Bring On The New Year!

Well it's that time of year again. A time when we bring the year to a close, futile resolutions are made, and stupid people fill the streets. A non-denominational holiday that is celebrated by almost every person in the world. What a great day to be at work! For my second year in a row, I am working on New Years Eve. Not that I mind it because it keeps me from being one of those stupid people out getting in trouble and I get to see more crazy in one night than I usually see in a tour. So far today has been pretty busy and I expect it to only get worse as the sun goes down. If it's anything compared to last year then we might be in trouble. Here is the run list for my pumper last NYE, in order from start to finish that I just pulled up on our CAD system.

Chest Pain: Heart Problem: Automatic Alarm: Grass Fire: Grass Fire: Unknown Fire: Seizure: Assault: Grass Fire: House Fire: Grass Fire: House Fire: House Fire: Bomb Threat (turned out to be an exploded mailbox): Chest Pain: Unconscious Person: Breathing Problem: Automatic Medical Alert: Motor Vehicle Incident: Grass Fire: Dumpster Fire: Dumpster Fire.

22 runs and mind you that most came in after 9pm. We have already had some noteworthy runs this shift but I will write about it all tomorrow in one long post. Before I go, I want to post this as my end of the year gift to you. It is a psychiatric call we made about a year ago where this lady's son called 911 to have his mother committed. Perhaps it will give you a feel for the people we deal with out here every single day. She was something else and i'm damn glad I decided to record it. By the way, she looks exactly how she sounds.

So what will 2012 have in store for us? I don't know either but I sure can't wait to find out. Happy New Year!

Funny Kitchen Fire

Remember that kitchen fire we did a couple weeks ago where the kid threw water on the burning pan? Well one of my last days on, we get dispatched to an apartment fire a few blocks from the station. We were first into the complex and didn't see any smoke so I told everyone responding to level 1 stage outside the complex which means to wait out there so we don't have a bunch of fire trucks clogging up the complex. I get out of the pumper and this lady walks up and says "Hey remember me"? I didn't really until she said she was they lady who's house caught on fire a couple weeks ago. I guess she had moved into this apartment while her house was being repaired and managed to catch her stove on fire. Well it wasn't really on fire but she said it started smoking and wanted us to check it. I don't know why this was dispatched as an apartment fire but I disregarded all the units and we went in to look at the stove. Yep, looked like a stove. I told her to leave it unplugged and find a place to live without a kitchen.

So just to add on the end of this, as I was finishing up this post we get a walk-in at the station. I went out to have a cigarette and this car pulls up on our front pad. He said his son had just had a seizure (which was normal for him just like the lady earlier) and wanted us to check him out "just in case". I guess it's "just in case" seizure week.

I like it when the crazies come out

So I forgot about this post. It's been sitting in here waiting on me to finish the last paragraph for about 2 weeks. I've been on the ladder truck for the last few shifts so I haven't really been to any calls worthy of talking about on here. Actually I don't think we've been on any calls but i'm not complaining, I love riding on the ladder and wish I could stay on it forever but today i'm back to my pumper, ready to take on our little shit hole district. So far we haven't had anything good but most of the crew called in sick so i'm sure we'll have a fire at some point. A little while ago we made a run for seizures in a Church's Chicken parking lot. The lady apparently has seizures all the time so this was nothing out of the ordinary but her husband wanted her checked out "just in case". Just in case of what? We looked at her, looked liked she was alive, and went in service.

So here are my stories from a couple weeks ago...enjoy.

So we head off to the grocery store fairly late to pick up our usual, we're too lazy to cook (Hamburger Helper) dinner. We don't even get the first thing in the cart when we get a run for an overdose, way down at the bottom of our territory. It's actually in one of our better areas although lately it's been picking up lately with some interesting calls. It's a mix of townhouses and a few apartment complexes sitting on a dead end road. We pull onto the street at the same time as the ambulance when the dispatcher comes on and tell us we need to stage away form the location to wait for the police because apparently the scene wasn't safe. Well the ambulance ends up going all the way to the complex and is flagged down by the caller so we go up behind them and we enter the complex. At this point we were already committed to the scene so there wasn't much we could do. As we pull up, I look over to my left and see a man trying to fight with a female cop. The cop was by herself trying to keep the man back, while a woman who turned out to be the man's girlfriend yelled uncontrollably for him to stop. The cop had her beating stick out trying to keep him back but he began swinging at her and it didn't look like she would be able to hold him off much longer. She got in a damn good hit with her baton but I was worried he was going to overpower her so I jumped out of the pumper and ran her direction. I figured I would take the ass chewing later because I wasn't going to just sit there and watch this cop get her ass whopped. The rest of my crew jumped out and ran with me but we stopped short when another cop pulled up and tackled the guy. They wrestled for a couple minutes while the guy yelled "JUST FUCKING SHOOT ME" "KILL ME, I KNOW YOU WANT TO". He was looking for a suicide by cop scenario but they got him wrangled and threw him in the car. As the cops were dragging him to the car, I guess the man's ex wife ran up and was frantically asking the current girlfriend "OH GOD, DID THEY SHOOT HIM"? What the fuck do you think lady? No they didn't shoot him. Afterwards, my EO went up to the cop car and asked the guy what his birth date was. His response? "FUCK YOU". Turned out, the guy took several bottles of pills and now gets to wake up with a nice hangover on the floor of a jail cell.

We left that call and didn't feel like going back to the store so we decided to stop and grab something at Taco Cabana. I remember as we stood in line that this weird guy was walking around asking people for the time. He caught my eye because something just didn't seem right about him. Fairly young white guy with a tattered brown leather coat, possibly on drugs or some sort of mental disorder. I didn't think too much of it because we see freaks all the time so we ordered and went about our fine dining experience. We finished eating and ventured outside where this guy was lurking by the front door. He sees us and asks, "Hey have you guys even been in a fire?" I looked at him and told him no, kinda laughed and went to take out a cigarette. Yes I smoke, don't judge me. Of course this guy follows and asked us if we had a cigarette. I told him that I just lit my last one and showed him my pack but one of the firefighters gave him one. At this point it was just me and the firefighter because the other two knuckleheads knew better than to hang around this guy and went back to the pumper. When this guy came over for the cigarette, I noticed that in his right hand was a freakishly large ball of hair. Looked like something you would pull out of an old drain. He tossed it on the ground and my firefighter says to him "Hey, you dropped your hair." Without missing a beat, this guy looks at us and says "yea, it's my pubes". Now i'm trying as hard as I can not to laugh but the other guy just couldn't hold it so we started cracking up right in front of this poor guy. He looks at us again with a smirk and said, "but wouldn't that hurt though, if I just ripped them right out like that?" "Think about it. I guess it would be kinda like waxing". The firefighter told him, "nah waxing isn't that bad". "oh you know from experience" replied the weirdo. I guess our laughing just made this guy want to keep talking so hurried off and got back to the pumper.

Trucks aren't made to be sideways

The other morning, we got to cut a lady out of her truck. It was about 5:40 in the morning and 29 degrees (not my ideal conditions). I'm not really sure what caused the accident but the lady managed to flip onto the driver's side of the truck, so she was essentially stuck at the bottom. Lucky for her, she didn't have any significant injuries other than some standard back and neck pain. We ended up taking off the roof so we could pull her out from where she was laying.

I always find it amazing how easy it is to pull apart a vehicle. We broke out the windows, cut the pillars holding the roof and it just peeled it back like a can of sardines. The poor lady was nice as can be too, something we don't get very often on this side of town. Older woman, probably in her mid 60's just sat there calm while we were working. Lucky for us, we didn't do very much because our rescue truck was there pretty quick and they like doing all the fancy stuff.  But whatever took getting out of the cold fast was alright with us. Not to mention the sun was coming up and we were encroaching on shift change.

Here's a pic of her truck. It didn't come out very good but you can see the roof peeled back.

We really didn't do anything else other than a few more automatic alarms, another wreck, and some medical calls. The next day on, we made a run early in the morning for an unconscious person. It was supposed to be in a vehicle outside of a house but turned out the lady got up and went inside before we got there. We knocked on the door and this haggard lady peeks out and says she feel asleep in the car because her alarm didn't go off. I'm not really sure what the hell she was talking about but while the ambulance was getting the story, I started looking through the front window of the house. Jesus there was trash piled up to the bottom of the window and there were two small dogs trekking across the mess. I try to keep houses like this in my memory because if we ever get a fire there, I know the present hazards. It has happened before. Later on we made a huge pot of chili for lunch/dinner and had a fairly quiet evening. My kind of day.

MORE FIRE ALARMS!!!!!! AHHHH!!!

I've been to so many fire alarms lately that I could just scream!! We had one the other day at a 55+ apartment complex nearby the station. Turns out someone burned some popcorn in the lobby kitchen so we were out of there within a minute and headed off to the grocery store. We get all loaded up and of course drop a run for a house fire with a truck full of meat and ice cream. Luckily It wasn't too far away but it looked as if we would be a close tie to second in so I give ol' Rand McNally directions and started putting my gear on. A ladder truck made location first with nothing showing, which was great news so we could get back with our food. We pulled into the neighborhood shortly after and came down the street until blocked by a fucking ambulance who decided they wanted to stop in the middle of the road, blocking every other suppression unit from getting to the house. I put my hand on the radio mic to say something when the fire was tapped out so we just followed the ambulance through the scene and got the hell out of there.

Later on back at the station while cooking dinner, one of the firefighters was outside and heard what sounded like a fire alarm in the distance. What do you know, it's the apartment complex again from earlier. You know, the one we went to right before the grocery store? I recognize the sound because they have the loudest alarm known to man. No kidding. When you are inside this place, your teeth and brain actually shake. Absolutely horrible. I tell the crew that we are about to get a run and the dispatch comes through about 5 seconds after.

Trashy Street

Why the in hell do people feel the need to dump things on the side of the road? I have never even had that thought.

"What do we do with this Clyde?" "Ah never mind i'll just go dump it by the park so it won't be my problem anymore."

We were sent to a trash fire on this deserted road next to a wooded area. It's technically a city park but it has just sat there as an overgrown waste of space for years.

The fire was only a bunch of oil, some rags, and 2 oil filters. Easy way to dispose of your oil change I guess. As you can see behind the fire, there is a large pile of trash and next to it a dear carcass. There isn't deer anywhere around here so I have no idea where this came from. Must have been the aftermath of a hunting trip or something. Several years ago this was the hot spot for burning stolen cars on a weekly basis. We also responded to a rape over here a few months ago where a police officer rolled up on a vehicle, occupied by a father raping his 14 year old daughter. Doesn't this make you feel great as a taxpayer, knowing that a city park can be such multipurpose?

Grease + Heat + Water = Destruction

The shift started out pretty crazy because everyone except for myself and engineer called in sick. There was the last minute shuffle to pull a crew together but everything worked out pretty fast and the day went on. Around 6:30 or so in the evening, we were dispatched to a duplex fire, which doesn't surprise me because we manage to always get a fire when people call in sick. We were first on scene with light smoke coming from the front door so I picked up the radio and said "engine xx on location, light smoke from a single story duplex, we'll be investigating". Since the smoke was pretty light, I told the crew to stay put while I went to find out what was going on from the people standing in the yard. The lady told me that she had just come home from work when her 2 kids came running out saying the house was on fire. "They tried throwing water on it but the whole wall is still on fire". I go take a peek in the front door and see black smoke banked down about 5 feet from the ceiling so I turn around and tell the crew to pull a hand line and we make our way inside. There wasn't much to this one and we had it under control before anyone else arrived so I tapped it out holding us and the next in pumper. We did some overhaul, vented out the smoke and were out of there in about an hour. Here is the end result.

Whoops

The Captain on the other pumper had talked to the resident who said her 9 year old son was allegedly cooking. The 16 year old who was supposed to be watching him, wasn't doing too good of a job and I guess the skillet caught fire. He then threw water on the fire and BOOM, no more kitchen. Something like the video below except no extinguisher.

We leave there and get sent on 3 more runs before getting back to the station. Some lady down the road was having breathing problems after arguing with her boyfriend. We pull up and there 5 police cars, broken concrete in the road, and their garage door is hanging off by a string. We go inside and wade through a mess of boxes to find this lady freaking out in a tiny little bathroom. She saw us walk in and decided she wanted to have a full on panic attack and begin hyperventilating. We leave there and go straight to a "group home" which we frequent fairly often. These group homes are all over our territory and occupied with either sick and/or crazy people, usually watched by some African lady that pays absolutely no attention to them. This time it was an old man having a gastrointestinal bleed out of his ass. He was in a hall bathroom, kind of hunched over and naked from the waste down with blood EVERYWHERE. His legs were just saturated not to mention the bathroom which was also feces. We just kind of stood there for a second trying to figure out what the hell to do with this mess. It smelled so so bad that I have no clue how to describe it. We pretty much waited until the ambulance got there, doubled up on gloves and walked him out to the stretcher. The ambulance was from another station and had someone on it we didn't know. My Engineer walks up and tells the EMT that they may want to put down some towels or something for the blood but got some black stare, so he says, "awe fuck it, it's not my stretcher" and walks off. 

By this time we were all starving and really wanted to get back to the station when the computer pops up with a motor vehicle incident a few blocks down the road. They got smashed pretty good, cars totaled but no injuries so we we out of there quick and finally got back. We did get to eat and have a little down time before getting dispatched to another house fire a good distance away. The first pumper arrived and said "nothing showing" which usually means it's nothing so we were praying for a disregard before committing to the freeway, which we got so my Engineer takes the longest and bumpiest route possible back to the station and we sleep the rest of the night. Actually no, there was one more run later on but I can't remember for the life of me what it was. 

I had to throw that extra bit in about my EO because he gets all giddy when I talk about him on here. I told him this blog would make him famous and I could make him t-shirts, although no one knows who he is. Kind of like tales of a great ninja warrior, only allergic to directions and doesn't carry a sword. 

By the way, in case you didn't know, EO means Engineer Operator (the one who drives and pumps water). Also traditionally called a Chauffeur.

Jesus, Table For 14

One of my favorite things about going to calls is seeing the things that people have inside their homes. The other day we were at this house for a woman having a stroke. I stepped out of the room after it got crowded and went to stand in the living room when I saw this painting of the wall that intrigued me. It was a painting of  "The Last Supper" but in front of it was a lone chair facing the wall into an open spot on the painting's table similar to the opening you see below.

Perhaps someone sits there and eats dinner with Jesus? Or it could be a timeout chair where you have to look at Jesus and feel bad about what you did. It was something i've never seen before and I wish I would have asked someone in the house what it all about.

The rest of the shift went well. I worked on dinner with the rookie while the rest of the guys went Christmas crazy, hanging lights outside. They had been working on it for hours at this point. Later my wife and daughter stopped by for a visit and we finished off the night watching TV. Another hard days work.

Black Friday

So a few minutes after I published that last post, surprise surprise our box gets a run to Target for a fall. We on the other hand aren't doing anything. We went on a cleaning frenzy, made breakfast, watched our rookie rewind the Q siren (which is completely unnecessary) and now we are all spread around doing our own thing. To hold us over, i'll tell another story from earlier last week.

We made a run to an apartment complex sometime in the evening for an overdose. Some guy drank a bottle of Benadryl and felt sleepy so we weren't really needed and went back in service once the ambulance got there. This apartment complex is rather small so there isn't much room to maneuver with a fire engine. The driveway which we were parked on was straight but the entrance gate behind us was at an angle. No idea why they designed it like that. We start backing up to the gate when my EO realizes the weird backward angle he is going have to make to get out of this place. I could see his nerves building as he tried to angle the back end but couldn't get it. One attempt, two attempts, then three attempts, all while i'm snickering at the frustrated EO. He couldn't get it angled correctly because we would have hit the gate trying to swing out and had a median behind us which prevented him from going any further so he pulls way up and straightened out to get his game plan together when I told him that I bet I could do it. My philosophy is that if it came in that way, it sure as hell can go back out, right? Well in his frustration, his door flies open, hands go in the air and he says, "FINE do it then!" He figured he didn't have anything to loose since he already couldn't do it and maybe he could pull off making his officer look stupid too. Little did he know that all my years as an EO were spent at a small station with narrow doors that we had to back into, all while against the traffic of a freeway feeder so backing out of a gate was nothing to me. I get in the ol' drivers seat, throw that bitch in reverse and back up with one hand on the wheel, making one little correction and into the street we go. The look on his face was priceless and of course the first thing he said was "I guess i'll make it in the blog again." The guys in the back were cracking up so I just put it in drive and kept on driving for a while. I will give him this, today he has been printing off blank maps so he could study the territory. And not to mention that despite his non-directional skills, and inability to back out of gates, he goes forward just fine and can pump the hell out of some water.

Chest Pain....It's Always Chest Pain

It was about 2:30 in the morning when we were dispatched to a run for chest pains in one of our hurricane relief government welfare neighborhoods. Nothing exciting ever happens there, just the usual stomach aches and an occasional overdose although we did have a riot a while back. Roughly 200 "gangstas"  fighting in the street. One of the most interesting call we have been on here was when one of my firefighters was punched in the face by a suicidal Asian gang member. He was on all kinds of drugs and sliced himself up pretty good. I remember walking into his house and seeing blood absolutely everywhere. He was upstairs in a tiny bedroom and started getting agitated so we walked him outside and put him on the cub to bandage him up. Once the firefighter started cleaning him off, out of the blue the patient jumps out and punches the firefighter in the face. Luckily a cop was behind the patient so the guy ended up going to jail.

So back to the chest pain, we pull up to her house and realize it is one of our frequent fliers. That's a term we use for people who we transport often, usually for non-emergent reasons. Every time we go to this house, the lady seems absolutely fine even though she says her chest hurts. This particular call was about 2:30 in the morning and she is all dressed up with a little hat on lounged out in a chair when we arrive. Who in the hell calls 911 that late and dresses up? So I ask her if her chest hurts and of course she tells me no, that she just had some small back pain. I realize pretty quick that she just wants us to drive her to the hospital on the taxpayers dime to score some pills. I ended up walking outside so I wouldn't say something stupid to her and  a few  minutes later, here she comes being wheeled out like a princess on the stretcher. He legs are crossed and she just looked comfortable as hell. Once we leave the scene I pulled up her call history on the computer and we had 11 prior incidents to her house, all for chest pain even though still to this day she has no history of heart problems or any actual pain in her chest. Another winning day in the ol' hood.

We had another run our next day on right as our favorite tv show came on. We missed the first showing so we purposely stayed up until midnight to watch it come on again We got all situated and I shit you not as the opening credits start playing, BOOM we get a run for chest pains...go figure. We pull up and knock on the door for a few minutes until a guy wonders out and messes around for almost a minute attempting to get his iron gate open. You would think that he would have all this ready by now. He gets it open and just turns around and walks in without saying a word so we assume to just follow him in. This guy is the patient who goes over and sits on the couch, looks at us and points to his leg and says "why is it shaking"? How the hell are we supposed to know that? I asked him if his chest hurt and he said a little bit but mainly he just felt nervous and wanted to be checked out. I don't know what the hell these people expect us to do for them when we get there.

Today is Black Friday and i'm surprised we haven't been to any fights at Walmart or Target. We actually haven't had anything yet but It's only 10:30 in the morning so we'll see what the next 20 hours bring. Our box did make some kind of bullshit this morning but I don't remember what it was, just heard them bitching about it when they got back to the station. Apparently yesterdays shift was pretty busy throughout most of the night, ending with another roll over fatality from a police chase early this morning before we came in. They said it looked like that scene from Wizard of Oz when the house fell on the witch because the his truck flipped on top of him leaving his feet sticking out. Classic.

Automatic Waste of Time

Automatic fire alarms have been protecting people and annoying firefighters since the late 1890's. A helpful tool when the place is actually on fire but unfortunately they malfunction on a regular basis. There is also the horrible practice of pulling alarms for no reason. We have an apartment complex not far from our station where a group of kids regularly pull the alarms then run off. Not only is it annoying for the residents who have to listen to it all night, but for us as we still have to respond with lights and sirens. I bet those little brats don't know that if we were killed while responding to the false alarm that they would be charged with murder. Not funny anymore is it?


Last week we were sent to that apartment complex to what we assumed was another prank. Come to find out it was a woman's ignorance that decided to call 911 because her smoke detector was intermittently beeping. We get to the door and who else but the Jefferson's open up! (Pre East Side). The apartment was astonishing. There were several mountians of clothes, two 100lb bags of pecans, and "All in the Family" playing on tv.  The lady tried explaining to me how her smoke detector had been going off for the last three days and thought that it was somehow related to her air conditioner or washing machine. I told her that smoke detectors sometimes malfunction and that she should call maintenance to have it looked at. I also told her that there wasn't anything we could do for her unless it was on fire but she kept pointing to the thermostat and saying that maybe something inside here was causing it. I think she thought that the thermostat was the air conditioner by the way she was explaining it. Then she told us that when one detector went off, the others "did beep beep beep". I told her that they are wired together and they all go off at once but I don't think that registered in her head. She told me, "but this one went off then that one went off and they would all go off if this one went off." It's was no use explaining anything anymore. Her other theory was that the upstairs neighbors had possibly burnt food. I asked her if she had smelled or seen any smoke and she said of course she said no. 

The second alarm we made last week was at a party hall around 4:00 in the morning. Not expecting much at that time of night, we pulled up to a packed crowd partying the night away. It was some sort of African dance party with hundreds of people. Someone had pulled an alarm in the back room so we reset the system until we found out that some idiot pulled every single alarm in the building. Each and every one of them had to be reset. On our way out, we were stalked by an old drunk man who was telling us how good the food was. About a month prior, we had an automatic alarm in the same building. But this time intead of an African party, it was a  quinceanera. Thankfully that time, it was only one pull station by the restroom. We got the box reset so  myself and one of the firefighters went to figure out the main alarm panel while my Engineer and the other firefighter stayed behind to, I guess make sure no one else pulled the alarm. The alarm was a bitch to reset with trouble codes popping up so I ended up calling the alarm company to figure this out. I wouldn't normally call the alarm company but I didn't want to go back out there again, and not to mention that there were a crap load of people and if a fire really did break out, then they would need an alarm to let them know. We finally get everything reset and come back to find out that the hottest woman at the party (I think someone who worked there) came over to the two pull station guardians and brought them each a big ass piece of cake. So the two of us that were actually working got jack squat. Their excuse? Too busy "monitoring the pull station" or by that I mean watching the ass coming in and out of the restroom to remember to get us any cake. So we leave, half cakeless and go back to the station with stupid confetti and paper streamers stuck to our shoes. 

Tis the Season

The end of the year is approaching which means that we will see an increase in structure fires. The increase mostly comes from a mixture of the holidays and cooler weather but arson is also popular as the end of the year approaches. Lets not rule out human error which of course is prevalent at any time. We have already seen an increase with a few descent fires over the last couple weeks, including what I can say was the most boring fire of my career.

The call came in around 3 o'clock in the morning and we were the last engine company to arrive after a several minute trip down the freeway. I think the firefighters in back were asleep for part of the trip until we made our way on top of an over pass and I told them to look at the orange glow filling the sky. Over the radio, we could hear the first units arrive and report heavy fire from a 2 story and immediately went into defensive mode which means that the fire was too big and not safe for them to enter the structure. Defensive fires are usually a long drawn out process and I just knew that this would be the start of a very long night. Once we arrived, command had us man a 2-1/2" hose on the "delta side" (Right side of the house) which we did for about 30 minutes until most of the fire on our side was out.

They raised the aerial ladder and flooded the house from above so we went back to the front and waited for another 30 minutes where we started getting bored until command came up and told us we could go. It was great to hear those words and we got out of there as fast as we could. This house was empty and intentionally set. At that time of night, most people are asleep so the fire burned for a good while until it was noticed.

About a week before, we had a pretty good one early in the afternoon. We were the second engine to arrive and helped the ladder company set up to ventilate the roof, then went inside to help another engine company work on the fire until command misunderstood some radio traffic and pulled everyone out of the house. This included the roof team right as they were about to cut their hole which would have helped even though the fire was knocked down pretty fast once everyone was let back inside. The man living in the house said that he was cooking and fell asleep on the couch. When he woke up, his kitchen was on fire which had already made it's way into the attic by the time we arrived. The fire was contained to the kitchen and attic but the rest of the house had some pretty heavy smoke damage. Looking at the pictures below, you can see just how bad smoke and heat can damage a structure.

This water heater came down a few feet from my crew, making a loud crashing noise. At the time, I didn't know what it was but everyone was alright so we went on our way. A while later we found this which could have been deadly had a firefighter been standing underneath.

 

Here is a view from the side of the house and the only exterior damage. The kitchen where the fire started was on this side and you can see how it traveled up to the attic. The entire roof remained intact which is pretty good considering the amount of fire that was in there.

Stupid Keeps Us In Business

A few weeks ago, we were leaving a medical call when we heard a dispatch for "breathing problems" at a nearby gas station. It was only a couple of blocks away so we asked dispatch to add us to the record and headed that direction. I'm not sure what caused it but while en route, I started to get one of those bad feelings. It's somewhat of a sense you acquire after a while, although it happens more with fires than it does with medical runs. Right out of the blue, my mind said "cardiac arrest" and as I thought that, the medic who just arrived on location called CPR in progress on the radio. Just my luck, we pick up a call and end up with a cardiac arrest.

We arrived about a minute later and went to work on the patient who was laid out on the concrete in front of the store. A few people gathered around to watch the action, with one jackass recording it all on his iPhone. As for the patient, he did not make it although we tried for 20 minutes on scene before loading him up for the hospital. I am clearly not a doctor but i'm willing to bet that the all around poor decisions by him and his wife greatly contributed to his death. As I worked on my time sheet, I tried getting the story and patients history from his wife which turned out to be quite an interesting one. (The time sheet is something that the officer fills out during a cardiac arrest to log the times that drugs are administered)

According to the wife, they were driving down the road when he said that his chest hurt. Thankfully she was driving because he went down fairly quick. She told me that once he went down, she attempted doing CPR while driving him around. Can you visualize that? Didn't pull over, didn't call 911, just kept driving and doing CPR for the next 3 miles!!!! The funny thing is that the hospital was only about a mile and a half the other direction from where they started out. Now as for the man, he had a history of heart problems and had been taking un-prescribed Vicodin, Cocaine, and drinking Four Loko. Now i'm no expert but i'm pretty sure all of those things are extremely bad for your heart, especially if it's already a ticking piece of crap. So this guy's poor choice in recreational activities has landed him in a gas station parking lot getting his chest mashed on while some idiot stands there recording us on his iPhone. What a way to go out.

Oh and one last thing as we were wrapping up, one of the paramedics hands me a bloody needle and tells me to hold on to it. Bloody needles are not uncommon during a cardiac arrest but it wasn't one of our needles. It was laying next to him to what we can only assume fell out of his pocket. Stupid keeps us in business.

For Your Convenience

Before we go any further with this blog, I should explain why I titled it "For Your Convenience". Although fitting because we are here to serve the great public (that was sarcasm by the way), there is another meaning behind it. It was several years ago when we were dispatched to an unconscious female in an apartment. We arrived on scene with our ambulance and went inside where a man tells us that his wife drank too much and is passed out in the bathroom. At this point he's pretty pissed off at her for coming home drunk and just wants us to take her out of there before the kids wake up. So head into the bathroom and find this chubby Hispanic lady passed out on the floor near the toilet. Trying to wake her up, we give her a sternal rub and apparently open Pandora's Box. See a pattern here? Perhaps we should stop waking up drunks.

Our new friend wakes up, covered in puke, and starts yelling every obstinacy that her middle school education learned her. We grab he clothes and drag her out of the bathroom into the attached bedroom so we could try calming her down but this fish out of water had plenty of fire left in her. She starts screaming at us, "just take to me jail, get me out of here and take me to jail already". We tried explaining to her that we weren't the cops and just wanted to check her vital signs. It was then that she blurted out the infamous line "oh, for your convenience". Everything now became for our "convenience".  "M'am I need to take your blood pressure". "WHATEVER, FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE" in the drunkest way possible. Then she decided to tell us that we were racist and continued cursing at us. We tried advising her her that she most likely needed to go to the hospital and of course, it was for our convenience and wanted us to take her to jail again. Although it was funny as hell, it's times like this where I wish we could take blood pressure from the neck. At this point we realize that she is not competent enough to make her own decisions so we tell the husband that we are taking her and tightly strap her ass to the stretcher like we were going to shoot her out of a cannon. 

We get her in the ambulance and we go back in service, so the rest of this story is what was told to me by the ambulance crew. They go en route to the hospital and the guy in the back is trying to talk to her when the following conversation takes place: (imagine her speaking extremely slurred)

EMT: "Are you on anything or what did you drink?"

Drunk: "I'm not tellin you nuffin" 

EMT: "ok whatever"

Drunk: "I'm not tellin you nuffin cause your the wrong skin color"

EMT: "Oh it's going to be like that?"

Drunk: "For your convenience!"

They arrive at the hospital and the back doors swing open when she sees the brick wall behind the ambulance. "I fucking knew it! You fucking lied to me. You took me to jail" The EMT tells her "No we're just at the hospital". They get her signed in and stick her in a room, then go outside to clean the stretcher when a few minutes later, here comes ol' drunky running out of the hospital and making a b-line for the EMT. She runs up to him, puts her finger in his face and says, "FUCK YOU...I'M OUT!!!" then takes off running through the parking lot. The nurse goes chasing after while this chick is now trying to open every locked door around the building. 

So the phrase "For Your Convenience" became our new response to about everything around the station. I felt it was very fitting as the name for this blog and here we are today.

A Nostalgic Call

It was a slow and lazy Sunday around the station. Our ambulance had several runs throughout the day while we did some cleaning and watched the football game. It wasn't a very exciting shift but our next call was sure to be something I will remember for the rest of my life. We were dispatched to a medical call in one of my least favorite neighborhoods. One ridden with crime and desperation that will make any man feel sorry for the way these people live. As we pull up to the duplex it begins to look familiar. I know I've been here before but for what? We make so many runs that I can't remember what the hell I did last tour, let alone years ago. We went inside and hung out in the hallway while the ambulance crew attended to the bed ridden patient. She was in a hospital bed complaining of breathing problems and needed to go to the hospital so one of my crew members went out for the stretcher. Just then, a relative of the patient walks in the front door who I immediately recognize. He was a hefty man, wearing a light blue security guard uniform resembling a police officer. This uniform was very distinctive as it quickly brought back memories from a few short years ago.

I was a relativity new officer riding on a different shift at the time. It was a crazy period toward the end of the year when we had a huge spell of structure fires. I want to say we had 30 working fires within a couple months, for the most part every shift that I was on the engine. Early one evening while the sun was beginning to set, we were dispatched to a duplex on fire. We arrived first on location with light smoke coming from the front door so I have the crew pull a handline, and I go do my walk-around. There were a few people standing in the front yard who told me that no one was home so I donned my mask and we forced open the front door. Black smoke filled the entry, banked down almost to the floor so we had to crawl in on our hands and knees. I remember turning right at the door and following a couch as our only guide through the living room until we saw the orange glow coming from a back bedroom. We stopped at the bedroom door for a brief second and watched the fire roll up the wall towards the ceiling, admiring how absolutely beautiful something so deadly can be. I find it amazing that a person is able to sit and watch something like that, without being overcome with heat and smoke.

We put the fire out using an indirect attack which means we sprayed the nozzle towards the ceiling for about 3 seconds, creating a steam blanket.. This method works well with fires contained to a room because it greatly reduces the amount of water damage in a home that is salvageable. 1 cubic foot of water can convert to 1700 cubic feet of steam. The trick worked and we entered the room to open a window and let some cool air in, then proceeded to put out the remaining embers while calling for a ventilation fan to be set up in the door. I remember going through the room and into the closet where through the smoke, I could see blue uniform shirts hanging up. My first thought was that this was the home of a police officer and it was not until later that I saw the security guard patches. I remember meeting the man that day and describing what we did inside of his house. I try to make a point in talking to the homeowner and explaining why we did things the way we did, so they can have a clear understanding of the service we provided. I don't know why I remember the details of this fire so clearly but for some reason it stands out.

Back to present day, the lady with breathing problems is actually laying in the same room that the fire was in. It was strange to stand in the living room by the couch where I could remember crawling with almost zero visibility a few years ago. It is not something we get to do very often. When the security guard walked in, we began talking about the fire and what the impact was afterwards. He told me how grateful he was for what we did that day. As a person with little money, his home was saved. He also told me about the new furniture he got and that he was able to get a new air conditioner which he could not afford to buy before the fire. Hearing this and reflecting on what we did that day gave me an appreciation for the job that I've never felt before. Despite the bullshit we deal with every day, it was nice to know that we did some good in the world and were able to see an end result which frankly doesn't happen very often. Truly a great moment. 

Sunday Bloody Sunday

It was later in the evening and no one felt like cooking dinner so we decided to grab something from the local taco shack. We were heading down the highway when up ahead we saw a few wreckers hauling ass and a cop car with it's lights on coming our direction. Seeing this, I figured we were about to get sent to something and just then our computer let off it's distinct ring. It was a run for a motor vehicle incident back near the station. I think it's funny that most runs near the station tend to come in when we are out somewhere else. Well we went to make the u-turn when we saw 5 more cops coming our way in the distance. This is beginning to look like something more than a car accident unless the cops are just that bored, but they normally don't have their lights and sirens on unless it's a priority incident. We make a turn off the highway and the dispatcher tells us that we will now be going to a shooting at the local children's entertainment center (not unusual at this place) which is roughly at the same intersection as the accident. Now it's beginning to make a little more sense as to why all the cops were hauling ass over there.

As we now focus our attention on getting to the entertainment center, we roll up on a smashed up car in the median who apparently hit and knocked down a tree. So not really having any detailed information, we stopped a little before because I wasn't sure if this was two separate incidents. I needed to call dispatch to verify where we were going because we would have no choice but to commit to the accident since we had to pass it to get to the entertainment center. Of course dispatch tells us to stand by so we just decide to stop at the accident before they saw us just sitting in the road. As we pull up, a few cops are there putting someone in handcuffs so I roll down my window and ask if this was related to the shooting and he said the the shooting was at both places. To be safe, I called for a second ambulance and we got out to deal with the wreck. The driver had been shot and had a large amount of blood on his neck and back area. Being that he was shot and had hit a tree, we had multiple things to worry about but he was awake and talking fine so that was a good thing. The guy in handcuffs was the passenger who I guess was now a suspect in the shooting.

Still trying to put the pieces together, it was determined that no one was shot at the entertainment center. The first ambulance had shown up there and did not have a patient. They called us on the radio and said there was no shooting victim at that location and I disregarded the second ambulance. That ambulance made their way over to us and I see another engine company coming down the road with it's lights and sirens on so I assume they were dispatched to the entertainment center since we had stopped at the wreck. This is all turning out to be a huge cluster fuck. Just to add on to the chaos, dispatch asks me if we still need another ambulance which I have already disregarded. Frustrated I say that both places will be the same incident, we have everyone we need here and disregard anyone else who happens to be en route. I see the other engine make a u-turn and emergency lights go off so I assume they got they message. We get the victim secured and begin pulling him out of the car when what do you know, the second ambulance who has now been disregarded twice pulls up with lights flashing. I swear we all have the same radio channels but apparently no one was listening. I yelled across the road and told them to go back in service as we didn't need anymore confusion on the scene. Don't worry, it doesn't end here. Our EMS supervisor showed up out of the blue and started getting on to people for not checking out the guy in handcuffs because there was spidering on the passenger side windshield from the guy's head. I tried explaining that when we pulled up, we asked the officer if the guy needed to be checked out and we were told no so we focused our attention on the more critical shooting victim. We finally get the victim loaded in the ambulance and we go stand off to the side looking at the car. Of course despite the major drought, it began shitting rain for the next 5 minutes. None of us had our rain gear so we tried hiding under a tree until it stopped. This night just wasn't getting any better.

The story begins to piece together now. Allegedly some guy at the entertainment center is robbed by these two yahoos in the car and somehow they end up down the road shot and wrecked. The cops were thinking that the passenger shot him but looking at the car, that theory didn't make any sense. If the passenger shot him, how were there bullet holes outside the passenger door?

Their other theory was that this guy was shot back in the parking lot and drove here until he wrecked. I told the cop that the alleged robbery victim probably chased these guys down the road and shot him causing them to wreck. But the only problem was that there was no gun and no shell casings so nothing to back up any kind of theory, as none of the people involved were talking. We ended up staying for a little bit and helping the cops search for a gun. We looked in bushes, drains, grass, and everywhere else between the parking lot and where the wreck took place but didn't find anything. We we starving so told one of the cops that we were leaving so we could go eat when he asked where we were going and if we could bring him a soda back. Being that this was next to the station, we obliged and went on our way.

After dinner, we stopped back by the scene and I gave to cop his drink. As soon as I walked up, he told me  that my theory was correct and they found the gun hidden under a can at the elementary school field across the street. They also found the bullet casings which were underneath where the fire truck was originally parked. The entire ended up being a drug deal in the parking lot of the entertainment center. Something went wrong and the guys in the car took off down the road. The man chased after them and fires out of his window Bonnie and Clyde style, hitting the driver which caused him to run off the road and into the tree. The shooter makes a u-turn and gets out to hide the gun and returns to the parking lot where he calls police saying that he was robbed so he wouldn't get in trouble for the drug deal. So it turned out that the original robbery victim was now going to jail and the cluster fuck of the year was finally at a close. On to the next one.

Never Wake a Sleeping Bear

One of my favorite things about being a fireman is dealing with drunk people. Just the pure comic value makes it worth waking up at 4:00 in the morning. For some reason on this part of town we get an abnormal amount of drunks passing out behind the wheel of their car at stoplights which most of the time results in them going to jail versus the hospital. Well my last occurrence with a drunk didn't come in at the normal 2-5am hour but right after we started our shift. It was around 7am when my engine along with our ambulance were dispatched to an unconscious person on the side of the road. Like any morning call we are wide awake and ready for the day so we get out of the station pretty quick, but before our ambulance who was about a minute behind us for some reason.

We got to the neighborhood relativity fast and as we pull up, see a man passed out on his face laying near a tree. Well we walk up and "carefully" shake him a little until he starts coming to until in the blink of an eye, he lunges forward and goes for the legs of the guy closest to him. He's grabbing and punching the firefighter's legs like a madman so I force him back to the ground. I've seen enough of episodes of Cops so I put my knee in his chest with most of my weight on it to hold him down while the other guys came and held his arms. About that time, one of the guys got on the radio and asked for the cops which should have already been on the way but we needed them to hurry before this guy got out of hand. Well in the midst of all that, this guy somehow squirms around enough to become loose of my knee and tries to fight again. I don't know where he thought he was going but I grabbed the back of his neck and forced him face down in the ground while another guy, I shit you not, leaps through the air like a soaring eagle and lands on the patient's back. I'm sure if you were standing there watching it that it would have looked like a Hollywood movie. It all happened in slow motion and I can still see the firefighter in mid flight.

Now I want to make it clear for you "Brutality Nazis" out there that we are allowed to subdue patients if we feel our safety is in jeopardy. Being that this guy was trying to fight us, we had every right to restrain him until the cops arrived. Here is a video of something similar I found on the internet.

After we got this guy under control, dispatch calls us back to find out what was going on. I guess they could hear the commotion in the background as we called for the police.

Dispatch: "Engine XX is your patient violent?"

Us: "NOT ANYMORE!!"

Dispatch: "Do you still need law enforcement at your location?"

Us: "THAT WOULD BE NICE"

No longer than a minute later, the dumbest cop on the face of the earth shows up. (For the record I love cops, and have many friends who are police officers but some are just absolutely stupid. Don't worry we have firemen like that too). This cop gets out of the car, sees us and gives us a big ol' good to see ya smile while casually walking up to where we are. No urgency or care in the world , it's not like we were actively restraining someone or anything. The cop makes his way over and asks what's going on so we tell him the story, all while still holding the guy down mind you. He grabs his handcuffs and holds them out in front of him like he expected us to put them on the guy. We ended up calming the patient down by explaining to him that we were there to help. At that point, I think he finally realized what was going on and snapped out of his little angry mode. He agreed to not cause anymore problems so we let him up and the cop tells him to walk over to the police car. We watch as he stumbles away with the cop not even watching but it wasn't really our problem anymore so we went back in service. 

Does it Smell Like Gas in Here?

My last day on started out pretty slow but we were all in some sort of mood as the evening went on. Not necessarily bad moods, just quiet and hungry until we were interrupted by a dispatch over the house speakers. It was what we call a "still alarm" which means it only requires one engine company for situations such as fire alarms, vehicle fires, and smells of gas which is what we were dispatched to this time around. We head out to the pumper and I take a look at our computer which as usual didn't have any important information on it. Now my Engineer, I love him to death and he is damn good at the job but has no clue where he's going half the time. I have been trying to train him on how to find out where we are going based on the address because street numbers get larger away from downtown and get larger going South. So testing him, I turn and ask which way we needed to turn out of the station and he of course, with an unsure look on his face points left. I chuckle and tell him to go right as I hit en route on the computer.

We get rolling and end up fighting traffic as we make our way across the highway into another engine companies territory. They must have been out on another run which is why we were sent that way. Unfamiliar with the neighborhoods on that side, I begin studying the map, looking at a zig zag of turns we have to make.  We find our way fairly easy and pull up to find the resident standing outside in the yard waiting for us. His family is sitting in a car on the street so i'm thinking that something must really be wrong in there. Usually when the family is outside or someone is frantically flagging us down, the call will turn out to be something decent. I guess we can give them a few merit points for safety. I get out and walk up to the resident who tells me that his house smells like gas, mainly in the kitchen area. That is not uncommon so we didn't think of anything out of the ordinary and made our way in the house. Once inside, there is definitely some sort of smell but i'm not convinced it's actually gas at this point. We've had plenty of these types of calls in the past and more times than I would like found out the smell was coming from trash or even old food in the oven.

Once in the kitchen, I swear we took a time machine back to 1983. Wow what a place. The tile floor is cracked and the all wooden kitchen was just a sight for sore eyes. The stove in question was covered in a mix of grease and rust while the microwave above it was so old that it only had two buttons, off and on. There may have been some sort of dial timer on there but geeze. We go straight for the stove and pull it out to check the gas line in the back which looked alright but I sent one of the firefighters to shut the main gas line off to be safe. Now that we have been there a few minutes, the smell becomes more of burning than gas so we begin to investigate further and end up seeing a few embers coming from the wall area behind the stove. I go back to the engine and grab my thermal imaging camera so I can take a look inside the wall but didn't really find anything significant. At this point our mood is fading away as we start giggling at all the anomalies in this place which is truly hard to explain in words. Because of the embers, I send someone to find the breaker box in the back yard and he immediately comes back in cracking up. Apparently he saw some unknown "thing" that scuttled through the yard yard then jumped into the black nasty pool, not to be seen again. This call is just getting better and better.

Here is a look at the stove before we continue:

Yep those are bugs in there

As we continue looking for the source of the smell and embers, the floor tile i'm standing on breaks right in half. I'm no contractor but perhaps putting grout between the tiles would resolve this issue. Trying to control our laughter, I try looking behind the stove but get some sort of grease on my hands from touching the counter. This call is going downhill fast but before we went any further, we donned our medical gloves to prevent any more interactions with the grease monster. Well it turns out that there was never a gas leak, but the stove had melted wires in the back which were starting to burn and put off the odor we were smelling. This wouldn't be too bad except for the fact I had to keep explaining to the resident that his appliances are too old, not to mention a major major fire hazard which i'm not really sure he understood. I guess this kind of living is just normal to some people. I told him that the stove has to stay unplugged and he can not EVER EVER use it again. Part of that was for his own health reasons let alone the damn fire hazard. Well good news, it was time to go eat dinner!

It still baffles me why people call 911 for things like this. A year or so ago I was at my mother in law's house, sitting on the couch and began to smell something burning. 911 didn't even cross my mind as I started looking around until I found a wall outlet with black charring on the cover. Simple enough, we shut off the breaker and replaced the outlet. People lack common sense these days which is a bad sign for our future.

Band of Brothers

Ah another long tour in our shitty part of town. You know driving through it (except in a few select areas) you would never know what takes place beyond those walls. Strange though, for the last few months our call volume seems to have dropped dramatically. I work at a fairly busy station, a lot of medical runs unless we have an arsonist running around which is not unusual. Many sleepless nights and many strange experiences that for sure could not be fathomed by the wildest imagination. The part of town I work in is dubbed an "international" area which brings an interesting array of people from all over the world. We have a large population of Black, Hispanic, Asian, and a few Middle Eastern people throughout. We have houses, apartment complexes, government housing, schools, and an anomalous amount of African churches. A territory which really keeps us on our toes. I am the "Officer" of my crew, which for a technical sake means the boss although i'm not really big on throwing that around. I am only a small part in a group of men that when together, function like a well oiled machine. These men are some of the best and I am honored to lead then into battle. Without them, well I would just be some idiot wondering the depths of society looking for the unknown.

Now when I say "my crew", I am speaking of three individuals in particular although there are many other great firemen I work with on and off my shift. There are the two Firefighters, one of which is my daughter's godfather and my Engineer. The two firefighters and I have worked together for quite some time, and together we have seen the depths of hell. True moments when you realize how important we are to one another. This goes not only for firefighting, but in friendship as they have been by my side through the worst of times. My Engineer is relativity new to our crew but in that short time has proven to be a perfect fit in our small brotherhood. The four of us are what make up our shift's engine company, characterized by others as "The Super Crew". It is somewhat of a daft name but I can assure you it's used only as tongue-in-cheek. By no means in reality are we the best out there but I am willing to throw down a bet that we could stand the test of time as one of the most unified crews around. As signified by the words written inside my helmet, "walking or carried, we come out together".

I couldn't talk about my crew without mentioning a few others who in the past were just as much a part of us. They have moved on for various reasons but will always remain one of the crew. I have been privileged to work beside some wonderful people over the years and I can't wait to see what the future holds. But for now as told by the great William Shakespeare; "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers."

Living the Dream

Ah the dream. Every kid has one right? To be a doctor, or a fireman. Perhaps a police officer, carpenter, or even the occasional garbage man. It's not like some snot nosed little kid is running around playing pharmacy tech filling moms pretend feel good pills. They want the cool jobs, the ones with some sort of equipment and big bad ass trucks.Well that was me, I wanted to be a fireman. Pretty generic as I think every little boy wants to be one at some point. But me, I was different. I had all the latest toys, the helmets and plastic coats. I visited stations and ran outside every time I heard a siren. There was no mistaking that little ol' me was just set on becoming a fireman. No real reason why, although I believe most true firemen were born with it in their blood. Perhaps my Irish ancestry had something to do with it.

Well I got through high school, met the love of my life and started college. I was in a phase where I didn't have a clue what I wanted. Of course the passion for being a fireman was still there but as a young immature teen, I was too focused on sleeping and partying to do anything about it. Time went on and street racing became my thing. A phase i'm not entirely proud of but everyone does something stupid during their lifespan. I had no job, lived with my girlfriend and our two roommates which provided for some great memories but nothing was being done to advance my life until I eventually got enough courage to propose to my girlfriend, which was my first step in the right direction. I give her credit to this day for most of the good things that have happened in my life. Finally a short time down the road, my life changed forever as that little childhood dream was finally about to come true.

It was the day I bought my first gun. My wife and I decided to go "look around" so we headed off to the store and of course the first thing I see as we pull in the parking lot was a bright shiny red fire truck. As usual when I saw a firetruck, I looked at it and imagined what it would be like to actually ride one of those but this one was different. There was a banner attached to the back with some information about joining the department. Bam! It hit me like a home run at the hands of Babe Ruth! What the hell have I been waiting for? Lightning hit my brain and told me to get off my ass and get that dream under way so we go inside and low and behold, the firefighters are standing at the gun counter. It just had to be a sign of some sort. My wife began encouraging me to go talk to them but I didn't really want to bother the guys, plus i'll admit I was a little shy. Back then I wasn't one to just walk up to some random person and begin a conversation. She kept egging me on and I wouldn't budge until she gave up and just went over herself. I'm of course standing over by the counter like some middle school kid making a friend go talk to the new girl for me. She comes back with a phone number and a smirk, and we go about looking at guns. In case you are wondering, I ended up buying a black 12 gauge ass kicking machine. So my dream was finally coming true and I couldn't believe it was finally happening. There are few days that I hold priceless, but the one where I bought my first gun and joined the fire department is for sure at the top. Outdone only by the day my child was born.

12 years later, I'm sitting at the firehouse reflecting back on that childhood. I can't help but remember running around with my little plastic fire helmet dreaming of the day I would be right here, wearing this uniform, with a real fire helmet sitting on the front dash of a pumper. Oh and what a time it's been. I now question those childhood dreams and wonder if this is really as glorious as I made it out to be. The proverbial heroes, running in while everyone is running out or whatever they like to say. Now don't get me wrong, I love being a fireman more than anything in the world but the glory is for the birds. Sure we do our bit of good in the world but a majority of the time, we are dealing with the stupidest people you could ever imagine. It's pretty entertaining at times although the sleepless nights get old, especially when people expect the fire department to come take care of their menial tasks. Things that i'm certain are not "Emergencies". But on the other hand, it's part of the job I love and i'm willing to suffer through those sleepless nights because thick or thin, I will always love being a fireman.

So along with the good and the bad, I'm living the dream. The dream that encompassed my mind day in and day out in what seems to be only yesterday. Now, I wound like to share with the world what it's like to be a true "emergency" worker. I absolutely love to write and have said for a long time that I would write a book although I've never been able to settle on a topic. I know this isn't a book but it's the next best thing. A place where I can share my thoughts and experiences one crazy chapter at a time. This blog won't necessarily be about me but about what I do so i'll spare you the personal details and we can get down to business. This is not what you see on television, it's more than putting water on fire, and it's nothing like you've ever imagined, so sit back and enjoy your behind the scenes pass to the real fire service. Welcome, to the dark side of 911.