Why, thank you. I always thought that picture makes me look swave and deboner.
You cute, too, mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Dump him and run away with me…
Now I’ll get in trouble with Wiki.
Oh, the humanity. My gubmint CAC expired, and they won’t let me renew it because they say my contract hasn’t been renewed in their database, yet. The upshot is I sit at my desk all doing 0 because the crap I need to work on is on the one computer I have that requires a CAC to access. :mad:
And for all of you jonesing my adventures, I finally have the newest installment in my fahr and rescue tales…
Dammit, I’m on vacation!
Gather round, kiddies, and bring your blankets for this cold fire and rescue tale. I also think it’s my longest one yet as far as the time span I’m covering.
VunderKind came to visit the Monday following New Year’s Day for his required visit. I had been hoarding my time off as much as I could, so I had a business week available. Couple that with the holiday and weekend, and I was out of the office for a week and a half. Quite refreshing, even if VunderWife drives me crazy when I’m with her 24/7.
Tuesday dawned bright, cold, and windy. VunderKind wanted something to do, so he ventured outside to tear down the pump house that I’ve been wanting gone for four years. He lasted about an hour, and managed to get the roof off. I helped him pile the debris into the back of the truck, and we went inside for warmth.
We had a fire department page for lifting assistance. He doesn’t get to go on fire calls, but this one he could. We took off, and never got there because enough bodies had shown up. Oh well…
Enough of this boring setup. We did a bambilance shift Wednesday night, and had 2 calls. VKid and I were on our way to dinner, and pulled up at the only true traffic light in the county intent on making a left turn when the pager went off. Our call was a mile away to the right. The patient was for an 89 year old guy recovering from pneumonia; his complaints were dizziness, nausea, and profound constipation. He was a bit of a bad one. He had very brittle veins, and they blew whenever I tried an IV. He would also get spells of tachycardia (racing heart). His hands were cold, and that threw off the pulseox reading, so I put him on high flow oxygen just in case. In his favor, his lungs were clear. Granny Sue was driving, and I had her step on it.
After we got back to the station, we started to settle in when the other call happened. This one was joint with the Mayberry fire station, for a carbon monoxide detector activation. I’ve been to many of these, and invariably they were caused by old batteries. Well, not that night. We rolled up, and the reek of partially burned propane was overpowering 30 feet from the front door.
Open windows and doors, air out the house, and evacuate. Only the homeowners didn’t pay attention to the evacuate part, because they left their 10 year old son asleep upstairs. Morons. That house could have exploded from the gas concentrations… :smack: After freezing our ample tookuses off there, we went back to a warm station and slept the rest of the night.
Thursday was a nothing day. The Kid and I went to see* Sherlock Holmes* at a real theater. I gave it a B-. Much more shocking was getting scalped at the concession stand. Yee-ouch.
Friday was another nothing day, at least in the morning. Puttering around, goofing off, stoking the woodburner, were the hot things to do. We ate lunch, and I headed off for a nap because it was my vacation, after all. My head had settled in to my pillow, and I was more asleep than awake when my pager went nuts. It was a house fire in Hooterville’s district, so I left the kid at home.
I was disappointed when we got to the address. It’s a house I pass every day on the way to Cubeville. Very well maintained, with an immaculate lawn, making it stick out amongst its run-down neighbors. Smoke was rolling from all sides, and this was not going to be an easy one.
I was told to gear up for interior work. Kewl, I thought, I live for this.I went in on the second attack team, and was told to go right. Yeah, where? Interior work is not for the claustrophobic or easily scared. It’s always dark from the smoke, you have maybe 2 feet of visibility on a good day, and you have to be extremely cautious of fire getting behind you. This house was darker than any other I’ve been in, and it was a freaking maze full of clutter. It reminded me of the old text based computer game Adventure, “You’re in a twisty maze of little passages…”
I beat back the fire before me, knocked out another that sprung up behind, and pulled out when I ran out of air. It was intense, and high on the pucker factor, just the way I like it.
After refilling my bottle, I was the slack man (3rd on the hose, responsible for feeding it forward) on another interior attack.
After my 3rd refill, we were down to doing overhaul, looking for hotspots. There was a small room on the back side that was hot, and we couldn’t cool it down. We pulled the ceiling out of a closet and shot water into the joist space, and that just fanned what was there.
I tried to pull the ceiling in front of the closet, but my pike pole just bounced. I’m not Atlas, but I’m no wimp, either. I was getting pissed. Someone else came in with a Halligan, which is a wrecking bar on steroids, and tried to punch. That bounced, too, so he tried prying the ceiling paneling. The cheap thin veneer came off readily, and revealed plywood. No wonder we couldn’t break it. Ultimately, a chainsaw was necessary to bring that ceiling down, and even then the hotspot wouldn’t cool off.
If you can’t get it from below, try from above. The chainsaw went outside to cut a hole in the roof. That ate up the chain, and finally there was a hole. That opened up to reveal another roof underneath. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! We went back inside, and demolished the closet, wall and ceiling to get that beee-yotch out.
As we were wrapping up, the runoff water from the house was flowing down the concrete driveway, and freezing. Luckily, nobody busted their ass slipping.
I was wet and cold. I also had a fire class the next day, and I wasn’t going to do that in wet gear. I took my stuff home and draped it out in front of the wood burner to dry. It worked for the most part, with my gloves still slightly damp.
We got up early Saturday to get the kid back to Indy. We went to brekkies, and when we were done, VWife and VKid went to the Norfolk Airport, and I went south to Kinston for Ventilation class.
Everything discussed in the class was something done at the fire the day before, or at least attempted, so there were no real surprises for me. My luck didn’t hold, however, because of the four practical exercises possible, they gave us the two roughest.
To backtrack, the weekend before Christmas, I fell on ice, folding my right leg back and landing on it. I really messed up my calf muscles, and it was finally starting to be down to a minor nuisance when the kid arrived. However, while fighting the closet hotspot, I aggravated the crap out of my right leg.
Our practicals were to demonstrate how to1) sound out, and 2) ventilate a roof. They picked a barn with a 30’ metal roof to work on. Normally, not a problem, but I had a hell of a time climbing that ladder. Got it done, though, and passed the class.
To round everything up, Sunday was cold cold cold, and I was tending the fire in our woodburner and talking to VWife about the town Christmas decorations. I didn’t want to go help because I wasn’t in the mood.
She asked, “When will they page for that?”
**
DEE-duh* beep beep beep beep***
“I guess right about now…” It was another fire page, for a smell of smoke at a church. You could not have timed that any better than that. The call wasn’t much of anything, and my truck was sent home before we ever got there. I avoided the work day by going to get groceries so conveniently at the same time…
And those were the highlights of my vacation.
Which all goes to prove that you’re never to old to learn something new!
