Firehouse Life

So I'm trying to write more on this thing, and I figure what better what to write on a fairly consistent basis than to record the antics, shenanigans and other goings on at the firehouse? Unlike "Ladder 49" and "Backdraft," some days at the firehouse are just not that exciting. However, there are some days where I'm left thinking, "you can't make this stuff up." So hopefully I'll be able to tell some stories filled with humore, entertainment, tragedy and adventure. Stay tuned!

So far the day has been fairly uneventful. DF is back from vacation. To picture DF, imagine a man a little taller than me, with a big gut and an ever bigger mustache (you can't even see his mouth). He's very loud and every other word out of his mouth is a derivitive of a four-letter word. But at heart, he's a nice guy who will help you out, if he likes you. Well he was off for about a week, but he's back now, so our days will be a lot more interesting with his, shall we say, color commantary.

Since today is the first monday of the month, we have to do our monthly maintenance on all the apparatus. This usually takes awhile, but we hopped on it right away. I started to do an inventory of all the equipment on the fire engine. It was a little challenging finding everything, since the inventory list was from 2003. A lot of the things remained the same, but many things were in different places or removed all together. We'll be getting new a new fire engine in a few months, so this inventory doesn't have to be incredibly meticulous. As long as everyone who's riding the fire engine knows where everything is, it's ok if the inventory sheet is a little off.

Around 0930, we had a call for an automatic fire alarm at a church on the corner of Powder Mill Rd. and NH Ave. Nothing much to it...just a broken water pipe that was letting off some steam.

Just before 1100, we had a call for a lady who had apparently passed out. We got there, talked to her and according to her, she ate some pizza that she doesn't usually eat and got a bit faint. Aside from being a bit pale, she seemed fine, but we convinced her to go to the hospital.

DF and Lenny had to go up to our medical section and get their annual work-related physicals at noon, so that left me driving the fire engine. I was glad to get more time behind the wheel...my apprehension towards driving that thing is definitely going away as I get more and more experience. Around 3:45ish, we got a call for a house fire in Burtonsville. Woohoo! Did I mention I love driving fast in fire trucks? Fast but safe, of course. So anyway, we're flying down the road (safely) and enroute, Burtonsville gets onscene and reports a working fire. That means everyone sits up and gets their game faces on. We ended up getting there before a couple other fire engines that should have gotten there before us and pulled one of our hose lines and got ready to go to work. Unfortunately by that time, there wasn't any (fun) work left to be done. Ah well...maybe on the next one.

Just after dinner, we got a call for a car crash several blocks south of the firehouse. The engine, truck and ambulance all responded, and we found a two-car collision with one person complaining of neck and back pain. We quickly secured his vehicle, packaged him up on a backboard and transported him to the hospital. It wasn't a major crash...looked like a rear-end collision with some damage to both cars. People need to be careful out there...