Dispatchers

I've been up all night thanks to not feeling all that great. I've been entertaining myself by playing on a few websites I haunt and reading random blogs. It got me thinking (the blogs that is).


We all have them, sometimes we love them, sometimes we hate them. I'm sure the feelings are mutual.

I happen to be close to 2 dispatchers, one is like a father to me, the other, a best friend and nearly sister.

My other dad is a great dispatcher, loved by all. He is one of the senior guys at 911 and can handle anything thrown at him. He is also a FTO and is trying to make supervisor. I can recognize him on the air both by his voice, and his little quirks. I've been to his house, hung out with his family, and been mugged by his dogs (I have pictures to prove it). His daughter called me "sis" the first time we met (she's around my age). I've exchanged god knows how many messages on the computer when we both had time to be bored, even if only for a moment.

My best friend is also a FTO and from everything I can tell, a great dispatcher. You see, we don't work for the same department. I've spoken with people that do work with her and they love the job she does. She is my partner in crime, especially when shopping for birthday gifts. We've been the shoulder to cry on about calls or whatever, and the ear that listens when you need to vent about work.

Both of these people I love to death and am proud to say I'd work with them in my ear any day.

BUT...There are so many more out there!

A couple years ago, the partner and I checked out on a 911 hangup call. Long story short, I'm sure I gave the dispatcher a heartattack when I had to yell (yes, yell) for help. We were in a fight and there was also a pit bull attacking us.

"Rescue X, radio...We're in a fight, there's a dog, I need PD 10-18!"

She paused, but was calm, cool, and collected in her response. I could hear the urgency escaping her when my chief and a few other nearby units called her requesting our last known location. I hope she gave the city that was handling the PD response a good ass-chewing later. They were supposedly dispatched when we were, and we had to drive past their precinct to get to the call.


A couple months ago when I totalled my car, I'm sure I gave another a little heart-attack.

"ABC 911, what's the exact location of your emergency?"

"Radio, I'm an offduty ABC firefighter, been involved in a 41I (accident w/injuries) at "Maindrag" and "Cross-street". I'm in a (car description here) and was hit by a (other car description here). I had Engine X on -21 (phone) with me when it happened and they're already enroute, I need PD."

....(long pause).........

"What's your name and #?"

I'm glad I had a good idea what info she would need, and I still believe I gave it to her in a decent manner. You bet your ass I was excited, but I wasn't too fast because I didn't have to repeat anything or answer any further questions. Maybe it's from dealing with crazy stuff onduty I was able to control myself enough to do what needed to be done.

I had a double-whammy on that one though. My other dad was on fire/ems dispatch and he had to dispatch the call. My phone went nuts. As soon as I was done with the police officer and everything on the scene, I was loaded into the ambulance. I called dad at his console (he'd texted me the # already) and told him what happened and that I'd be ok. I also asked him to thank whoever took the call and tell them I'd be ok, just sore.


While I don't know what it's like to field calls or be a dispatcher, I do have a great appreciation for the job and how it works. My department doesn't require or even recommend that we sit in at radio. I chose to. At least 5 times now.

I understand what it's like to never know what happens next. On our old CAD system, I would sometimes look up what calltaker handled the call and send them a message with what I could relay. I always got a thanks in return. I can't do this as easily with the new system, it loses many messages, or won't stay connected. At least I try to bring some type of closure to the person who had first contact.


I know we all get grumpy with radio, and sometimes radio gets grumpy with us...Many times, it's neither one's fault (crappy area for the portables or similar). I just felt like saying thanks for what you do.


You may know where you are...God may know where you are...But if your dispatcher doesn't know where you are when you scream for help...You and God had better be on good terms. 10-0

Work lately hasn't been overly interesting. I'm in a new area and it's taking some time to get used to. New territory, new trucks, new crew, it's a different world. I was in my old station over 3 years and it was my home. I miss (some of) my crew the most. More than anything, I regret the timing of me being transfered. My crew was my family and I wanted to spend the holidays with them (considering I work thanksgiving and christmas eve this year).

So far, things are going good. Like I said, it's just taking a little getting use to.I *may* have found a swat team to get on with. They currently have 2 medics, but both are only trained cops, whereas I'm an EMT. I met their chief years ago and he's a great guy, takes care of his men and stands up for them. I need to call a Sgt sometime this week and see about meeting whoever I need to meet. Even if I don't get to work with these guys, maybe I can get my foot in the door enough to play bad guy whenever they need to train.

Last week was absolutely crazy, but I had a blast. I attended Tactical Medic training.

It took 61 hours and many scenarios, but I am now officially a tactical medic, or SWAT-Medic.

I had the opportunity to learn skills in the class that not even paramedics are allowed to perform out here on the streets. Things like needle-crics and suturing, even digital intubations.


Now, to find a team to work on....

House Fire with Entrapment

Sent to the above type call at 0805. We got onscene fast and scrambled getting our gear on (on the ambulance again). We were just about to walk in the front door when command assigned us RIT team. It's a very important job if you're ever needed, but usually, you sit outside on a spare hoseline and wait.

Just moments later, actually it was 0821, the lady was brought outside to us. I took off running to the truck to get jump bags and the stretcher, another firefighter in no gear beat me by a mile. We got back to the lady just as the other ambulance arrived (they were sent since we were assigned to "firefighting operations"). She was being bagged (we were helping her breathe), and someone was doing CPR. As soon as we had a backboard, we secured her to it and placed her on the stretcher. We snatched the other ambulance's stretcher out and put our's into their truck to save time.

After taking a few minutes to suction and secure her airway, as well as start an IV and push cardiac drugs, they were off to the ER. She did not make it. While she wasn't burnt, her body was covered in soot and she had already fallen victim to smoke inhalation.

The fire started in the kitchen and was somewhat contained to that area.
*****************************************
Ran this call about a month ago. I just never made the time to write anything about it.

Neglectful

I've been neglecting this blog lately, and for no particular reason. A lot has happened, and yet nothing has changed.

I started a part-time job near the end of June. The work is incredibly easy, and most of the people I work with are fun to be around. We see a lot of people on a daily basis, but it's all minor things. It's very rare that we have to call a unit in to transport anyone to the hospital. Ironically, many of our patients, are employees.

I've been sent off to fill in at other stations more times in the last month than I'd care to admit. I've also been putting up with a fair amount of BS lately. The most recent, a pratical slap in the face.

Our crew has been in some degree of turmoil since the beginning. We've had multiple captains and rookies, multiple people fired, and we are used as both a "last chance destination" and the guinea-pigs. I'm getting tired of it.

My personal turmoil is watching not only my old academy classmates, but people hired after me, being given opportunities that I'm constantly denied.

Most recently, my car was totalled and I was stuck in the hospital for over 5 hours. I'm planning to take the other driver to court over my hospital bills and such, so only time will tell how that goes.

Pumping my 1st house fire

Now, Fridays are truck days, so we spend a good part of the morning really going over all the trucks. I did the normal truck checkoffs and then we caught a call. When we got back, we washed the engine and took apart 2 compartments to scrub them out and clean the mats. The chainsaw leaks bar oil and the compartment it's in gets nasty. Instead of being boring with more details, let's just say we went over almost every square inch of the fire truck.

I had to take the truck to motor maintenance because we were extremely low on power steering fluid, that took over an hour (because they're slow). As I was leaving the station, our squad was being put in service for the shift (takes 2 to run it and 1 of our guys was at another station for a couple hours).

We didn't really run much that afternoon thanks to the squad jumping our calls. Right around dinnertime the whole department got extremely busy, we had calls pending and radio was freaking out. Thankfully that didn't last very long at all. Engine and squad made it back to the station and finished cooking and eating dinner.

And then it happened, the last thing I expected, the one thing everyone else wanted but I sorta feared... A house fire in our territory!!!!!

We all ran to the trucks. As my Captain was getting his gear on, our Chief called and wanted directions, the nextel was thrown to me. So here I am, driving the firetruck emergency down the street, talking to Chief on the nextel, and he's giving me a hard time about the directions. Got off the phone just in time to cross a major intersection and spotted the smoke column.

It's workin'!!!!!!!!!

The house was a single-story, 1 family, brick house, and it had heavy (lots of) smoke coming out both ends.

**keep in mind the other stations are extremely closeby, so plenty of help arrives fast**
I pulled up just past the house (have to see 3 sides if possible) and put my truck into pump mode. As I hopped out and started pulling my first crosslay to the front door, the next engine arrived and their driver (a classmate from my academy class) told me he'd get me water supply. I ran back to my truck to charge the 1st hoseline and throttle up the pump to give the correct pressure on the line. The 3rd engine arrived and I passed part of my 2nd crosslay their driver and made sure it came off the truck. Moments later I was charging that line as I opened my intake, water supply was completed.

Now that I had hydrant water, I throttled down my pump and used as much of the hydrant pressure as I could, why overwork the pump if I don't have to? I pulled a 3rd line from my skidload but didn't charge it with water, we always have to have a spare line on the ground in case something happens. I also went ahead and pulled my cooler and cups out and set them on the tailboard. It was over 90 degrees outside and Air & Light wasn't there yet.

Air & Light refills our airpacks and also carries rehab equipment like cold water and usually some type of crackers.

Most of my work was done for now so I stood beside my truck and watched the action. The corner of the roof had been breached by fire as I was charging the 2nd line, but was now out. Crews inside had gotten the upper hand on the fire. I met a crew halfway across the yard with my attic ladder (heard them ask for it). They used the ladder (attic ladders are skinny) to be able to get to and knock out the siding and plywood in the corner of the roof and make sure the fire was out.

Later on, we reloaded the spare line and I was able to shut down one of the crosslays. It was also reloaded onto the truck. Once that was done, the crews inside wanted a fan set up in the door to clear out smoke. The ladder's driver beat me to it with his fan, but it wouldn't stay cranked so I put out my electric fan...BTW, I have a generator on my truck and can power quite a lot of stuff with it.

Once it started getting dark out, I set up my light tower, so did my old classmate with his engine. Water supply was no longer needed and was disconnected. Everything inside was soaked one last time using tank water (we carry 500 gallons) and the line was shut down and put away. We allowed a couple of the residents to go inside, with our escort, and get their belongings. We were the last to leave the scene.

Fire was determined to have been started by food on the stove. All residents made it out ok and nobody suffered any injuries.

My captain was a driver/engineer before the department took away the position. He pulled me aside and told me that *now* I was released as a driver. He had no complaints about how I did pumping the fire either. That alone is the BEST compliment from him. He did finally say I needed to anticipate what the crews inside would need, but that that will come with experience.

Went back to the station and I refilled my tank from the hydrant out front while my captain took a quick shower and my other guy put on a clean/dry shirt. We went searching for fuel, went 4 places that were out before finding any. 27 gallons of diesel later we were on our way back home.

We did run 2 other calls overnight. At 619am we picked up another house fire nearly across the street from our station. Some arsonist tried to burn a vacant house down...he failed big time. The oncoming shift waited for the arson investigator and we went offduty.

Dull

Not much to talk about lately. Work has been somewhat dull as far as interesting calls.

Not long ago we went into a house that appeared to have a marijuana growing operation. I'm currently working with local PD's narcotics unit by making them aware of the house, and giving them as much info as I can since I was able to go inside. I'm really looking forward to helping out and getting to learn even a little something about their investigation process.

That's really all I have for now.