Some kind of a day...

Went to bed a little late last night spending time fiddling around here, adding the picture of my house to my profile page instead of warming up under the covers. What an idiot. About five after one my pager went off and I was dressed and in my 29º car going 90 in about 2, maybe 3 minutes. The call was for an MVA with entrapment at the western edge of the township. A rescue assignment, calling for other companies to respond for fire suppression, but for my company to respond with our heavy rescue truck. When we arrived at the scene, one passenger was on the ground unconscious, and the driver was in the back seat of a light GM sedan that was wrapped around an ancient Norway Maple. I couldn't figure out how he got in the back seat. The car headed toward the tree at probably 75 mph, the broke hard right, striking the tree at the leading edge of the driver's door. The passenger left the vehicle voluntarily immediately before impact. The driver's door and rocker panel came up and followed the driver's feet and legs toward the passenger side of the car, leaving him lying down in the back with his feet in the front, wrapped in steel. We stabilized the car with cribbing and set about opening it up to remove the driver. We used hydraulic spreaders and cutters to remove the driver's rear door and cut the top off the car. The other kid was wrapped and boarded and off to the hospital pretty quickly, but it took about an hour to cut the second kid out of the car before he went down the road. Neither one of these kids was seriously injured. They had minor scratches and no fractures. They were out blowing a bowl and knocking back a few cold beers. It's a good guess that a seed popped and scared them, setting off this whole nightmare. I got home around four. I got up at six, and went back to the firehouse at eight because I wrecked my nice old leather helmet during the extrication, and needed a new one. At the firehouse, I selected the best available helmet from the closet and went to work transferring my shield and all the other things I keep up there over to the new guy. About 9:30, we got a call of smoke conditions in a residence at the other end of the township, bordering the city. We were there for an hour, investigating he source in an old three story semi-detached job that was vacant in the fire half. The homeowners on the other side were cooperative and pretty nice about the whole thing. I talked to them about making sure they had new batteries in their smoke and CO detectors. They mentioned something favorable about Manny Ramirez, owing to the father's similar hairstyle, so I gave them a few free batteries. Then we went up to the Methodist church to check out their new Knox box and put the right keys in it, and make sure the keys all worked. We talked to the church ladies about batteries and about the recent local elections. This was a nice visit, and an easy way to pass a few minutes with some of my neighbors. Besides, I was still out on the truck, when I could have been home writing a paper or reviewing co-workers reports. But, back to the firehouse. I had to go over some paperwork with the deputy chief and a former chief for a while, to help modernize some of our company purchasing practices. We have a budget of about $270,000, and I oversee where a chunk of that goes, and as much as I love being a fireman, I am not going to jail for what is basically a great big out of control hobby. I got home around two o'clock I guess. I was cooking along pretty nicely on a sleep-dep buzz. The gas company has my street torn up and I have been in a little "dialog' with them over what my sidewalk and front yard are going to look like around Thanksgiving, and who's paying for what before everyone comes home. The UPS guy had been here and dropped of the belt I bought on eBay. It was a replacement for the belt I actually bought, but the guy sent me the wrong one, a half-inch belt, which lasted about thirty seconds before my tractor threw it, so I sent that back. I paid an additional six bucks for shipping, but the right belt showed up on the porch. That put another whammy on my nap. I put the tractor together and went out to mow up a few leaves after I threw back a quick lunch with Kelly the Dog. I ate on the phone and ran Kelly around the yard for a few minutes before she started yelling at the gas company guys and had to go back inside. So I got a tractor ride and was walking over to the hardware store to buy a pair of padlocks when the pager went off again, around 4:30. This one was a structure fire, meaning there was real fire, about four and a half miles away. My car was at a neighbor's, because i couldn't get into my drive on account of the gas guys have the street opened up, so I had to sprint about 600 feet to the car. I start the car first, then turn on the light, then hook my belt. I lie to get a few seconds to get the oil up into the engine, because pretty soon I'll be moving south down the state highway at between 80 and 90 miles an hour. This time we took the Telesquirt, which is just a fire truck with a big articulated arm on the top, with a thick braided steel water hose supplying an extendable nozzle. When we pulled up at the house, the family was outside. There was smoke in the house, but it was more of a haze. More noticeable was the extreme heat. The family must have been comprised of some sedentary folk, because they had a pretty hot fire in the fireplace and had the furnace cooking along nicely. It was about 80 in there. We loaded all the fire from the fireplace into big buckets and carried that out to the yard. That was wetted down. We wanted to clear the chimney, because we suspected a chimney fire, which was what it was. It wasn't the cool, Roman Candle roaring excitement, but it was a masonry failure that allowed some fire to escape the chimney into the attic and into the wall that separated the family room from the garage. My team and I explored the cellar to see if there was any problem with the furnace, washer, dryer or water heater. We found smoke in the cellar, but wood smoke, not of the utilities. We reported the smoke to the incident commander and went up and out to the garage. My crew went outside while I located the back of the fireplace with the help of another friend who had a thermal imaging camera. On his guidance I opened the wall and ceiling behind and around the back of the fireplace, where I found light fire and embers, which I extinguished with a water can and an inch and three quarter hand line. I then retired to my truck and let other men hunt and kill the fire in the attic and upstairs. We were there for about two hours. We had to open our roadblock to allow an escorted SUV through to get Will Smith to the local county airport. Cool. Then back to the firehouse to put away my gear and maybe go home. It was six thirty. After hanging my coat and slipping back into my shoes, I went to the radio room to check the incident reports of the day, and to ensure that I was included on all six. Then my pager went off again. The seventh ride of the day was to a ranch house three blocks from the firehouse. Five college girls were cooking an incredible amount of garlic and set off their CO alarm. They were in their yard, clutching their laptops when we arrived. They were very concerned for their pet bunny, who was caged inside. After we opened a few windows, and noted they had an electric stove, and electric heat, I went out and told them the rabbit was going to live, but I wanted them to go to the hardware store and get some new batteries. The same hardware store where I was going to buy my padlocks a few hours ago. I also advised them that a bachelor's degree from a nondescript state college would probably get them a job, but if they really wanted to live, they could come up to the fire house and fill out an application. The guys love it when I invite the college girls to join the company. I can get closer to them in a conversation than most of the twenty five year olds, because I have all this cool silver hair that makes them think I'm old and harmless. Hanging around for a few minutes with a few girls is a nice way to cap off a day. I got home around 7:35. Maybe tomorrow I can make some money. But today I was a fireman all day.