Below is the journal entry I wrote for my probationary packet. It pretty much explains everything I did today. I figured, why type the whole thing twice?
0700-1200
- Line up as usual at 0700. The ambulance got a call early in the morning, before 0600, but it was back in time for line up. Jake took the call in.
- After line up, we had another drill on the pump panel and hose line flow pressures. We went over the lines on E112 because E111 was taken in to the radio shop to get the MDC fixed. We reviewed all of the flow pressures for each line on E112 except the trash line.
- After the drill, we did our apparatus checks. It was time for the weekly checks on the utility vehicles, so Jake and I took care of that.
- I didn’t PT today because I was scheduled to go up to the academy today for the second part of my probationary testing. We left our station at approx. 1145. We went to station 10 to pick up some shoes for a firefighter that was already at the academy, then headed up there.
1200-2400
- We got up there close to 1230 and the first thing I did, along with three other of my classmates, was don our SCBAs in 60 seconds or less. We all did that fine. Then we went up to the hill to do the rest of our fire evolutions.
- The first thing I did was pull a line off the engine and advance to the back door of the burn building and get ready to enter an IDLH. I finished that with no real problems. I just had to watch for kinks in my hose and not check for a seal in my facepiece with the wristlets still on my hands.
- The next event was taking the standpipe pack to the top floor of the burn building in 90 seconds or less. I did it in about 55 seconds; no problem. I was breathing pretty hard at the end though.
- After that, myself and the captain raised a 24-foot ladder using the beam raise. No problem with that either.
- After the ladder evolution, we came back inside the academy, dropped our gear and prepared to do the EMS portion of the test. The first scenario for me was treating a patient with an Albuterol inhaler. No problems there. Second scenario was treating a patient with an Epi-Pen auto injector. No problem there. Then it got interesting…
- Third scenario was treating a patient with a broken femur. That required me putting on the Hare Traction Splint. I thought all was well when I put it on, but Capt. Pegler pointed out to me that I needed to apply the ishial strap BEFORE I tightened the ankle portion (it would make a lot more sense if you saw the device). So he allowed me to try again, and this time I did it right.
- Finally, I treated a patient with chest pains who took Nitroglyceran pills. I was doing fine until I gave him the pills. I forgot to check his blood pressure and pulse! So he slumped to the ground and turned into a working code. I started CPR on the CPR dummy and applied the practice AED. I couldn’t figure out why the AED wasn’t registering, until I saw that the pads weren’t connected to the device. After fixing that, everything went fine. My instructor was kind enough not to fail me because she saw that I knew I made that mistake and actually knew what I should have done. So fortunately, I passed everything!
- We came back to the station after picking up E111 from the shop. In the middle of dinner, the engine got a call for fuel leaking from a car. We got there, put some absorbent on the fuel leak, and left. Turned out an elderly lady had backed her car into a tree and smashed it up pretty bad. The back of the car looked like a wrecking ball hit it.
- We got back to the station and did our housework. I can’t believe probation is pretty much over! The time truly has flown by.
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