Keeping Up

Sorry gang,
There just isn't much to comment or rant about these days. Well at least not anything you'd care to listen too; my mother asking why I don't see her as much as she would like, my girlfriend throwing the "M" word around, the AAA surgery my grandfather will endure tomorrow

I have a visitation and funeral to attend tomorrow evening and Friday morning. We will lay to rest a retired firefighter of 35 years, a father to two chiefs and a grandfather to one young firefighter. His lineage will live on though, through a new grandson who will one day try to tame the beast with the rest of us. We can only give our best effort and continue in his footsteps, trying to fill boots larger than our own. I never had the pleasure of fighting with this man, but I have had the pleasure of his company. Company that is now treasured in only memory and hindsight. We will stand tall in our pressed uniforms, ride proud in our sparkling red chariots and salute an old friend. I'll miss you, you grumpy old bastard. We'll still answer every call, just as you'd have wanted, but with a heavier heart.

Pin Cushion

I finished up an IV variance class not to long ago. The class itself was mainly painless(pun intended), the instructor was competent and well informed, he had good instructional material to pass along to the students, hell even sticking each other really was not that bad. It seemed as if everyone had practiced on the side prior to taking the class, so's not to look foolish while you're taking the class to teach you things you shouldn't know yet. As if you're going to get into trouble for learning during your class. I found that I have rather tough skin, as a few needles were bench trying to breach the iron wall that is my skin. That and apparently I tend to keep my veins a little farther from the surface. Pretty much no one could land a line on me, which was fun, as everyone had to try. I was the hard stick, and I of course retained my title throughout the entire process. And I walked away with only one bruise to even whisper about.

So this weekends on call shift will be my first crack at real patient insertions. In the crazy version of an ALS/BLS service I work in, I cannot start an IV without a medic there to cup my balls and make sure I don't freak out and stab the patient repeatedly with a dirty, used needle, taking directly from the sharps box of course. I'm really not that bitter, I promise. But hey it is the tag line under EMSMUTT, working in the shadows of medics. Which I of course I tell myself is short term.

Mainly I took the class to get a head start on the medic class, you know the whole, I have to know everything prior to taking the class train of thought. Anywho, class still starts sometime in January. Right now it's still to distant to really mean anything, I still work for a living and can't give up the day job just yet. Not that I'm not tested from time to time.

How Humbling...

So recently I made the large mistake of driving my favorite ladder truck into a tree. Now it's not as if I lined her up, hit the gas and wrapped my chariot around a 100 year oak. But I came up on the driveway a little "hot," cranked the wheel and and BAM, "there's a fuckin tree branch right there." This is actually what I had said in my head after I hit the sumbitch.

Let's paint the picture:
I'm already late for work as I lay in bed, being a complete slacker. The tones go out for a structure fire, smoke and flames showing. For a second I contemplate my options, get up and go to work which pleases my employer or go to the fire, which pleases me and the pour sap who's house is a blaze.

I decide to attend the fire, explaining to myself that I'm probably the only driver available at this time in the morning, well at least the only one that can drive our ladder truck, yes our ladder truck is our first out, don't get me started. In it's defense it is a tele-squirt.

As I enter the station I hit the repeater on the pager one more time to verify the address, which I can't immediately picture in my mind, not a big deal now, so I thought. I throw on the my gear, somewhat hoping or expecting someone else to arrive and drive the truck, yes it's my wishful thinking that at some point in time I might actually get to play and not drive the damn truck all the time.

Somebody asks "where're we going." I hit the repeater one more time as I walk away to jump in the truck. As I'm pulling out of the station with my rag-tag of newbies, I realize that nobody brought a pager with and the address was not written down for me. It's no loss yet as we recite the address as we remembered it.

We cruise through town, lights and sirens wailing, I travel down the road anticipating that soon I will see the chief vehicles that have arrived prior to me, lighting the runway for me, so to speak. The road forks, East or West, I have no pager, asking for the address will get you nothing but grief and a bitchy response. The crew thinks East. Literally a second after I've turned, the chief is on the squawk box, "Are you on West...?" Me, "No, negative, I'm on East...!"
Chief, "Well the address is... West ...!"
Me, "Copy that, turning around, Sh." as I let go of the mic button.

I whip the truck around at the next intersection and I stand on the gas pedal. I'm livid at this point, I don't make mistakes, I don't fuck up, I certainly don't drive away from a house on fire!

I drive past the deputy's car that's blocking traffic for me, and approach the assistant chief that points out the driveway, I turn and FUCK, I just ripped a damn branch right off a pine tree and it's now hanging off of my ladder truck. My beloved ladder truck, I'm so sorry girl.

With the assistant chief screaming as usual the firefighters remove the branch and I continue to drive forward approaching the "house fire." I was livid when I flipped the coin and guessed wrong at fork, now I'm red hot, blood pressure through the roof I hear my pulse in my ears. As I look forward to what was dispatched as a structure fire and in reality will be much much less, no smoke, no fire. The crews found a little fire in an attic space, dropped a bucket of water on it and called it good.

So let's recap the mornings festivities:
I got up from bed, not to go to work, but to fight the "big one." I drove, which meant no firefighting for me, turned incorrectly and looked rather dumb and to top it off I sheared off a rather large branch from a what was a nice pine tree. All for a bullshit fire. If I had any idea of the amount of bullshit that this fire was I would have either stayed in my fucking bed or gone to work. I felt trapped in the movie Clerks, "I'm not even supposed to be here."

Pisses me off. Listen to your gut people, as I knew I should not have gone to that call, but I did and look what happens.

"Did we learn anything from this call?" was all I got from the cheif.

Then I was of course reminded that the next time this happens I should report to the "branch officer." Great, I can't wait until the annual banquet. Shit.