Last week was one of those really hard ones.

In my business, there is a lot of death, you've heard me talk about it ad nauseum I'm sure. Death isn't an everyday thing for us, no matter what you might have heard, but yeah, we're exposed to a hell of a lot more of it than normal people are.

This week we had two fatalities.

The first was an old man. We got called to a "pedestrian struck" which means someone was hit by a vehicle. These calls usually really hit hard when they come in. When one of these comes in you know someone is hurt, usually hurt bad.

We rolled. The chief in his van first, me in mine. The rescue rig right on our heels. The scene was familiar, a knot of people standing and kneeling with a set of legs stuck grotesquely out of it, skidmarks on the pavement, and a vehicle stopped at an odd angle and people creeping by in cars gawking out the windows.

There were a couple of factors different in this call, there was also the wreckage of one of those motorized scooters that oldsters zip around on these days, and the vehicle involved was a dump truck.

When we approached there was one woman trying frantically to get air into the old man lying on the pavement, a pool of blood was growing under his head, and things really didn't look good.

We got to work on him right away, but there wasn't much hope. He had been gone for awhile. We had to do what we could though, in case of a miracle. They do happen, and you never want to be caught short if they do. We started CPR and helped the ambulance crew load him. I wasn't very hopeful, the damage was just too great, and he was too old.

The really memorable moment from that call was the one old man on the side of the road. The crash had taken place at the entrance to a mobile home park for the elderly, everyone knows each other and keeps tabs on each other. A grey-haired old fella stood there and touched my arm as I walked by gathering up our gear while the ambulance jockeyed out of the scene. I looked up and he smiled nervously and said "Is he gonna be alright?"

I don't bullshit people at a time like that, but I try not to slap them with reality either. Unfortunately there wasn't much to say in this case other than "No".

He looked a little shocked, but recovered quickly, he was from a generation where death was a lot more accepted and understood, he had seen wars, he had seen years where women dying in childbirth was a normal thing, he had seen a lot.
"Will he live?" he asked.

I put my hand on his shoulder and said "He's already gone"

"shit"

"yeah"

He turned to walk back home, I went back to work picking up the sundry bits of equipment and garbage we had strewn about while unwrapping dressings and tubes and all the other things we use to plug leaks and brace broken bits.

The funny part of this call was that I had very nearly hit the same guy two weeks before, he was deaf and somewhat demented and had a habit of driving his scooter wherever he pleased, this included right out in front of approaching traffic. I had missed him by inches and thought to myself "Someone's gonna kill that old bugger one of these days".

I guess today was the day.

The second one this week was a bit different, It was one of those nights that we keep warning the new guys about, it was a night that happens only once in a very great while. We had three calls withing the space of two hours. The first was a dumpster fire, routine in every sense. A big metal garbage container outside a school burning merrily when we go there around midnight. No sooner had the pumper rolled up and lines were out than we got called to alarms at a local high school. The pumper stayed and we fought the dumpster, the tanker rolled past us with the chief and responded to the high school.

The alarms turned out to be caused by a storage shed that had been set ablaze, along with another dumpster. The guys got to work right away and got water on the fire. Once the dumpster was out where we were we rolled to the school and joined in the fight. 


I love that shit, the fact that in this business you have to be ready for anything, anytime, always. When the pumper rolled in the guys came off and we started to vent the smoke from the building, started to overhaul the fire and help make some order in the chaos. The damage to the school was very light, other than smoke throughout, and some blackening on the concrete wall.

Once everything was under control and things were winding down I got the guys working at getting the pumper back into shape, we filled the water tank from the hydrant, replenished the air packs with new bottles, put the hose back on in proper order, and got back all the tools. I kept cracking the whip over my guys while I was hauling tools and working as well. Finally one of the new guys, only about three months in said "Why the hel are you in such a hurry to get the truck back up? we're TIRED"

"We're getting it ready for the NEXT one, christ knows what it'll be with these little shits lighting dumpsters and schools tonight"

We didn't have lng to wait, no sooner that we had the last bit of equipment on board, and had the rig turned around than the tones went off again. This time for a residential structure fire.

By this time it was 0300, we had been fighting fire since just before midniight, and here we were rolling to the kind of fire that requires maximum effort.

I rolled up to the house and was met by the neighbour, there was a car in the driveway and smoke was boiling out of the eaves and windows under pressure, this wasn't a good set of signs. The car in the driveway meant there was someone home, the smoke under pressure meant that the fire had a good hold inside. At least in this case there was a chance, a slim one, that there might be live people inside.

I turned to the guy that identified himself as the neighbour.

"How many people live in there?" I said.

"Just one, he lives alone"

This was good news, if it was gonna be fatal it would only be one. That might sound heartless, but I'd rather lose one guy than a family. Simple mathematics.

My first rig rolled in and i placed themn where I wanted them, there were only three guys on board because they rolled out of the last call as fast as they could, most of the guys were still working at the other call. I called a second alarm bringing another hall, that would take 10 minutes at least. We had a lot of work to do before that. I only had two guys andmyself to work with because the driver of the rig has to run the pump.

I had the team pull the lines we'd need, and get ready to ventilate the building, we had to get the smoke and heat out so we broke into a door and set up a gas-powered fan. This literally blows the smoke and heat out of the building. Not all of it mind you, but it does cool the atmosphere markedly.

No sooner had we got ventilation happening than our tanker rolled up, they had gotten things packed up faster than anyone thought possible at the othe rfire and were here with some much-needed Firefighters.

Once we had enough guys to mount an aggressive attack in they went. The building was searched, and no one was found, the fire was fought and extinguished, the building was searched again, still nothing.

We were packing up, getting the rigs ready for the next one if it came. The chief went into the building to start the fire investigation. He found the body in the crawlspace of the building where the fire had burned through. The only reason he knew it was a body was because he recognized a foot. Other than that it looked like a burned roll of carpet.

There was a marijuanna grow operation in the crawlspace too. I'm afraid I didn't feel all that sorry for the guy who died.

It was a long night though, called just before midnight, and finally got back to bed around 1100 the next morning after all the trucks were put back into trim, equipment washed and air bottles filled.

I slept like a log, woke up just before 1700. I felt cheated out of my Saturday.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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