20:50:00.002-05:00

Yesterday wasn't too bad of a day. It was supposed to continue raining off and on, but it stayed dry and ended up beating the predicted high by reaching a balmy 44. I was prepared for it to stay in the 30's, but that's ok.

Most of the calls we ran weren't very interesting, save for a late-night severe CHF patient. Her O2 sats were 71% on arrival. We hooked her up to the CPAP and she also received some medications both onscene and enroute to the hospital.

Christmas is coming, and I've still got to hunt down and buy 50% of my gifts for folks. At work, we've decided to do a potluck for Christmas day. I volunteered for dessert type stuff since I don't know how to cook many side-items and can bake everything at home beforehand. I'm all about staying out of the kitchen and relaxing when I can cook it at home and not even have to worry about reheating anything.

I do need to decide what to make and gather the supplies though. I'm definately thinking some kind of cookies, as well as brownies. I'm not big on making cakes or pies though, so they'll have to buy them if they want them.

The basement here on the homefront is drying out, slowly but surely. I've got 2 fans down there moving air constantly. The problem will be waiting on the ground outside to dry out enough to dig up the french drain, and hoping it won't rain anymore.

Enough of a break I suppose, time to get back to my arts 'n crafts. I'm determined to get this project finished by christmas eve.

On the home front

2009-12-18T15:18:00.003-05:00

Not related to work, but I'm stressed, therefore, I post!

It's friggin freezing outside! It's 37*, but with a 16mph wind, it feel like it's 26*. It also doesn't help that it's raining.

I've spent valuable time with the 16gal shop vac today, removing water from my basement. So far, I've probably removed at least 80 gallons and I'm nowhere near done yet. The damage is immense. The only good thing is that last time this happened (although not nearly as severe), we put almost everything in plastic bins, on shelves, or somehow a few inches off the floor.

This time, the water has filled the finished room, and moved to where the motorcycles are parked.

The deepest point of water is nearly 2".

What we suspect is the real issue, is that I need new gutters, and especially need to dig up and replace where the gutter downspout routes water past the house. The craptastic 40 year old plastic corregated pipe is probably shot.

I've also had to put a plastic dropcloth on my back deck and pin it down with pots and paint cans. The water overflows a weak spot in the gutter and dumps through the porch, and onto my AC unit...which is currently frozen rock solid.

Just one of those days where I'd rather be at work than dealing with this crap.

Vacation funnies

2009-12-15T16:42:00.002-05:00

These are things that I said, yes, I said 'em, to people on vacation. This post takes up space, proves how much of a smartass I am, and fulfills many other things only I keep track of. Enjoy.

Conversaion with Mrs Claus

MC. "Happy Holidays"

Me- *blank stare*

MC "and Merry Christmas"

Me- "OK, now you've got it right"

Conversation with cashier at lunch place

Cashier- "Your total is $15.**"

Me- "No it's not"

Cashier- *extremely puzzled look on her face*

-cue roommate from my right-

Me- "our food is together."

Cashier- "Oh"

Many, many times it was noted how the larger folks were working on the moving walkways for the rides that had them at disney. The jokes about being on a treadmill flew, most initiated by my friend (who lives near disney, and works there).

By the end of the trip, I was ready to strangle most people in sight. For reasons ranging from randomly stopping in front of me, to not controlling their children, to just breathing my oxygen.

I should mention that even though I'm far from claustrophobic, I get very anxious when strangers stand too close to me. I blame work for that.

Back to the grind tomorrow, so we'll see what happens.

2009-12-07T21:10:00.002-05:00

Another day of jingle bell airhorn.

We've also broken into a house after friends and family failed to make contact with a family member for days. They had semi-barricaded themself into a room an passed away. It's pretty sad, especially considering how close to the holidays it is.

In more light hearted news, today has been a day chock full of jokes. Everything from silly ribbing, to sly comments, to farting on each other or farting in the office and locking someone inside.

I'm having an absolute blast today.

Unrelated news, I'll be taking a week off, so don't expect much from me this week. That is, unless I decide to post from my vacation spot.

HOA toys with Medal of Honor winner over his flag

2009-12-06T14:33:00.003-05:00

This story makes me sick to my stomach. The fact that the HOA would even argue with this hero over a flagpole is disgusting.

Also bear in mind, the story fails to mention that the HOA guidelines do NOT forbid flagpoles. There's also the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, which bars any HOA from making any restrictions on flying Old Glory on your own property.

Here's the link, but I've copied the whole story to here as well...
http://www.wcpo.com/content/news/saywhat/story/WWII-Vet-Fights-Homeowners-Group-Over-Flagpole/5kmNFbpms0GSREuU6IpHQg.cspx

RICHMOND, Va. — One of the nation's oldest Medal of Honor winners was back in the fight Thursday, this time against a neighborhood association that wants him to take down a front-yard flagpole.

Supporters, including a U.S. senator, have been falling in behind 90-year-old retired Army Col. Van T. Barfoot, a World War II veteran awarded the lofty Congressional honor for actions including standing up to three German tanks with a bazooka and stopping their advance.

Barfoot put up the 21-foot flagpole in September in front of his suburban Richmond home. He raises the American flag daily at sunrise and retires it at sunset.

"It's really ridiculous to want to keep the flag from being flown," he said in a telephone interview. "I've heard some terrible excuses out there."

The Sussex Square homeowners' association says the flagpole violates the neighborhood's aesthetic guidelines and ordered him to remove it by 5 p.m. Friday or face a lawsuit. The group has said Barfoot can display the flag, as long as it's in a way that conforms with association rules, such as from a pole mounted on the front of the house.

"This is not about the American flag. This is about a flagpole," the association said in a statement.

Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., is among those offering to help break the impasse, Warner spokesman Kevin Hall said. Warner and the war hero became acquainted at veterans' events when Warner was Virginia's governor from 2002-06. Others are backing Barfoot on the Internet, including with a Facebook page.

Barfoot won the Medal of Honor for actions while his platoon was under German assault near Carano, Italy, in May 1944. The award citation says Barfoot, then a 2nd lieutenant, crept up alone on German machine gun nests, killing and capturing enemy troops in three of them, stopped their three-tank advance and helped two seriously wounded comrades back to safety.

He also won the Purple Heart and other decorations, and served in Korea and Vietnam before retiring from the service in 1974. The Sitter & Barfoot Veterans Care Center, a state nursing home for military retirees in Richmond, bears his name.

Barfoot's daughter, Margaret Nicholls, said her father has been moved to tears by the outpouring of support, and hopes the nine-member homeowners' board will use its discretion and let him keep the pole.

"A house-mounted pole? That is not an option," Nicholls said. "The flagpole is definitely what he's fighting for."

Not sure what to think

2009-12-05T19:09:00.002-05:00

I'm just not sure what to really think about this one, but I'm not happy. If I was, would you be reading this? Probably not.

Remember my comments in other posts about not liking being around other females at work? Usually, it's because they're sorry, lazy-ass, weak, drama-whores. This time, I'm just not sure about her.

As I was heading home from work the other day, the other shift's female started playing 20 questions with me. We were standing in the main office, surrounded by everyone else.

The basic gist of her questions were things like "do you like fighting fire", "are you scared of fire", etc.

Honestly, it put me on the defensive, and it pissed me off that she would think she even needed to ask these things, much less in front of a bunch of guys. The questions and look on her face made me feel as though I was being accused of something.

Not quite 2 weeks ago, she pulled me into the women's bathroom to tell me that if my guys were harassing me, to tell her and she'd take care of them.

Seriously? What the hell?!

I can take care of myself. I have the thick skin needed to deal with the jokes, and with the snide comments of the few women-haters in the department. *If* I ever have a big enough issue with someone that it can't be resolved, my first move will be to speak with my captain, or battalion chief. I'm not going to go running to her, that seems so ridiculously childish.

I'm hoping she means well, but her approach is absolutely horrible. All she's accomplished is making me wary of her (while I try to figure out her motives), and even more against working with other females regularly.

She's not even on my shift, so why should she even give a damn?

100th Post

2009-11-29T16:22:00.004-05:00

100 posts to this blog, so what should I talk about? How about the idiocy that often makes up the runs on my shift, and the good stuff that's sprinkled around?

Here's an idiot call to get us started.

I spotted this grafitti a few weeks ago and took the picture, knowing that sooner or later, I'd get the chance to use it. I'm suprised I had to wait this long.

Early 20's black male was laying on the curb, surrounded by 2 cops, wearing a wifebeater and boxers. His pants nearly to his ankles. It was pretty damn chilly out when this happened too.

There's the strong smell of puked-up booze, and it's obvious his body was pissed at the amount of alcohol it contained and tried to fight back. The officers were wearing gloves, and had stuffed the guy's ID, phone, etc, into a glove because it was all covered in vomit.

The guy's friends rolled up and tried their damndest to pull drunk guy to his feet and shove him into their car. They wanted to take him home to momma for her to deal with, afraid he was going to jail. Idiots, he already had the ticket in his pocket and wasn't under arrest. Our jail nurses would've refused him anyways, they refuse hangnails.

Finally, everyone gave up and we were able to drag him out and onto the stretcher. As we were putting on the seatbelts, drunk guy ripped one, right in my seatman's face. I looked up, then thought about laughing, and then I smelled it. I had to back off immediately. So help me god, that was the worst fart that's ever terrorized my senses.

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A BLS crew requested us out for ALS. Their patient had thrown up, and was starting to slip in and out of consciousness.

As soon as we arrived, we helped them move her to the stretcher and get her loaded. The monitor and drug box were loaded into the ambulance from our truck, and after a quick set of vitals, they took off.

The patient was complaining of a really bad headache. She didn't look like she was feeling good. It turns out, she had a massive brain bleed. If she survives this, she'll probably be a vegetable the rest of her life.

It always makes you think. This person was talking to us onscene, even if we had to get her attention, she was talking to us. Those may have been the last words she'll ever speak.
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As for some good stuff, first and foremost........

Georgia beat Georgia Tech!!!

I'll give both teams credit, it was a helluva game. It was definately a runner's game, with UGA running over 300 yards.

In other news, I got to spend some time in the mountains recently. 2 friends came back to GA for their families to throw them a baby shower. She's 7 months along now, and I haven't seen her in 6 months, so it was great to see how much she's grown.

Me and her hubby had fun geeking out with our guns in the back yard.

Ahhh, the joys of being in an area where shooting in your backyard is perfectly legal.

Every orange spot in the trees is a clay target. Since there are other houses nearby, we set targets at the base of trees, on stumps, or on knots where limbs were.

I grabbed my .223 and my buddy grabbed his .22 rifle. After the first couple of shots, her dad joined us on the deck with his 38 revolver. But, he wanted to fire my rifle. I only had a couple rounds left in the magazine, so I handed it to him, making sure he knew where the safety was, etc.

His first shot was way off, as was his 2nd. So, he turns to me and immediately complains about how I need to sight my rifle in.

How about no. Does that work for you? Oh, too bad.

It's my rifle, it's sighted in for the way I shoot. Get over it.
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As far as silly news goes.

You've never had fun until you've played christmas carols with the airhorn while responding to a call.

I was laughing, the seatman had a silly grin on his face, and the driver was oblivious.
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All in all, we were up almost all night. I came home and went to bed.

I swear, somewhere, somehow, somebody at dispatch managed to sneak those pressure sensors back into our beds. As soon as we layed down, we got right back up for another call. It happened twice in a row.

We ran more calls after midnight, than before midnight. Everyone was beat.

2009-11-27T12:41:00.002-05:00

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving yesterday.

I spent the first half of my day sleeping, recovering from my shift. Later, it was off to enjoy the festivities at my brother's house.

The shift started out early, and with a patient that had us wondering about the weight rating of some of our equipment. I don't think people over a certain weight, especially those with medical problems affecting their ability to walk, should be allowed to live anywhere other than the ground floor unless there's an elevator.

An extremely rare occurence happened when a frequent flier kicked us out and refused transport. Sad thing is, they probably actually needed to go this time.

Another frequent flier called and was indeed needing transport. Once on the monitor, it was very obvious that her pacemaker had a good capture and was pacing her. Her only complaint was related to breathing, even though her oxygen levels were in normal limits.

The only other call of any real interest had us awake at crazy hours. The call came in as an accident with injuries and entrapment. Strangely enough, the address was on a residential street, so we assumed it must have been where the street intersected with the main drag. We were wrong.

At retard-o'clock, a 20 year old was driving her SUV home from a party, drunk. She made it all the way into the very back of this neighborhood before jumping a curb and driving across a large front yard. But she didn't stop there. She drove through the homeowner's small sedan, spinning it over 90 degrees and sending it into a tree, then she continued across what has to be the largest cul-de-sac I've seen, jumping the curb, and finally coming to rest after striking a fire hydrant and tree.

Of course, she was fine, not a single scratch and she refused to even let us check her vitals.

The officers asked her if she'd been drinking, and she innitially lied "no". She later changed her story to say that she'd just come from a party. Here, the legal drinking limit is .08, but it's .02 for underage. With her being 20, we were positive she was screwed. We were right.

Once the DUI task force officer arrived, he chatted with her for a few minutes in front of his vehicle (camera rolling, no doubt), then hooked her up. No roadside sobriety tests, no mini-breathalyzer, not even so much as a nystagmus check. She was toasted.

Earlier, when she walked over to her car from where we were at, she tottered over to the side and nearly ran into the back corner of my ambulance. It's not like we were the least bit suprised to see the cuffs go on.

As expected, we didn't get much sleep. Our last call ensured that we'd be late getting offduty. Oh well, it happens I guess.

I'm just happy to finally be back where I want to be, and getting the experience I need (no thanks to the command staff I begged for a transfer well over 6 months ago). I have a great crew, and the guys are really settling down and starting to pick on me when we all start ragging on each other. They seemed hesitant at first, but I don't blame them, so many females are ever-ready to roll paperwork. I guess that's why I don't like working with other girls either.

I'm in a fair rotation between the engine and the ambulance. Both units usually get hammered at night, especially the ambulance. It sucks, but I don't really mind right now because this is where I'd rather be. I know the area better from working a few years there. I know what to expect from most of the patients. I know which buildings are nothing but a tinderbox, and which one's are death traps (in a few cases, even if they aren't on fire).

I still have a lot to learn, and I'm a bit rusty on the territory. I just have such a better grasp on things here and it gives me the confidence in my own knowledge that I was lacking at the station I spent the last year at.

CPR on dead folks

2009-11-24T02:39:00.002-05:00

It's a necessary evil in the world of EMS. We see dead people, sometimes we can change that, most times we can't.

Let me give a little backstory first.

A few shifts ago, we responded to a hoarder house where the female is a frequent flier with breathing problems. She has a tendency to wait until she absolutely is in trouble, then call 911. About 2 months ago, she was in cardiac arrest and was one of the "lucky ones" our crews revived. Well, she was given 6 months to live because of her other medical issues.

We responded to a call at her residence because "she couldn't walk". As it turns out, her feet were dying. As in the worse of the 2 was half-dead. The dead parts were textbook, and it's the first time I've seen this outside of the pictures in those books. The dead areas were pitch black and much smaller than the rest of the foot. The skin had split in at least 1 place, and I was shocked to not see maggots.

We tried everything to convince her to be transported to the hospital. We warned her about the impending sepsis, threatened with DFACS, and called to try for orders to hold on a psych evaluation. We even offerred to carry her to a family member's car, but she refused everything and was in too good of a mental capacity to be held on a psych order. Our last resort was to have her sign a refusal of treatment/transport, and have dispatch send a police officer that has a nurse with them to try and see if the nurse would place he under psych orders (our hope was since the nurse could actually see he living conditions an the dr couldn't, that he/she would force the patient to go).

Well, 2 shifts later, we found out that she did have her feet looked at and bandaged. Her body being too weak for the surgery to remove the necrotic tissue. Unfortunately for us, we found this out when we picked her up for being in cardiac arrest.

We did all we could for her, but she was pronounced dead just minutes after arriving at the ER.

Earlier in the same shift, we went to a hospice-at-home arrest. The daughter had medical power of attorney, but couldn't find her form stating it. There was also a DNR, or do not resussitate order, but it was missing the dr's signature, so it wasn't valid.

We had to initiate CPR, and after finally giving enough drugs and attaining both a patent airway and IV, we received orders to terminate CPR from the hospital.

I didn't know it, but apparently because of the DNR (a valid one was brought to the scene by the hospice nurse), the daughter wasn't supposed to have called 911. She just freaked out when she realized the patient stopped breathing. I'd probably do the same to be honest.

Here's something I've noticed recently though, that in a way, really bothers me. Why are ER docs so ready to pronounce without hardly even assessing the patient themselves?

I realize that by the time we get there, the average patient has had 3 rounds of epi, 3 rounds of atropine, and a bicarb, but shouldn't you at least let me get them off my stretcher and get it out of the room before you call them? Is this a new trend/standard I missed another memo on?

What's it like where any of you folks that work EMS are? Do your ER docs work everybody for a few minutes, maybe just the old folks get a rapid termination, do they base it on being asystole or PEA? I'm curious.

If the ladder goes up...

2009-11-08T23:48:00.003-05:00

I don't know if fire season has started and I missed the memo, or if it was just a hint of what's to come, but there were quite a few fires where I work yesterday. Sadly, I only got to go on 1 of them.

We were dispatched on the 2nd alarm (staging) of an apartment fire overnight. First crews onscene reported that the building was fully involved. On the way there, the radio traffic was buzzing as crews got water supplies on 2 sides of the building and set up for aerial operations on both sides as well. They went into defensive operations, conducted a PAR, then started flowing both aerials.

After knocking down the majority of the fire, a crew was allowed into a certain area with a 2 1/2". Another crew was detailed with checking for structural stability to see if we could send crews into other areas.

We sat in staging for roughly 5 minutes before being ordered to the scene to hurry up and wait. After some intense handshaking and hugs from guys we hadn't seen in a while, we were ordered to the command post, along with other crews for an assignment.

We ended up performing a secondary on a few apartments, and were going to do a primary on a few others, but all doors were locked and chief said not to worry about it instead of forcing all of the doors.

We were released from the scene shortly after. The fire seemed to be on the 2nd story and it also burnt the roof off. I think I heard them say 25+ people were displaced.

I've worked fires in that complex before. It's not a major tinderbox, but they (the fires) can get out of hand quickly if you don't act fast. Sadly, the first crews learned the hard way that a single crosslay will not really put enough of a dent into one of these to stop it.

Somewhat offtopic, we went through training for new SCBA's many months ago, but they weren't issued to us because of some issues the manufacturer had to deal with. How sad is it that now that some units finally got the new SCBA's, many, many people have dead battery issues? I have to include myself in this group and it irritates me to no end. We aren't allowed to change the batteries, and we don't have the correct tools anyway.

It's hard enough trying to remember what we briefly learned 6+ months ago, it's even harder when the pack and/or mask have dead/low batteries.

Another new beginning

2009-11-05T22:40:00.003-05:00

Like I said before, sorry for the hiatus. On to the fun stuff!

After exactly 1 year to the day, I started working in a new (to me, at least) station at work. I'm back in the busier area, and even though I already miss those I worked with for the last year, I'm content.

My first shift was spent riding tailboard on the engine. It was a Sunday, and thankfully it was slow for us. My only reason for saying this is because I've been sick. We only ran a handfull of calls, and most of us relaxed once the daily chores were completed.

At night, we were sent to an apartment fire that turned out to be just a car fire. I was excited to have anything actually burning. I had all my gear on and just had to put my mask and gloves on once we got onscene. Another engine that had 2 brand new rookies asked if they could come play, so I didn't really do too much. The engine was acting up and having issues engaging the pump anyways.

Once the rookies arrived (and de-nutted enough to remember how to get all their gear on), I handed over the nozzle and helped direct them a bit. They did great backing each other on the line, and swapped out so they both had plenty of nozzle time.

They put away the trash line used for the fire, and while the tank was refilling from the hydrant, put the line away again. This time, so it would actually fit in the tray.

Some things don't work the same as what the academy teaches.

The last shift I worked, I was on the ambulance. We were up almost the entire 24 hour shift. We slept maybe 2-3 hours total. I came home and crawled into bed after putting some food in my belly, and slept for 8 or so hours.

No guarantees on catching up on the entries I've missed reading over the last month. So for those that follw me back, don't be suprised to get random comments on old posts over the next few days.

I'm still alive, mostly

2009-10-26T11:17:00.001-04:00

On hiatus for another week. I've been working between 90-105 hours a week since the first of the month. This is the last full week, then the next 2 weekends are shot, along with the week after next for tactical training. Hopefully, things will get back to normal soon, my sanity might depend on it.

I'm just so exhausted and sore, this blog is at the bottom of my to-do list.

She's back?!

2009-09-30T06:00:00.001-04:00

I'm sorry, but if you come into the hospital after being cited for DUI, and they get you a taxi home (after removing the drugs from your bra), stay home. Don't get in your car and get busted driving down the sidewalk. While it's entertaining, your decreasing level of consciousness isn't.

It is really funny to hear one of the nurses that saw you an hour ago describe you as a "dumb fucking whore" though.

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Not exactly sure what she got into, but my guess is meth and marijuana, because that's what was removed from her possession earlier. We got her loaded and I got IV access while my partner was talking to PD. He gave narcan to help perk her up a bit since her respirations were much slower than they should've been at 8.

She never did come around while in my truck, or before we left the hospital that I know of. I do hope she gets the help she needs.

Bring a swimsuit, it's wet out there

2009-09-21T18:33:00.002-04:00

No big suprise, it's been raining for days in many parts of the country. Over the course of the night last night, many, many areas in my department flooded out.

As bad as I want to, I'm gonna have to resist going into any fine details about my activities of the night. I'm afraid they'll give too much away about who I am.

I will say this much, we ran into a few cars, with our boat.

Here at home, I've been under flood warnings for 4 days I believe, with a current flash flood watch in effect. It's 1830 right now and we've had 6.53" of rain since midnight. Pretty close to what we've had the past few days. The fun part is that it's not expected to get any better for a few more days, and there's another wave of storms getting close.

I'm just really thankful I live on somewhat of higher ground, and the water diverts around my house and down a hill. There's been no soil erosion close to the house, and no water has made it inside either.

The roof is barely a year old, but this has cemented that the gutters are next, and soon. They've needed replacing but it's been put off for too long apparently.

I'm so glad I'm off for a couple of days.

Updates and such

2009-09-15T21:20:00.002-04:00

Life has been keeping me extremely busy the past few weeks and the internet, much less this blog, has fallen to the side.

I've spent a lot of time with my horse lately, and it somewhat payed off this weekend. We placed 5th in a halter class, behind 3 horses that are ranked in world standings! Now, my boy is nowhere near a halter horse. He was bred for cutting and reining, but will not focus enough to cut and was sold because the past owner didn't need another turnbacks horse.

My goal is to have him dead-broke for trail riding, and for us to someday compete in a reining competition. For now, I'm trying to save up money I don't have to pay for lessons for both of us. At $40 an hour, it's cheap, but still more than I can spare right now.

As far as work is concerned, some things change, while other things stay the same.

I'm still awaiting the transfer that never was.

I'm continuing to be sent off quite a bit to drive. It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing, so I'll take it.

The department has decided after getting all this new equipment, and making so many people scramble to get training that was thrown together and mandantory, to remove the entire style of units from a few stations. They replaced them with ambulances. I'm not saying it's made anyone happy, but we severely needed the extra transport units. Especially with the way we dispatch units to ALS calls.

As for the calls, I ran one while at another station that made me laugh in a way. We were dispatched to the parking lot of a VERY busy nightclub that's in the corner of an old mall/plaza. All we were told was that the patient was assualted, and they'd be waiting by a red car.

Ummm, can we get some type of a better location? It was so busy when we passed by earlier that evening, I knew we'd never get in the parking lot.

As we were driving around hoping PD would locate and help us out, I just happened to notice an update on the MDT that said the patient was moved to a different address. Gee, thanks for the heads-up on that vital tid-bit of info radio. Not like you're overly busy at 3am...

Anyways, we get to the new location and the patient is holding a tshirt to the side of his head. Since I don't speak a lick of spanish, one of his buddies said the blood would spurt if he took the shirt away. I grabbed a stack of 4x4's and a roll of cling. Using the friend as a translator, we made 1 fairly swift motion to remove the shirt and replace it with 4x4's. I didn't get a very good look at the laceration, but I knew it was in front of his ear and at least an inch long, and we all know how great any head laceration will bleed.

In the truck, we got a 16gauge IV, and I gave a bolus of ringers (was fresh out of saline bags). His blood pressure was stable, but we weren't exactly sure how long ago or where the assault occured, so I figured I'd play it safe and give a bolus, then titrate it back to KVO.

I called the hospital of choice to give a report, gave them vitals, what little of a story I had, and made sure to tell them that he possibly had an arterial bleed. The nurse said "ok", so no worries, or so I thought.

Enroute, I continued having a helluva time controlling the bleeding. Having used all the 4x4's I could reach, I grabbed a nearby spare sheet and held pressure the remainder of the way to the hospital. I also continued to use the buddy from onscene to translate to the patient what was going on. **NOTE- we are not supposed to allow friends or family, except in rare circumstances, to ride in the back. I felt it justified by my need for a translator to gain info about medical history and such.**

At the ER, one of the male nurses made a very snide comment about 'this is the type of patient better suited for, ya know, a trauma center.' I bit my tongue, hard.

#1- The nurse that took my report was made aware of the bleed and still accepted.

#2- The patient wanted to come here.

#3- Since when are trauma centers the only one's that can do stitches?! (what I really wanted to ask)

#4- I called in on a recorded line. Therefore, I have PROOF that your facility was aware and still accepted my patient without question. Get over yourself, you weren't even the least bit busy.

I stayed in the room for a few minutes once the patient was moved off my stretcher. The Dr was preparing to start putting in the stitches, and I basically just held the other side of the patient's head so he wouldn't move it around. The Dr was done by the time I finished and brought a copy of the PCR, and my partner was done decon'ing the rig.

Just a rant

2009-08-29T22:25:00.002-04:00

I'm so tired of the BS.

Why am I always being told last minute that my days are cancelled. It doesn't matter if it's class or vacation. Is there no way to figure this stuff out and tell me more than 10 days before?!

I understand we didn't have enough folks to spare to let me take an "onduty" class while onduty. I scrambled and busted my ass working 48 hour shifts to make it. Not once, but twice. I had 5 days notice on the first one, and a couple weeks on the 2nd.

I really appreciated being able to be onduty for the 3rd part, even if I was told to work the remainder of a shift I'd previously been told I'd have off. The "freebie" day off the following weekend was great I guess.

I still don't understand why I haven't been transferred yet. I've gone pretty dang far up the chain of command, twice, and was shot down both times. Every transfer list since is nothing more than a slap in the face. I'm afraid to ask again for fear of ego's preventing a transfer as retrubution or something.

I want to run the calls and get the training, I've practically been begging to run the calls and get the experience to match my training, why not move me somewhere I can? God knows we have enough lazy-asses that'd love to be where I am.

I'm beyond sick and tired of being told that I don't have money problems because I don't have kids. Seriously, did I miss a memo or something? Because last time I checked, I'm worse off than a lot of other guys at work right now. At least they have a spouse to help with the bills. Oh, and I'm sorry, but since I don't drink coffee, read the paper, watch TV, or use any of the condiments, I could care less about paying our ridiculously high station dues right now! I have more pending issues, like, oh I dunno, the power bill at my own damn house?! I've already cut out everything else I can, and am even looking into turning in the tag and suspending the insurance on my beloved harley.

Yeah, so, if you just suffered through my lil rant, I'm sorry. This has been building up for a long time now, since November in fact. Recent events have brought it to a boiling point within me and I need an outlet.

I'm tired of feeling like I'm stuck in a dead-end at the FD. I want to love my job again, I really do, but right now, I'm just sick of all the BS.

I just don't know what to do anymore.

I'm such a brat

2009-08-25T12:12:00.002-04:00

Short, non-work related story.

We all know cops and firefighters have a light-hearted rivalry going. Always have, always will. We pick at each other and crack jokes, but we will have the other's back, no matter what.

A few days ago, I spent the night at a friend's house. Her hubby is an officer, and fellow harley enthusiast.

On my way home the next day, he was onduty, and I knew I'd be passing through his territory. Sure enough, I spotted his car parked off the road from quite a distance away.

Now, I'd NEVER suggest the following if you aren't 150% positive you have the right officer and they're not in a bad mood.

As I approached, I was going about 42mph in the 35 zone. I could see the brake lights come on, so I suspected he knew it was me, or was at least ready if it was. As I passed in front of his patrol car, I flipped him off while, of course, grinning like a fool, then wrapped the throttle on the bike and took off. I doubt I was going too much over 50 when I let off for the stop sign.

As expected, he'd pulled out behind me and caught up, then lit me up. I looked back over my shoulder laughing, and he turned off to go back to his (not so stealth-mode) hidey-hole.

Later, talking to his wife, she said he'd probably have gotten his feelings hurt if I hadn't shot away from him like I did. We'd been joking quite a bit the night before about "blue canaries", "hosedraggers", and more.

Teaching the cops

2009-08-20T19:52:00.002-04:00

Because we all know Firefighters were created so cops could have a hero.

I guess these 2 cops have higher aspirations and are trying out for the FD.

Photo found on the web.

2009-08-19T11:32:00.003-04:00

I'm still around, life's just been busy I guess.

Over the past month, I've spent over 100 hours in some type of training. I've also spent probably around 50+ hours at the barn or driving back and forth, and that's a modest guess.

As far as work stuff is concerned, it's status quo. I still haven't been transferred even though many lists have come out. The only highlight is that I've been sent off to drive a lot the past few shifts I've worked.

I was sent off to drive one shift and ended up being rolled to tailboard when another person was sent over who had seniority on me. I tried not to show it, but I was a bit upset at first. My mood dramatically changed when we were sent to an apartment fire and I spotted the header.

But for now, I'm evil, therefore, I'm going to leave you all hanging. I found pictures on a news website and I still need to edit them before posting. My department is getting strict about taking pictures so I'm going to have to start hunting my pictures offline, or finding a similarly built building and using photoshop to give a rough idea of how it looked.

Opinions needed

2009-08-07T19:32:00.002-04:00

Ok folks, here's the deal. I received an email from someone over at JEMS FireRescue magazine. They want to see about including my blog in a new site they plan on launching soon.

As long as they don't want me to actually identify who I am and where I work, or start to censor myself, I don't see a huge issue with it I guess. I'm just very apprehensive right now, mainly of what will happen if PTB find this blog (if they haven't already), and suddenly have a reason to turn their attention onto me.

So, what do you folks think? Should I go for it as long as I can remain anonymous and uncensored?

Photo proof

2009-07-26T22:38:00.005-04:00

A couple of pictures from the class, as promised.

This one was an absolute blast. We were put into a bullet-proof vest (normal cop type, not ceramic plates), a MOLLE vest, and another vest, masked, and blindfolded. We were given an M4 airsoft rifle, and then timed as we negotiated a maze that'd make any fire academy proud.

After locating our medical supplies in the maze, we had to climb into the box and intubate the patient. This would be when the picture was taken.

This picture was taken earlier in the week while learning new ways to cover open ground while approaching a building.

Class Completed

2009-07-24T22:36:00.002-04:00

Another class has come and gone. Once again, I'm sore, bruised, worn out, and lovin' it.

I won't go into too much detail, but I will ALWAYS recommend this course to anyone acting as a tactical medic, or anyone on a swat team. You will learn the intubation, IV, and suturing skills(and more), but you will also learn movements and practice some other things.

I don't have an exact count, but I took a few airsoft rounds, and have some nasty bruises from some of them. I have scrapes all over from getting tangled in thorns this morning during a scenario. My abs are so freakin sore from trying to cross a river on a rope with only a harness and a carabiner (no pulley's here, unfortunately). I'm gonna crash hard as soon as I finish writing this.

It'll be a few days at least, but as soon as I get the pictures, I'll toss up a couple. The stuff we got into was too much fun not to share at least part of.

The class was geared towards making us better so we can help out and step up as adjunct instructors. It was also trying out a new format and new set of scenarios and rules for future classes. Everything seemed pretty successful.

The first 3 days of class were early morning until late night. Thursday started at 10am, and finished Friday around 7am. A few of us went to eat afterwards. I was home, in bed, asleep, by 10am. I woke up shortly after 5.

By the way, any police officers or firefighters out there with a K9 that can track want to come to the class to help on one of the days? Your K9 will get to track at least 1 person and we promise a challenge.

Email me for more info on the class or if your K9 tracks and you're interested.

away for a week

2009-07-22T22:45:00.002-04:00

Sorry folks, I'm attending more tactical medic training all week. Hopefully will be returning to my "normal" lack of posting soon.

Assuming I can get a pic of me doing something without revealing who or where, I may throe up a pic soon.

Blue Ridge Parkway Trip

2009-07-19T11:35:00.003-04:00

I'm a slacker, I know. Here's a couple of pictures from my trip last weekend.

This one was taken at the Tanbark Ridge Overlook, obviously. It had started to rain, so we stopped to put on rain gear. Or just a jacket in my case (I'd grabbed the wrong pants and they're a couple sizes too small). I snapped the picture just before hopping back on the bike and leaving.

This one was taken on the way up, at the Richland Balsam Mountain Overlook. It's the highest point on the entire 469 mile parkway. With a backdrop like that, I can only wish I had a better camera.

Motorcop and 2WheelTerror...eat your hearts out!

In case you're wondering about the bag strapped onto the back seat, I decided to pack everything into the bag and not in the saddlebags. The reasoning was that it'd be easier to carry my clothes and all into the hotel. It worked out great.

On the way home I crammed everything into the bags though, bad weather was in our forecast.

When we first hit the road, it was nice out. The longer we rode, we got into the clouds, literally. I was a bit worried, I'll admit it. I was following fairly close behind my dad and visibility was around 100'.

After 45 minutes in the clouds, I was more than excited to be out of them after passing through another tunnel.

We stopped at Mount Piscah for lunch. The view! Holy hell it was awesome!! Apparently, I lost a highway peg somewhere between Little Switzerland and Mount Piscah, because that sucker was GONE when we got ready to leave. Oh well, it was loose before and I guess I didn't get it tight enough after all. I've already got the new pegs, skulls. The bike has skulls all over, both in actual HD parts, and all over the paint job.

The only problem I had on the trip, other than a severe case of numb-butt while racing bad weather home, was a HUA driver less than 3 miles from home.

I'm cruising along, feet propped up on top of the crash bars. This charger (I think) wanted to change into our lane from the left, but me and dad were too far along for him to get over. So he tries to come into the lane directly alongside me. I held my lane and opened the throttle a bit more to help him get the idea that he wasn't gonna fit ahead of or with me.

He slowed down just enough to not hit me as he got behind me, then changed to the lane to my right and was quite obviously cussing me out, and my dad once he was alongside him, all the while with his window down.

Not that I could hear him over my own pipes.

He took an exit ramp and as I looked over, he was still cussing me out. I try not to let road rage get to me, but when he flipped me off I couldn't help but do the first thing that came to mind.

It's so much more fun to signal to someone that they're a retard than to flip them off. Sticking your tongue out works too. It's such a silly move and their responses vary from shock to fury.

Acting a fool in traffic (especially around motorcycles) is such an idiotic and childish move, it's not even worthy of a middle finger.

Of course, don't get me started on the HUA crotch-rocket bikers. I can think of a few I'd love to strangle.

2009-07-12T20:01:00.003-04:00

2 days

18 tunnels (twice)

552 miles

6,047 ft elevation

At least 16 hours on 2 wheels

Went on an overnight ride with my dad this weekend. The main point of the trip was heading up the Blue Ridge Parkway, and spending the night in Little Switzerland. It was my first long trip and my first overnight trip out on the harley. I've got a few pictures I'll try to post in the next couple of days.

The highlight of the trip (other than the views), was this conversation between me and a drunk guy at the bar last night.

Drunk Guy: So, tell me what it's like to ride on the back of a bike.

Me: I dunno, I'm on my own bike.

The guy's jaw hit the floor and it was obvious he realized he'd just taken a bite out of his shoe, even in his drunken stupor. I thought his wife was going to fall off her stool laughing. My dad thought it was pretty damn funny too.

Happy 4th of July

2009-07-04T19:25:00.000-04:00

Grass Fire

2009-07-03T10:34:00.003-04:00

Not really too much to it. There was power out to 2 buildings nearby, and I would wager that the electrical box started the fire.

No damage other than to some nearby bushes and a lot of pinestraw. The fire was close to a concrete parking deck, but there was little threat of exposure problems there.

We dropped an 1 3/4" handline and easily put the fire out and drenched everything with tank water. Right as the last bit of fire was put out, radio called us and said the caller just called back and said we passed the fire. Ummm, no, we just finished putting it out.

It was funny when it happened at least.

****************************************************

In other news, I've got nearly a week off from work. I'll be working half a shift as payback for a friend soon. Then, working a 48 hour shift the first of next week, I'll be paid back in a couple weeks so I can attend another class.

I've spent my offdays so far staying at a friend's house. She had surgery and I've been keeping an eye on her/keeping her company/just being here for moral support. I've also been out to the barn to work with my knucklehead horse. I finally learned how to properly lunge him, and we have some work to do!

Losing faith

2009-06-26T14:28:00.002-04:00

Whenever someone asks if I enjoy my job, my usual response is either "most of the time" or "it has it's moments, like any job".

I am, however, quickly reaching the point of being fed up with my current situation.

I finally got a meeting yesterday with 3 chiefs in my immediate chain of command. I managed to bite my tongue when needed, and I truly believe I kept my foot out of my mouth for once.

I walked out of the meeting knowing damn good and well that not a single thing will happen.

I thanked them for the opportunity to have worked with the K9 team, and told them I wanted to become proficient as a relief driver and soon, acting officer, but that I needed their help. I won't gain the experience needed at my station, and need to be somewhere where I can.

My station is slow, as in each of the units normally runs 2-5 calls per shift. I don't understand why I'm even at this station, since I only have 5 years in. I WANT to be in a busy house and run the calls, so why not put me in a busy house and let some stereotypical lazy-ass be in the slow house?

I'm so damn frustrated over this. It's been stressing me out for nearly 9 months now. I'm sick and tired of this but I don't know what else to do. I'm rapidly running out of options.

It's tempting to do like some folks have done and write a transfer request every shift.

Rookie rant

2009-06-23T23:37:00.003-04:00

I've been sitting here for the past couple hours reading through some older posts on a lot of different paramedic/firemedic blogs.

I've noticed a bit of a trend. It scares me to be able to say that not only have I noticed it, but I've been sorely affected by it.

A lot of EMT's, especially the FNG, flat-out suck.

The reason this is so scary, is that with just over 5 years in, I know I'm still a rookie.

Even since I was hired, I've noticed a sharp decline in the quality of people making it through the academy. I'm not talking about the folks that are just hard to get along with, or that don't wanna play the whole "rookie gets the shit jobs" routine. I'm talking about the knuckle-dragging idiots that I'm surprised passed the tests, have a driver's license, or even managed to dress themselves this morning.

A few examples:

Rookie #1: Has been shown many times over how to read a map book. They constantly get lost on the main drags in their own territory. I've run a few calls with them, and seen first-hand how bad it is. Rookie strangely disappears whenever we need to lift the stretcher, carry jump bags, etc. I've also watched this person take a good 5 minutes to park their POV at the station. I don't even want to remember the horror that nearly occurred when they tried to share the bay with the ladder on accident.

Rookie #2: Is rarely visible once trucks are checked and station has been cleaned. They prefer to go sit on their laptop or cell phone. This person also was condescending to a 10+ year firemedic on a fire scene, doing stupid things like calling him rookie.

Rookie #3: Is at a station with 2 other rookies, so plenty of rotation for units and sendoffs. They pitched a damn fit when it was their turn to be sent off to another station. Granted, this rookie has some experience elsewhere, but that doesn't mean a damn thing in this department. All that matters is your hire date.

Even though I'm not currently a paramedic, I like to think of myself as a pretty decent EMT. I know my truck well and can set up/start IV's, 3-leads, 12-leads, mark drugs given on the monitor, set up for ETT, etc. I know enough about reading the monitor to make a pretty good guess at what's going on, relay a decent report to the hospital, and whatever else my partner asks me to do (if I'm not already on it).

For a long time, the ambulance I rode every shift was staffed with just 2 EMTs. It wasn't easy and I felt burn-out quite often, but I pressed on knowing it was one of the busiest trucks and couldn't really get any worse as long as I had a decent partner.

One of the things I stuck to was going call-for-call. There were a couple occasions where that didn't happen, but it was made up for. Like the time it was my partner's turn to tech and we had an 80-something y/o man who had an open ankle fracture. He was new to the idea of actually using his EMT certs and was stuck in the deer-in-headlights mode, so I asked if he needed help and wanted me to take it. He nodded and gave a pretty smooth ride to the ER. I almost waited onscene for ALS for pain meds, but decided we could have the patient at the hospital by the time ALS arrived to the scene. He was tolerating pain extremely well and vitals were stable.

Then there are the 2-20 firemen. Rookies with 2 years in, that act like old jakes with 20 years experience.

We ran a call, and the type of call has no real bearing on the story. I went out to the truck to grab the stretcher. Our trucks are large, and should kneel when the rear doors are opened. I noticed the truck wasn't in high idle and didn't kneel. When I went to the kick the e-brake thinking my partner forgot to, I was both pissed and a little bit horrified. The truck wasn't in park!

Many of our trucks seem to get "stuck" in park. All you have to do is mash the brake to the floor, push the shifter back, up and then drop the gears like normal. My partner apparently decided in his infinite wisdom to leave the truck in neutral and just hit the e-brake.

As soon as we cleared the call, I was on him. If the truck gets stuck in park, it gets stuck in park and we'll just call another unit for the transport, but you have to put the truck in park. Diesels WILL jump out of gear. His response only fueled my rage. He didn't want to listen because we're both firefighter II's, so I wasn't his boss.

Bad move on his part.

Not only was I hired before he was, I made rank before he did, AND was listed as riding seat that day. 3 strikes against him. At something crazy like 10 or 11pm, I called the station captain on the nextel and told him what happened, and my partner's reasoning for things. He met us on the front apron back at the station. Guess who got an ass-chewing that night?

The last thing I want is to be that bitch, but I'm not gonna let some lazy, knuckle-dragging, fatass, mouth breathing idiot get me in trouble if I can help it. I do a good enough job of that on my own, TYVM.

And then there's the guys with over 20 years in, that just flat out scare you with what they know is right, no matter how wrong it actually is. I'll save that one for another day though.

2009-06-20T21:14:00.002-04:00

I seem to be getting more and more readers lately, and thanks for visiting my lil world folks.

A lot of cop blogs do this already, so I can't claim the idea, but I'll be happy to field any Fire or EMS related questions.

Send your questions to the email address listed to the right and I'll do my best to answer.

Class = massive boredom

2009-06-17T19:33:00.002-04:00

I know, I know. I'm in class the majority of this week, along with working my shifts, so don't expect too much from me.

So far, we've covered time sheets, incident reports, PCR reviewing, and more. It hasn't really been any new news to me other than the PCR reviewing. I've been hurt at work so I've done the incident reports, and filled out my own time sheet while on light duty.

The worst part of going through this class for me is the way it's been drug out. 3 days, wait a month, 3 more days, another month's wait, then 4 days. I'd rather just get it all over with.

Of course, as we're on break today, a small city PD officer asked what class we're attending and made other small talk in the hallway. We were cutting up a bit and I made the comment about how *some* of the LT's talk a lot of smack about pulling over people, but have yet to do so, even when that person passes through constantly in their POV. He asked who, of course, and the LT standing beside him had a huge grin on his face and said I was talking about him.

A couple weeks ago, I responded to a MVC in a major intersection. There weren't any injuries- just soreness, I had already thrown out zipzorb on the spilled oil, the wrecker was loaded, and we'd reopened 2 of the 3 northbound lanes. After the LT explained the cites to the at-fault driver and got his signatures, we were cutting up a little bit before everyone onscene went their own ways.

LT and I had fun ribbing each other about everything from the cameras in his car, to me living so close and never being stopped by him or his guys.

He threatened to come by the station and stake out my car so he could catch me on my way home one morning. Being the smartass I am, I told him to bring it on.

We got our giggles and soon parted ways. He still hasn't caught me (not that I'd give him a reason to).

Back to today's conversation... I again told him to bring it on, and that I'm still waiting.

As we were going back into our respective classrooms, he said he's gonna get me, he'll let me go, but he's gonna get me.

Bring it on my friend, bring it on.

Flirting not welcomed

2009-06-14T11:56:00.002-04:00

For the second time, I've been creeped the fuck out by someone trying to flirt with me while onduty. You can read about the first time here- http://i-am-911-archive.blogspot.com/2005/04/flirty-old-guy.html

We were sent to a call where the person fell. As we're dealing with our patient, getting information for our report, etc, this Creepy Old Guy walks up behind me.

COG: I think I might be feeling faint and need some CPR.

Awesome Medic (my partner): You're gonna have to get in line.

COG: No, I want her to do it **motioning towards me**

Ummm, what?! Ok, not only is your attention not wanted or welcomed, I'm dealing with a patient! You're interfering with my scene you old perv!

I know I had a look of fear, confusion, irritation, and more on my face. The patient and her friend seemed to sympathize judging by the looks they gave me. I was able to bite my tongue and thankfully, the guy wandered off immediately.

As we were returning to our truck to leave, I asked AM if he saw COG's shirt. Sadly, he didn't.

"Annoying the world one person at a time"

More like 5 at a time.

I can't make this shit up, folks.

********************************
Later in the shift, we'd responded to a call where a very nice older gentleman accidentally flipped his scooter and more than likely broke his hip. We moved him to a backboard as gently as we could and tried to pad under his knees to keep him comfortable.

As we cleared the call, I realized it was getting late and I was ready for dinner. Seeing as A.M. had already eaten, I figured on hitting Subway. 10 minutes before closing, they were locked up tight. I was really looking forward to a meatball marinara too.

Being in a nicer part of town and so close to a major mall, there aren't a lot of food options under $10, McD's here I come.

As I'm walking towards the Walmart entrance (McD's is just inside), an older gentleman who had stopped his car to let an older woman get in, called me over. He reached out to shake my hand and said "Thanks for doing what you do and God bless."

I'd noticed his FBI hat as I'd exited my truck moments earlier, but that doesn't really matter. It was a small gesture of thanks, and it made my day.

Calls and an upcoming class

2009-06-11T20:53:00.003-04:00

It doesn't seem like anything really interesting has happened lately, but as I wrote this, more things came to mind and I guess it *is* interesting after all.

A couple weeks ago we went to a fatality MVC on the expressway. The sedan had stopped for whatever reason in the middle of the road at about 5am. The 18-wheeler hit the car hard enough to rip the roof and driver's side off the car, and sent the vehicle over 100 yards by the looks of the debris field. The 18-wheeler left tire marks for at least another 100 yards beyond where the car stopped, as he locked his brakes to stop. Thank god his tanker full of fuel didn't have any damage.

As we looked around, I didn't even realize where the driver was at first. I was sent to the truck to grab our TIC (thermal imaging camera) and look around for any ejected victims. As I was walking back towards the car, I saw the hot spot on the ground under the doors/roof that were ripped from the car (it was still attached, just barely). A closer look with a flashlight showed that was indeed the driver. I never did find anything with the TIC, and we left shortly after. The wreck occurred outside my department's territory, and the sedan came to rest not even 50 feet from the county line.

Due to it being a fatality, there's no pictures to show of the vehicle. Sorry folks. I try to get pictures as much as I can, but I'm not risking taking a picture and having a body in it. I value my job too much, and it's morally wrong to do that anyways.

***********************************

I'm hesitant to go into details about another call. I'll simply say a gentleman barricaded himself into a room and hung himself. His family had no idea why nor did they suspect anything wrong. He didn't leave a note.

***********************************

Recently, one of our engines was on the expressway working a MVC. I don't know if their truck was parked correctly or anything else, but the engine was hit by a passing 18-wheeler. Our crew was outside the truck and all were fine, the driver of the rig had some injuries though. I was listening to the radio traffic and the media got a pretty good aerial shot of the scene. The engine sustained quite a bit of damage. It's a real shame too, that was one of our newer trucks and it's going to take a long time to repair, if they don't just total it out.

**********************************

In other news, I'll be working a 48 hour shift this weekend, so pray for my sanity. Then I'll be attending acting officer class next week. I've been trying to attend the class for over 2 years, and have always been screwed out of it (for some asinine reason or another).

The only reason I'm even able to go this time is by swapping shifts with someone. We're too short on people and it's considered an onduty class, but my chief said he'd allow me to go if I could find someone to cover for me. 20 phone calls and a lot of stress later, I found someone to cover.

Honestly, I'm very hesitant about the class. There's not really any prerequisites for it, but I wish I had more experience. If I could at least ride an engine that runs a bunch of calls, I could watch and learn, and try to absorb. Where I'm assigned just flat out lacks the call volume. Don't get me wrong, I've thoroughly enjoyed eating warm meals and (usually) sleeping all night, but break-time has been over for a while and I'm more than ready to get back into the action.

I'm still extremely sore about having been transferred and the lack of reasoning for it. I constantly try to "get over it", but it always comes back and I tend to dwell on it.

I've got a meeting with my shift commander and the chief of operations in a week and I'm really, really hoping to achieve closure and move on, both mentally, and physically. My initial meeting request was kicked back and they wanted to know why I wanted the meeting. My response was an outline of the things I'm expected to learn and become proficient at, and the reasons I can't. NOT excuses, but reasons. IE, I'm unable to progress as a relief driver because there's no engine at my current assignment.

I just hope it goes well.

Training day

2009-05-29T20:17:00.001-04:00

Not exactly what I was expecting for today, but I can roll with the punches so it's ok. I came in this morning and was called into a meeting with both of my captains. We discussed the things I've been limited in doing since being transferred here, and what they plan to do to get me as well prepared for my next promotion. It's nice to know but understand my standpoint and are backing me all the way.

We got the trucks checked off and relaxed for a few minutes before pulling the trucks around back. We pulled all the extrication equipment off both units.

We have an old car sitting behind the station that has already been cut on a few times. All the glass is gone, the tires are flat, the hood has been cut, and 3 of the 4 doors have been forced open.

It started with me giving the sizeup (what I saw, establish command, etc). I was also asked what I'd do and have other crews do once they arrived. We put on all our gear and cranked the power plants.

I had to hook up 2 tools using the hose reel and manifold, then we tested how it affected the pressure on the tools when used at the same time.

Finally, I was handed a haligan and told to create a purchase point to remove the door that was still attached. I created an opening and grabbed the "jaws". Why are those damn things so heavy?? It took quite a few attempts of sticking the tips in and making little to no progress before I finally got a good spread. I haven't been able to use the tools much since the academy so I had to stumble a bit on the best way to do things. With some help, the door was opened.

We switched the other set of tools to the cutters and I got to cut 2 posts with the sawz-all, another tool I've never used before. It's a lot harder and takes so much longer than the hydraulic tools.

We removed the roof, and I used the jaws to remove the drivers door, the passenger side door was already off. We then made relief cuts and rolled the dash.

We played around with the tools for a bit longer before putting everything away. We did have to remove one of the hydraulic lines from service though, the rubber seal was stuck halfway out of it after we disconnected everything. Our larger ram was also tagged for not retracting properly.

We ran a call later that was a multi-car collision on the Interstate with 1 rollover. The patient lost a lot of skin on their hand/wrist, and it's a good reason why not to hang your arm out the window while driving.

Only other thing is we just had a random civilian bring us a new flag for our pole out front. The old one is looking tired and our supply guys are slower than molasses about getting us a new one. He said he noticed it a few weeks ago. It's sad, really, when a civilian has to spend their money to help a fire station get a new flag. We had a guy here before that made sure we got new flags in a timely manner, and that the old ones were properly retired.

I'd choke you with that stethoscope, but you might like it

2009-05-27T09:43:00.004-04:00

First of all, I want to welcome and say thanks to my newest followers.

I've been out of town over a long weekend for a convention, so sorry for the lack of posts. The convention was 100% unrelated to work, and I had a lot of fun just hanging out with my friends and being silly. We did have a couple of military personnel present, and they put on a beautiful inpromptu flag-folding ceremony on Sunday morning.

Back at work, we went almost the entire shift without any calls. We did run 1 call shortly after dinner.

Lady is shopping at the local hobby store and accidently dropped a glass bowl. She said she didn't even realize it'd hit her foot until she felt the warmth of her blood after a few steps.

When we arrived, store personnel were with her and had unrolled quite a bit of papertowels and were trying to stop the blood loss. We took over and I put a nice stack of 4x4's over the wound and wrapped it with both some cling and an ace bandage before propping her foot up as best we could.

With no other transportation (not letting her drive), we called for a transport unit. The glass had gotten deep enough into the top of her foot to cut a vein and she needed to see a Dr for it.

She was very nice, although extremely worried, so we told her that as long as we weren't running around like idiots, she'd be ok. She seemed to relax a bit and was enjoying watching us picking on each other.

Our ambulance arrived and were filled in on the story. One of the guys loves picking on me (I pick back) and immediately started in as soon as he saw me. The title of this post was one of my comments to him, and it got a hearty laugh. We got a couple of good giggles as we helped the lady onto their stretcher, and said our goodbyes.

Back in quarters, the driver asked me to walk him through our PCR program. It took a while as he's very slow with typing, but we got it done. I don't think he has much grasp of the SOTC format for the narrative, but we can certainly work on that.

Horse Troubles

2009-05-16T23:17:00.003-04:00

Another non-work related blog, 2 for 2, sorry guys and gals. I'll keep it short.

Tried to go ride my horse this afternoon. He was doing ok, we'd gone on the trails and I had a friend along on another horse.

Normally, if a horse spooks and is going to buck, you can feel and see it coming. Not this time.

Out of nowhere butthead threw his head down and his ass up. I remember seeing his face in mine, as I was upside-down in mid air. My friend heard the clatter and turned around in time to see me hit the ground, and bounce.

When I got to my feet and grabbed butthead's reigns, he stuck his head out and lipped at me like he might try to nibble. I hate to admit it, but I slapped him square in the face. It's a bad habit he's picked up, I wasn't in the mood for it, and boppin him is the only way I've ever been told to break habits like that.

Anyways, I was and still am, pissed off royally. I tried to call the lady I board him with and when I finally got to talk to her, she was beyond rude with me. I've paid this woman $8,505 over 23 months to keep my horse, but 30 seconds of her time over the phone is apparently too much to ask.

I ended the conversation by just saying "I'm done" over and over. She wants him out of there soon, and so do I. BUT, I reminded her I've already paid for 14 more days of board with her. My plan is to find a new home ASAP and get him the hell out of dodge. I just need to find a place I can afford.

My only problem will be finding what they've done with all my tack. I keep my grooming kit and treats here at home, but the only things I saw out there were his nylon halter, english saddlepad, and my western saddle/ saddlepad. The saddle cover is missing (WTF??), and I have no clue what they've done with his nice leather halter, nylon clipon reigns, both of his bridles, or the bit I had. They will either find it all or replace it - no if's, and's, or but's about it.

And shame on me for not having our agreement in writing, because they're reniged on some things and I have nothing I can do about it. A mistake I won't make again.

Now, excuse me while I go dose myself up on tylenol or something. It's bad enough to hurt from the fall, but I have a killer headache from stressing out.

Spreading the Love

2009-05-15T21:03:00.002-04:00

I know I usually only gripe about work on here, or some other assanine thing. Today, I have a non-work related post so bear with me.

Abuse manifests in many different ways, not only physical. Some people have the unfortunate experience of verbal/mental abuse as well.

Some people fall victim to this abuse and end their life, while others simply tolerate it. Some realize what's happening early on and get out of the situation. Then, there are a few who stay around for whatever reason, for an undetermined amount of time, before finally leaving.

Those people have 2 options after leaving: blunder through life as a shadow of their former self, or become stronger for what they have endured. Out of the strong ones, a few choose to relay their story to others, hoping to get some closure or even open another victim's eyes to their situation.

http://brokenbunnies.blogspot.com

This lady is one of the ones who has become stronger and has moved on to a much better life.

I don't ask much of you guys, and I'm glad to have readers...So how about helping me spread the love by visiting the blog/future book of a wonderful woman, who spent many years surviving hell?

I'd appreciate it muchly.

Boring times

2009-05-15T09:39:00.003-04:00

Work has been 99% boring lately, hence my lack of posting.

It's driving me batshit-crazy (for lack of a better term) to be at such a slow station. We ran 1 call in 24 hours. I'm used to running between 8 and 14 calls. I usually wake up a couple times during the course of the night.

The only thing I'm still torn about is the dogs. I still really would love to get on the team. I helped yesterday and this morning with some training. I usually try to be around for training because at some point, I will have a dog (even just as a pet) and I want to have some kind of idea how to train the pup for agility and more in-depth obedience.

This morning, the on-coming captain asked me when I was getting my dog. I wish I could've had a different answer for him.

It's been 7 months since I was moved to my current station. I've been told I wasn't going to be there long, so not to worry about trying to get a dog. I don't think it'd be fair to the animal to sit at home while I work my 24 hour shift. I KNOW I can't trust my roommate not to undo anything I would work on with the dog.

Every month, I'm told my name will be on the next transfer list. Every month, I'm still here.

My career is at a standstill right now and I'm sick and tired of it. I've written another letter to have a meeting with 2 of the big chiefs. My first meeting was 3 months ago and nothing has happened. It was over 2 months from the date I wrote the first request, until I finally had the meeting that I'd requested be ASAP.

Let's see how long it takes this time.

2009-05-08T18:19:00.001-04:00

Well, after spending a few hours in the CISM meeting this morning, I can honestly say it wasn't as painful of a meeting as I expected. Of course, I've never been through one of those meetings so I didn't really know what to expect either. The meeting was led by 3 guys, 2 of which are firefighters, the other, a pastor among other things.

It was an interesting experience. It was definately odd to sit and wait while each person told the same story from their own perspective. I'm used to us standing around rehashing things in our own way. It wasn't a bad experience though.

They mentioned/ pointed out how each of us is dealing with this a different way. Some get angry, others sad, I'm not quite sure where I fall. I'm sad about the little girl, angry at other things.

Overall, today's been an ok day. I didn't get much sleep last night, but that's not unusual for me when I work. I usually don't get more then 4-5 hours of sleep the night before I have to work. We've run 1 call so far, and never even got out of the truck. I've been able to spend a little time playing with the dogs both before and after shakin' a boot for the burn foundation.

I'm working a 48 hour shift right now to cover for a buddy, he'll have to pay me back in a couple weeks for a vacation day I was denied on. It's definately going to be an early night for bed tonight. I'm planning to get up early (for once) so I can get showered and into a clean uniform. I'm hoping to have my relief here early enough so I can shower and bug out to the other station without having to worry about a late call.

I do want to send a heartfelt thank you for the comments. It means a lot to me.

The calls that make you question doing this job

2009-05-06T18:52:00.003-04:00

If you've been an EMT, Medic, Firefighter, Police Officer, or even Dispatcher, for any amount of time, you're already starting to sympathize with me. You've been to or taken the calls that make you look deep down inside and ask yourself why?

Why do we do this job?

Why do some calls have to hurt, when other calls can be shrugged, or even laughed, off?

Why can't we just move on?

Why don't people watch over and take better care of their children?

Why did she have to die?

Why wasn't there anything we could've done?

Why didn't the driver show the slightest hint of emotion, or remorse?

Why can't I get the image out of my head???

Last night, a 21 month old little girl was run over by a truck and died (probably instantly). She could have been inside the best hospital when it happened, and still wouldn't have been able to survive.

1 momentary lack of focus on your surroundings, 1 moment of inattentiveness, 1 distraction, 1 child that will never see her 2nd birthday.

We stayed onscene to keep an eye on mom. At one point, she was hyperventilating and we were told she nearly passed out. Once the media started arriving, she was moved to the backseat of one of the patrol cars, along with 2 other people who were trying to keep her calm.

It took a while for the medical examiner and traffic specialist units to arrive and take all the necessary photos, and mark everything with spraypaint. Once they were ready, we held up tarps and sheets to create a privacy zone around the child so the pictures of her could be taken without the media, or anyone else catching a glimpse.

They finally wrapped her in a sheet and placed her into the body bag. The medical examiner chose to put her in the backseat of his car, and somewhat sneak off the scene. It beat waiting on the ME's van to get there, and he was able to pull his car into the crime scene so close, I'm not even sure anyone noticed the child being put into the car.

Once we finally cleared the scene, everyone met for a quick, 15 minute debrief. We will all attend a 2-3 hour CISD meeting next shift.

As we were headed back to our own station, we were sent to another call. The female was roughly 3 months pregnant, and had a miscarriage into the toilet. Unfortunately for us, the hospital needs to look through everything to make sure no part of the placenta is left inside mom, or she could become extremely sick.

We used what we had, which turned out to be the bag that a sterile burn sheet comes sealed in. Everything was collected and transported with the mom to the hospital.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We all deal with things in different ways. Some drink, some paint, some smoke. I guess I'm fortunate not to have children right now. I slept, and now I'm writing. Sleep did not come easy, but at least there weren't any nightmares, for now. I've never claimed to be a good writer, but these are my stories through my eyes.

If you have kids, be thankful for every moment. You never know how many more moments, good or bad, you will have. And give them a hug for me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, in the end, why do we do this job?

Like it or not, admit it or deny it, we love this job. Why else would we put up with the people and the pay if we didn't?

Interesting things

2009-05-02T00:08:00.002-04:00

Granted, I have a pretty in-depth tracker on this blog, but I usually only look to see how many returning visitors and new visitors I have each day.

Just now, I got a bit bored and went to look at the keyword hits.

"Can I ride in a cop car, as a rider not a cop, with a gun on my belt?"

I have no idea how google thought my lil fire/ems rant of a blog was very relevant to that search. But, the person proceeded to spend just over 2.5 hours on here. Wow.

And here I thought my mind-numbing ramblings were, well, mind-numbing.

A "good" stroke

2009-04-28T00:44:00.002-04:00

I dare say there is such a thing, but those of us in EMS see so many false calls, any "good" call, is simply a truely legit call.

We were toned out for an 80 year old having a stroke. Unfortunately, I work for a very busy department and our ambulance was coming from a great ways away.

We quickly locate the patient and without even touching her, I knew she was stroked out. She's laying on the bed, and her gaze is fixed to the left. As a family member relays her history to my partner, with me interrupting with questions I felt were more pertinent than her birthday and social security number.

She's had TIA's in the past, and had a stroke without any lasting defecit just a month ago. She's normally walking and talking just as good as you or I. The last time anyone spoke to her was last night, and it's around noon now.

As we start getting some vitals out of the way, my heart sank a bit. Her blood pressure was quite low, 88/42. To me, this basically means it's been too long since the onset of symptoms for any treatments to be overly successful. There's a maximum 6 hour window for thrombolitics (if appropriate), and she's most likely surpassed that.

Of course, being only EMT's, all I could do was gain IV access, administer a bit of oxygen, and wait on the ambulance to arrive. Thankfully, they made awesome time and we didn't have to wait long.

I relayed the story, vitals, and our treatments to the medic.

Found after unknown down time, normally ambulatory without assistance, B/P 88/42, pulse 80, sat. 92% on room air- 96% with 3 lpm by nasal cannula. 20 ga INT in the left AC. Fixed left lateral gaze, slightly responsive to verbal.

She didn't really respond to me, just nodded while her partner pushed the stretcher around the bed to us. One of the guys from my truck grabbed the lady's torso while I got her legs, and we moved her to the stretcher (I'd already ensured she was wearing a long nightgown). We put a sheet over her, secured her with the seatbelts, and moved her outside to the ambulance.

After giving the EMT directions to the hospital since he wasn't the least bit familiar with the territory, we returned to service. The last thing I saw of the lady was the medic preparing to start another IV.

I'm not very optimistic, but I hope she's ok.

My good friend and "adopted" dad, was working one of our dispatch channels. Seeing as the call came out as a possible stroke, I sent him a text, something along the lines of "I know you're extremely busy and may not see this till your lunch, but that lady was definately stroked out." He never responded but I could hear how busy he was so it's ok, I understand completely. I just hope he had a moment to pass the news along to the calltaker.

Thoughts on going private

2009-04-26T00:25:00.002-04:00

As someone who has dealt with issues and bogus complaints from citizens over any personal opinions posted on the internet, I 100% understand and support anyone who chooses to make their blog private. There's just one tiny thing I have to ask of those of you that make this difficult decision.

If you are willing to add some folks to the approved reader list, PLEASE post your email address in your final post. It's impossible to view it if it was on your sidebar, and there's no way to even access your profile unless we can hunt down a comment of yours on someone else's page.

However, using google reader, or blogger's dashboard (depending on your settings), we can see the final post and grab the address to shoot you an email.

A lot of the people I follow have gone silent, or private lately... With 5150life being the most recent one. All the fun blogs are disappearing.

OMG, fire?! What's that???

2009-04-20T21:52:00.002-04:00

In the picture, things look very hazy and kindof blurry, and, well, they were! The fire was out, but there was still a LOT of smoke (I was still on air), and the sprinkler had not been plugged yet.

This morning, we're getting ready at shift change for a class over the new airpacks we're getting soon. As we're walking out to the trucks to head towards the academy, the bell rings.

The call was dispatched as a vehicle fire on the top level of a parking deck near the station. Not quite halfway to the scene, I'm already in all of my gear (minus facepiece), and we get an update that the fire alarm has now gone off.

Onscene, we go down the hill as if we were going to enter the parking deck. The exhaust fans were on and were blowing LOTS of smoke out. As we came into view of the entrance to the parking deck, we observed thick, dark grey, charged smoke coming out of the opening, with the bottom being about waist height. The entrance was to the middle level, and the entire hotel is above the parking deck.

I had a box light (couple million candlewatt power), and could not see my feet once 20 feet inside the opening and up the ramp. I also had the nozzle over my shoulder and thankfully, the car was less than 100' inside. If we would've had to use the standpipe inside the parking deck, the call would have sucked so much worse.

As I was advancing the line, read as, trying to find my way to the car without running into a wall or tripping over a car, a tire blew. Now, if you've ever heard this, it's loud. Move it inside a spacious concrete structure, and it sounds like a gunshot even more. I stopped dead in my tracks for a moment, shrugged it off, and took about 3 more steps when another tire blew. A small part of me wanted to walk out right then. The more reasonable part said, hey, 2 down, 2 to go worst-case.

We finally found the car, and it was definately burning, but not badly since it was parked under a sprinkler that had activated. It probably went off and triggered the fire alarm, we know hotel security/maintenance called it in originally.

I had some fun with the nozzle, putting out the fire around the front wheels. I was sent back to the truck to get a set of irons (haligan and flat-head axe). We used the haligan to pry open the hood enough to stick the end of the nozzle in and douse the engine. I went to the truck again to grab the K-12, the air was too poor for it to run originally. I got a lil saw-time and cut into the hood so we could open it and have better access to the motor.

We finally got the fire out and hammered a wooden wedge into the sprinkler head to nearly stop the water flow.

After picking up all our gear, reloading the hoses used, and everything else, we were on the call 3 hours.

We returned to the station, ate lunch and cleaned up, then went to the 2nd airpack class (2 classes a day). I was sitting between 2 goofballs and laughed my way through the class. Some things I really like about the new packs, some things I don't, and a couple I'm on the fence about. However, I greatly love and respect at least 1 of the guys that tested and recommended these airpacks, so I will give it a fair shot.

Too nice of a day

2009-04-09T18:28:00.002-04:00

No calls to relay today. The weather was too beautiful when I got home from work so I cranked up my Harley and turned the wheels for a while. I didn't have anywhere to go or anyone to see either. Just me, my bike, and all the idiots in their cars.

It amazes me just how stupid people can be, you don't notice it as readily when you have 2000lbs of metal and safety systems around you either. When your safety system consists of little more than a helmet, your clothing, and your ability/awareness, you really pick up on things.

Of course, I was always taught to ride like I was invisible because nobody will see me. It's a good thing to remember too. Within the first 5 miles of riding, I had more than one vehicle do something stupid that I was able to avoid. Whether it be changing lanes too close/without looking or tailgating me, the idiots were out in force. I was able to dodge them without incident and put about 50 miles on the bike. Not as much as I'd hoped for, but it was time for rush hour and the weather is supposed to turn nasty tonight.

I hate to admit it, but I'm a bit of a fairweather rider. I don't like to ride if it's below 50 or wet out. I blame my dad for that too, since he's my usual riding partner and part of the reason I love riding. The other one at fault would be my grandad. I remember being really little and having to stay in the sidecar of his Goldwing because I was too small to ride behind him. We used to have a lot of fun cruising the mountain roads.

Anyways, I need to get together with the head of the PD's motorcycle unit someday soon. I've chatted with him many times and he extended the offer of teaching me some of the maneuvers they use. Anything to make me a better rider!

I'm not as good at it on my bike because of the work that was done to it, but I can do a pretty decent slow-ride. I'm getting more comfortable leaning deep in turns, and I've only gotten deep enough to scrape my boards twice (I caught one today making a somewhat quick turn onto the expressway). I've seen a lot of the cone courses PD has to run through, and wow, I really want to be that comfortable with riding.

--Edited to add picture of my bike

2009-04-07T15:51:00.004-04:00

Not much interesting has happened during any one shift lately. There have been calls that I've been procrastinating about writing up.

Went out on a female that attempted suicide by taking a LOT of narcotic pills (the legal/prescribed kind) and chasing them with vodka. She changed her mind and called 911. When we arrived, PD had the note she'd written, and we set to work on getting her loaded onto the stretcher. Quickly got IV access and pushed Narcan to perk her back up some.

Last I heard, they were going to pump her stomach and she'd probably not suffer any physical effects.

A couple days ago, as we're about to make our plates for dinner, we get toned out for a MVC with entrapment.

Here's what we find on arriving to the scene

The van's driver gave a couple different stories, but it looks like she stomped the gas pedal on accident. Thankfully, nobody was hurt. We hung around to watch the tow trucks separate and load the cars. We were mainly curious how they were going to handle the van.

We made it back, ate dinner, and didn't do much of anything the remainder of the shift.

2009-03-27T19:25:00.001-04:00

God's Speed To You, My Four Brothers In Blue.

Breaking into cars

2009-03-25T10:36:00.002-04:00

I got paid to break into a car.

Nice lady has an infant and a toddler, along with a buggy full of groceries from walmart. She puts the infant into his carseat and puts the groceries in the car. For whatever reason, lays her purse and car keys on the driver's seat. The inevitable happened and her infant was locked in. Thankfully it wasn't blistering hot outside.

We used the break-in kit (officially called a lock-out kit) to start working on the door. If you've never seen one of these things, it has a small plastic wedge, an inflatable bladder, and a long rod that is also bendable.

To make a boring story shorter, We used the wedge to pry the top part of the door away from the frame enough so I could shove the bladder in along the back edge of the door and inflate it. We then stuck the rod in through the gap and hooked the lock, unlocking the door.

The baby was still sleeping, a little hot, but fine. No damage to the car, not even a scratch.

Mom did make the comment about buying one of the kits and keeping it in her trunk. I managed to bite my tongue, but I wanted to ask her how she planned to get it out of the trunk if her keys were locked in the car. It's a great thought, but not quite planned well enough.

This is why my keys stay on a carabiner attached to my belt loop. I've never once locked them in the car since I started doing that.

I broke some ribs today...

2009-03-18T21:11:00.002-04:00

...but they weren't mine.

We were sent to a cardiac arrest call this afternoon, inside a local nursing home. The lady was old and we didn't get any of the circumstances surrounding how they found her in arrest. As is usual with many nursing homes, we were told CPR was in progress. The truth? 3 Dr's and 2 nurses were in the room watching her die. They'd placed a CPR board under her and that was it.

We immediately put the defibrillator pads on her and she was in a workable rhythm, but pulseless and it wasn't organized enough for a pulse anyways. Since everyone else was just standing around, I started doing CPR while the paramedics split tasks, one intubating and the other drawing drugs from the drugbox. The other EMT attempted to start an IV.

The cardiac monitors we use gauge how effective your compressions are. I was watching the monitor screen as I did CPR and I immediately felt 2 ribs pop, back to back. Within another minute, another 3 had popped as well. It's always a horrible feeling for me to do that. My only bit of consolement is that I was doing CPR effectively, the patient was very old and frail.

Once we got a tube dropped and finally got an IV, the first round of Epi and Atropine went in. No changes noted on the monitor, so CPR continued. We pushed the 2nd round of drugs a few minutes later and prepared to call the hospital to ask for orders to terminate CPR. We double-checked the lack of pulse and found good radials. By the time we got her to the truck, the pulse was gone again. CPR was resumed and I bailed out to drive my own truck to the hospital. My partner rode in to assist the other medic.

When she was rolled into the ER, she had a pulse again. Unfortunately, it was probably only the drugs working, I doubt she is still alive.

I'm not very used to this territory yet, so I can't really speak about how all nursing homes are, but my first impressions are not very good. I know not all are bad, but most of the ones I see are. This one is very clean and they were great about leading us to the room. It's just a shame nobody was actually doing anything to help the lady survive.

back at it

2009-03-14T18:15:00.002-04:00

Back on full duty now. My first shift back was pretty uneventful.

Hope to get something interesting going on soon.

Why I carry a gun

2009-03-09T15:27:00.003-04:00

Stolen from an email I received from my father this afternoon. Truer words couldn't be spoken and I wholeheartedly believe in this.

My old grandpa once said to me, "Son, there comes a time in every man's life when he stops bustin' knuckles and starts bustin' caps and usually it's when he becomes too old to take an ass whoopin'. Personally, I carry a gun because I'm too young to die and too old to take an ass whoopin'."

I don't carry a gun to kill people.
I carry a gun to keep from being killed.

I don't carry a gun to scare people.
I carry a gun because sometimes this world can be a scary place.

I don't carry a gun because I'm paranoid.
I carry a gun because there are real threats in the world.

I don't carry a gun because I'm evil.
I carry a gun because I have lived long enough to see the evil in the world.

I don't carry a gun because I hate the government.
I carry a gun because I understand the limitations of government.

I don't carry a gun because I'm angry.
I carry a gun so that I don't have to spend the rest of my life hating myself for failing to be prepared.

I don't carry a gun because I want to shoot someone.
I carry a gun because I want to die at a ripe old age in my bed, and not on a sidewalk somewhere tomorrow afternoon.

I don't carry a gun to make me feel like a woman.
I carry a gun because women know how to take care of themselves and the ones they love.

I don't carry a gun because I feel inadequate.
I carry a gun because, unarmed and facing three armed thugs, I am inadequate.

I don't carry a gun because I love it.
I carry a gun because I love life and the people who make it meaningful to me.

"Police Protection" is an oxymoron.
Free citizens must protect themselves.

Police do not protect you from crime; they usually just investigate the crime after it happens and then call someone in to clean up the mess.

Remember the average response time to a 911 call is over 4 minutes.The average response time of a Glock 40 is 1400 Feet Per Second.

Totally unproductive weekend

2009-03-08T21:30:00.003-04:00

This is the view I've enjoyed for the majority of my weekend. I've lounged around and done not much more than torment the cat with the laser pen. No matter how dizzy he gets, or how much he runs, he always comes back for more. At least, once he catches his breath.

And yes, he will chatter if he can't get to the light.

The only other thing I've done this weekend has been going on the weekly grocery run at wally world, and drawing. Not much, but it's what I wanted to do, so I did it.

crummy week

2009-03-07T13:18:00.003-05:00

Nothing fun or really remotely interesting happened this week. I was supposed to be helping out with a class but being on light duty threw a HUGE monkey-wrench into those plans. I was told that I wasn't even allowed to go watch. Well, fuck.

I got pulled away from the 911 center 3 days to kill trees for a chief. Let me tell you how exciting that is. I hated that job last time I was hurt and I hate is just as much, if not more, now.

The only good thing is that I had my sketchbook with me and sat down and drew a bit while waiting on the xerox.

I started some new exercises at PT thursday and they really screwed me up. I started hurting during PT, and it only got worse. Granted, I haven't really slept all that well since I was injured, but thursday night was miserable. I was up all night, my neck hurt, my shoulders even hurt, drugs didn't help either. I ended up calling out sick from work. Thankfully, capt seemed understanding. Or at least she was nice about it. She'd asked me to call her later that afternoon, I think it was 330 when she called me. I'd woken up a few minutes earlier and went right back to sleep once off the phone with her. I'm feeling better today.

Now I'm just worried about Monday when I go see my Dr. again.

"They keep following me, they won't get off my trail"

2009-02-25T19:22:00.003-05:00

Today, I spent the better half of my shift sitting at a calltaker's console. I was handed a headset and grabbed a cord and chair, plugged in, and got to eavesdrop.

As I expected, there were a lot of people that called for stupid stuff. I was suprised by just how many hang-up calls there were. We only took a handfull of EMS calls, and only 1 fire call. Quite a few calls from alarm companies, and today seemed to be the day to wreck your car.

One guy that had just been rear-ended kept laughing and was in great spirits. We could hear someone else laughing in the background too. The damage must not have been too severe. Oh, and it was a tow-truck that hit him.

The one call we took that was a fire, was one of multiple calls for the same incident. Another calltaker had already gotten the call from someone else. This person woke up and realized their apartment had smoke in it and that the unit below was quite possibly on fire. I never heard anything later about what exactly was on fire.

There was one call that had me holding my breath....to keep from laughing, that is. A female called in and rambled on for what must have been 10 minutes about these people that keep following her. She talked about how they follow her to work, the store, the post office, even to church. They even walk in the church and go past her, then right out another door! These people following her are even smart enough to have lots of different people in different cars that follow her around in traffic.

We've apparently sent units to her house before for similar problems, the calltaker was looking up the call history for the address given while the lady rambled.

The only thing I can figure is that she has some type of medical issues that need to be addressed. Quite possibly paranoia, or paranoid schizophrenia.

The smartass in me hopes she risks being followed to the store to buy a new roll of reynolds wrap, because her tin foil hat isn't thick enough.

After I came back from lunch, I went back to my usual place at one of the consoles on the other end of the room. It was beyond busy.

When I left to go home this afternoon, we did not have a single ambulance left in the department except for 2 contracted transport units. We were also down to 3 engines, and 4-5 aerials. It was getting crazy at 911 and I was happy to be able to leave when I did.

Funny stuff

2009-02-24T21:19:00.002-05:00

Since I promised some funny stuff, let's see what I can remember from recent months to stick in here.

**A few days ago a good friend of mine (and dispatcher for a neighboring department) had to send units to a person who locked herself INSIDE her car, with it running...on accident. And no, the person was neither a blonde or suicidal. (No offense to any blondes that may be reading this).

**Today, one of our ambulances was out at Big City ER with a patient, the backstory doesn't matter. They called in to let us know they'd be out for an extended amount of time. As they were returning to their truck to leave, they noticed the ambulance parked next to theirs was on fire. Being the good little crosstrained firefighters they are, they grabbed the gear off their truck and put out the other one. They simply called to see if we could contact the other company so they could contact their personnel assigned to that unit. Our guys had tried unsuccessfully to find them and wanted to make sure they knew what happened.

I couldn't help but laugh when they told us what happened. I wish I could've heard the company's rep. that answered the phone. My trainer said they seemed pretty out of it.

Who said you never get to fight fire from the box?

**A conversation between myself and a dispatcher while on break...
"One! Tubby, tubby, tubby...Two! Chubby, chubby, chubby."
"This is my rifle, there are many like it but this one is mine!"
"Hey corpral! Go tell mom bring my field knife."
"What would anybody want with a blind dog?"
*insert weird, conscerned dog noise here*

We went on for a minute or 2, then had to stop because our breaks were almost over.

**(One overheard late at night a couple years ago)
"Engine X to radio, Engine X is enroute to ABC hospital."
(Sounding extremely confused) "Engine X, you advised enroute to the hospital?"
"Rescue Z enroute to ABC hospital with Engine X personnel on board."
"See radio? I told ya."

**I once had a patient's family member threaten to file a complaint against me for being racist because I said "ya'll".

Thankfully my partner (who happened to be the same race as the potential complainant), told her that I wasn't racist, I was from Georgia.

I never received any complaint about it.

** Funny things can be heard on the radio when it's accidently keyed up. This is my all-time favorite. And yes, I was there in person when it happened, but no, it was not me. Oh, and this was on a talk-around channel. While recorded somewhere I'm sure, I don't believe it was monitored by radio at the time. If it was, they must've been laughing too hard to do anything about it.

"It's ok, no matter what happens. If I screw up on a fire, it's ok, I'm just a dumbass medic. If I screw up on a medical call, it's ok, I'm just a dumbass fireman."

PT sucks

2009-02-24T20:43:00.002-05:00

Today just started out great. Then it went from bad to worse.

I got to sleep late since my hours were pushed back a bit because of my PT appointment. It was nice, it was really nice.

When I got to work, things were busy, but not overly hectic. As time went by, things got busier, as they always do once everyone wakes up and hits the streets. I don't think things got too crazy before I left for my appointment.

Physical Therapy/P.T.
Well, I got there and had to answer a bunch of questions about if I'm able to sleep, what position I sleep in, how bad is my pain, does it radiate anywhere, etc. I also had to demonstrate how much flexibility I have in my neck. Certainly a lot more than a few weeks ago.

The physical terrorist...er...therapist, started me out doing exercises. Her reasoning is that it's been nearly 3 weeks and I have a lot of mobility. Maybe too much I guess.

I had to do a lot of different exercises with weights or the rubber bands. I was hurting pretty bad with each one. You see, I have this little problem I developed in the academy. If you tell me to do something, I'll do it, no matter how much it hurts. I learned I could do more than I thought, and now I push myself really hard. I'm thinking maybe too hard as much as I've been hurting since PT.

At the end, I sat with an ice wrap on for 10 minutes. It didn't help, nor did it really feel good. I was hurting then and I'm hurting now.

When I got back to work, things had gotten busy. I set to work trying to help chase units out of the hospital and update our board we track units on. We were without any transport units 3 times I think I was told while I was at PT/on lunch.

We would be looking good, then suddenly send almost every unit we had out on calls. Next thing you know, one nice sized chunk doesn't have any firetrucks in it. So we spent a while shifting those units around, just keeping up.

Things somewhat slowed and the captain came in and wanted to talk to me.

I understand I'm representing my department and carrying extra responsibility by being at 911, but although I'd like to think I'm being professional, I don't feel the need to be wound up too tight. The job I'm training for is serious business and I've had my eyes opened to what goes on, especially when the computer system crashes. I just can't understand why I'm supposed to basically just sit there and keep my mouth shut.

I want to build a good working relationship with these dispatchers. I have no choice but to count on them when I'm in the field and need help, I want them to be able to count on me for as much help as I can give them while I'm in the 911 center.

I was told that I wander around too much and that I'm not able to focus.

I have no idea where the wandering around thing came from. The lady I train with the first half of the week has no complaints about my performance. I know because she's told me so. She's been showing me the computer commands and allowing me to somewhat suggest what unit to move and where to put them, and if her choice is different, she's explaining why. The only time I leave the console is when I take my lunch break, or to hit the restrooms. The only exceptions being standing up to lean on the short divider to ask a question or relay some kind of information to 1 of the 2 dispatchers assigned to the channels I'm monitoring. The other exception being that I've walked around to the other dispatcher's side a couple of times. Of course, she/he is the one actually dispatching the calls and I'm curious how the system works, where they go to find the comments they read over the air, and how they actually assign units to the call/put the call on the unit's screen. I'm not only curious about it, but I feel it's part of my job in a way.

As for the lady I train with the 2nd half of the week, if anybody wanders around, it's her. Many times I'm sitting at the console and she wanders over to the far side of the room to chat with one of the calltakers. I'm not supposed to be answering the phones or really doing anything more than moving magnets on a board. Yet she leaves me alone and is reluctant to come back over when the phones start ringing. I'm certainly not saying she doesn't do her job, because I've seen her work. I just don't feel like she's really teaching me anything. Sometimes, I just feel like I'm only there to move the magnets for her, because she never seems to keep up with them. I guess she's just a lot more lax about things.

I shouldn't be so irked by this whole thing, but it's just been gnawing at me all day.

2009-02-24T00:02:00.002-05:00

Just kind of maintaining at work right now. I spent a couple hours yesterday doing menial tasks for the captain. Honestly, it was all BS busy-work. I hate that kind of crap. I didn't really have any other options though, so I sat down and did the stuff I was tasked with.

While I was working away, I was able to listen in while someone reviewed 911 tapes of critical calls. It's really neat to listen to that stuff when you're not used to ever hearing it. I'm not officially trained on the CAD, and I'm certainly not familiar with the protocol cards for medical 911 calls, but even I knew what questions should be asked when. Like I said, it was neat to hear the tapes when you never get that opportunity.

The past few days, I've been really making an effort to learn the dispatcher's names. Well, more like their last names, because that's what shows up in the field. I want to be able to recognize the people I've become friends with for when I go back out onto the streets. And yes, I'll admit I like some more than others, but I'm getting along fine with everyone.

*********************************************

In other news...

I think I've finally finished running the gambit of emotions associated with my accident.

I was scared shitless when it happened and for the first few days.

I started getting mad on the 3rd or 4th day I think. Mad at the driver for not setting the TPM or watching the pressure better. Mad at my captain for not backing me on the line, even though I know it wasn't really necessary. Mad at myself for not being better prepared for a pressure spike.

Then I started feeling helpless and hating myself. I realized there was absolutely nothing I could've done differently to prevent my accident. The pain I dealt with, even while medicated, made me want to just cry. I hate pills, I hate taking pills. I suddenly realized I was watching the clock until my next dose. I turned into a pill-popper in my mind, and even though it helped with the pain, I still hate myself for it a bit. I finally had a complete breakdown. I sat, and I cried. I cried like a little bitch, but afterwards, I felt better and was still upset, but able to live with myself.

Finally, I've started to heal, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I'm finally at the point where I can turn my head, touch my chin to my chest, and do all the other things I only dreamed of a few weeks ago. I still have a knot of tensed muscles on the right side of my neck. In 12 short hours I'll be at my physical therapy appointment. I'm both looking forward to it, and scared to death all over again. I don't know what they'll do to me. The dr originally mentioned massage and traction. I'm not so sure about the traction part, but the massage sounds heavenly. I guess the ultimate question is will they be able to work out the knot, and will I hurt again because of whatever they do?

I want nothing more than to get back on the streets, back to my normal work-week. I've just got this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I won't be allowed back to work until the knot is gone.

Getting to work at radio/911 has been a blast and no matter what happens, I'm really glad I was afforded the opportunity, I just want my life to get back to normal. Well, as normal as it was before the accident.

More than anything else, I need to get out of my house again. I've been either in so much pain/medicated and unable to drive, or just feeling sorry for myself and haven't really gone anywhere other than work. I've been afraid to go ride my horse because of my neck and I really miss him right now. I *was* trying to finally get myself motivated to run on a regular basis, but again, haven't because of my neck. The last thing I wanna do is aggravate this injury before it can heal all the way.

I'll try to relay some funny stuff next time I post. I don't really like being so serious all the time. I'd rather be watching Jeff Dunham or having another quoting war with one of the dispatchers. I finally found someone who can match me with Full Metal Jacket AND Major Payne quotes. Dear god it was hilarious.

Sad/Busy day at work

2009-02-18T16:55:00.002-05:00

Today was flat out crazy at work. I was there before 0630 and we still had 5 units out on a fire from overnight. By 0830, we had 2 working fires, and one of those went 2 alarms, and there were reports of people trapped inside.

The big fire came in on a transfer from the big city FD. They only wanted us to send our ambulances, then tried to dump the whole thing on us, even though it was across the line and on them. We sent a full response just in case.

The first unit that went onscene told us to start a 2nd alarm.

As we're pulling units for the 2nd alarm, another fire comes in. In the comments, the caller advised that there's flames through the roof, but the house is known to be vacant.

We manage to scramble all the units needed for both calls, and started shifting our remaining units for coverage of territories.

Meanwhile, the amount of EMS calls explodes thanks to the rain and/or whatever. So we're having to post our ambulances and we're constantly shifting them around as well. That went on all day long, with only 3 units available in the entire department more than once.

We ended up calling 2 neighboring departments (not big city FD) for mutual aid. We needed help covering our stations. Only 1 of the units that came to help had to run a call. Their radios aren't compatible with ours either, so we had to call them on the cell phone and give them all dispatch info, plus directions.

At the large fire, there ended up being 12 units damaged, and the Red Cross was called to take care of the 61 people that were displaced. One of our ambulances took a toddler and father to the hospital for smoke inhalation, and the toddler had some burns. The mother and another child died in the fire.

There is a video, but in an attempt to somewhat protect my anonymity and where I work, I'm not going to imbed it. Sorry folks.

Drugs are bad, Pills suck too

2009-02-12T21:49:00.003-05:00

Semi-short post cause I'm hurting some and drugs are starting to kick in so I'm getting real sleepy, real fast. Notice I use the terms drugs and meds interchangeably.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. Learned a lil bit about our CAD program, and how EMS calls are entered. Sat in on a calltaker position for a little while, didn't get to hear anything overly interesting. Still got to hear a few calls about either small child got the phone, or wrong number. How the hell do you dial 911 on accident??

Today, my neck was stiff when I woke up, I've been able to make it to work the other mornings before it got too stiff. I'm now allowed to pull up calls before/as they're dispatched, as well as put units available if they don't update their own status on the computers. Not allowed to answer the phones or nextel,or make reccomendations for calls, but I can call units on nextel and stations on the fire phone.

I think I did really good keeping the magnetic board current today too. No thanks to all the units that went available over the computers only. I had to keep checking the available lists. Also had a few units go out of service without telling anybody until we assigned them a call.

I left a little bit early to go have a new ID card made. The person blew me off and told a lie. I stood outside their door for 30 minutes for nothing. Keep in mind, the longer I stand, the more my neck hurts. When I finally left (without my new ID), I was in so much pain I sat in my car and had a little cry. I have a high tolerance for pain and I was really hurting.

I think I set a record time getting home so I could take my meds. I hate pills, I hate taking pills, but I really hate hurting that bad. I took the full dosages of all my meds (have a 1-2 pill option for one of them) and tried to calm down and chill out. The drugs finally kicked in and I was finally feeling pretty numb to the pain.

I can tell the pain meds are kinda worn off a bit now, my neck is achy again, but not as bad as earlier thank god. The muscle relaxer and anti-inflammatory are going strong though. I'm sleepy as hell and have been since 30 minutes after taking all those meds earlier.

Time to call it a night.