Morning, y’all. I swore to myself that I was NOT going to do another fire/EMS tale for this thread, but the story is just too juicy and the rest of the weekend so incredibly boring that I couldn’t help myself. How boring, you ask? Lawn mowing, doing dishes, going grocery shopping, a trip to the dump, and a stop at the hardware store are the only competing events.
Saturday, as mentioned many times before, is traditionally Chore Day at the VunderLair. VWife and I usually start by going out to breakfast, and if we don’t get groceries on Friday evening, then it’s first in the list of stuff to do on Saturday. We purposefully held off because she wanted to stop by a farmer’s market (it sucked BTW). Groceries were uneventful otherwise, and we headed home.
I have a light switch going bad, probably because it has an air conditioner on the circuit, so we had to stop by Hooterville Hardware to get a new one. Hooterville Hardware is an old-time store. Merchandise is shoved into every available nook and cranny, it’s dark inside, and there’s a funky but pleasing smell to the place. I love going there. We get to the door, and just as I’m pulling it open, I hear a page for the Rescue squad. It’s about a half mile away, and I told VWife to get back in the car because we’re going. Her eyes rolled so far back that the smilie can not cover her expression.
I was first on the scene, with no equipment, so the best I could do is to ask the patient the standard series of questions about the call and her history. She filled me in. She’s terminally ill, just had half of a foot amputated, and she was having progressive numbness that started in both legs and was working its way up her body.
The ambulance got there; I helped load her up, and took my leave from the scene. Of course on the way back to Hooterville Hardware, I caught my usual raft of crap for having to be in the center of action. The whole time, I was thinking “Bite me” in VWife’s general direction.
To make a long story longer, we got home, put the groceries away, and did the other immediate stuff. Since it was Saturday, I exercised my right to a nap and laid down. She joined me, as well as the dogs. My eyes shut, and I drifted off.
** BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP** [pause] ** BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP**… my pager was going off. “Station 20 (mine), Station 30, Station 80 (rescue). Check in for traffic. Structure fire at…” I bolted off the bed followed by the dogs who think a page is great entertainment and time to play. Got all of my pocket stuffings, and I was in my car on the way to the fire station in less than a minute.
I rolled on the first truck, and got shotgun (I love blowing the air horn at the intersections ;)). Along the way, we heard that it was a house, and it was fully involved. So much for finishing my nap today, I thought. This is going to take a while.
The fire was in Hooterville’s district, and they naturally were first on the scene. The house was at the end of the road on a cul-de-sac, and Hooterville set up a drop tank right where they could block all of the traffic headed back to the scene. My engine was the only other one that could fit back there. We dropped our 5" supply line from the hydrant, and used every inch of the 750 feet to hit the drop tank. The hydrant was very typical of those in the county; neglected, not maintained, and the valve was broken in the on position. We had no way to control it, so the water guy had to shut off the main so we could hook up, the turn the main back on. We brought both tankers as well as Hooterville, and because of the way they set up the drop tank, there was no way for any of the tankers to fill it. This was the beginning of a long day of Charlie Foxtrots.
The house itself was a doublewide trailer. The fire started at one end, and got into the attic. The roof had collapsed at the end where the fire started, and the entire attic was burning. Two inch-and-a-half lines were out when we got there, with one at the burned off end and the other going in the front door. After getting our engine set up to supply water, we pulled two more inch and a halfs from ours, and the Hooterville engine set up a two and a half; except the lines were all to short by about 25’ feet. All we could do was spray water from the front, and we could see that the back side was actively burning, unable to do anything about it.
Finally, my chief shut down 2 of the inch and a halfs and the two and a half, and we added enough hose that we could get nozzles anywhere. We settled in for a long afternoon of hose humping.
I did a little bit of everything except the interior attack. With the roof progressively collapsing and nobody inside, no one was going in. I manned lines, broke windows, used the pike pole to pull the soffits apart so others could spray up into the roof. It was hot, and I was sweating so hard that I was as wet under my gear as if I had jumped into a swimming pool fully clothed.
The chief had me and another of our guys take an inch and a half to the opposite end from where the fire started to spray into the soffits. There were two RV trailers parked there, and although there was a breeze, the area was very smoky, and we were there for 20 minutes at least. It sapped me, and I had to bow out for a break. That’s normal; we’re supposed to do no more that 20 minutes at anything strenuous without a break, and I’d been going for an hour. I drank lots of water, passing on the offered Gatorade because the sugar gives me problems because of sveltification.
I went back to the end far end after a short break, but I had an air pack this time. It was necessary back there.
The reason we were having problems putting it out was that once the fire got into the attic, the roof sheathing itself was burning. The shingles kept the water from getting to the fire from above, and no one could get it from below because it was unsafe. Stalemate.
Funny exchange of the day: after the fire was beat back to an active smolder, the Hooterville assistant chief went in the front door to scout things out. We knew there was medical oxygen inside.
One of my guys: “What’s wrong with that picture?”
[pause]
OOMG: “He’s going in without air, unescorted, and we know there’s oxygen inside”
Me: “That’s the assistant chief. If he gets killed, he has to do his own paperwork.”
To shorten this up some, after that scouting session, we changed setup. Hooterville set up a deck gun out back, and we moved our engine so our aerial could get back to the house. Once the aerial was up it was out in 20 minutes because it could blast down through the shingles and hit the burning roof.
We were there about 4 hours in 90F heat. After we got back to the station, I had VWife order a pizza because I was beat and didn’t want to cook anything.
After we ate, I wanted to do the dishes because they’d sat too long to not do them. I got about halfway through when I got a bad headache and quit. Screw it says I, I’m going to bed at 7 PM because I felt like shit.
As I was laying there, VWife handed me a magazine with some inane article. I read it, and handed it back to her. Hmmm, my left thumb is stuck closed. I literally had to grab it with my right hand and pull it back into position to break the cramp. So, I did it again, and once more it stuck, and I had to pull it back. Then I got cramps in my feet that curled my toes down, and charlie horses in my lower legs and forearms. If I relaxed, I tied myself in knots; if I stood up and was active, the cramping quit. Uh oh says I, I know what this is, and it ain’t good. We did a unit on heat illness in EMT class.
I called the chief, explained what was going on, and he said to go to the ER. Off we went, and VWife is severely POed at me because she had just taken her heavy duty pain killers in anticipation of going to bed.
My self-diagnosis was dead on: heat exhaustion with electrolyte imbalance and mild smoke inhalation. They pumped 2 liters of saline into me, and gave me a magnesium pill because my blood work showed that the big problem was low magnesium, and to a lesser degree, my potassium. Sodium was great.
A little known fact: blood pressure is regulated not by sodium alone as most people think, but by a ratio of sodium, potassium, and calcium. Any one of those get out of range, and BP goes crazy. I went in with 160/102, which is high. The promised moral of the story is that fluids are important, which we all know, but water alone is not. Despite drinking at least 3 liters while I was there, I sweated out enough electrolytes that I got into trouble, and those 3 liters weren’t enough anyway.
We have a rescue squad meeting tonight and I’m going to offer to supply them with electrolyte tablets out of my pocket just so I don’t have to touch the Gatorade.
