Hell Day

Hey faithful readers. If you are still here, know that I appreciate you still checking back once in a while, I know it is a long dry spell between posts.

Been here at my current power company gig now for about 18 months.  Really liking it, really glad I made the move, and fully intend to retire from here.

When I wrote this post, I talked about how I was one of three hires.  They actually only hired two at first, myself and an internal guy I'll call Eric.  Then, one of the other companies I had applied for called, offering me a job that I turned down because I had accepted this one. Turns out, one of the existing operators here also put in for that other company, and after I declined, he got the offer and subsequently left. So my bosses went back to the list that Eric and I got chosen from, and grabbed the #3 guy, Dave.

Eric started first because he was already an employee and didn't need to relocate.  I had to give two weeks and then move across the country, so my start date was almost a month later.  Dave was an internal employee like Eric, and came in just a week or so after I did

We all went through training more or less together, but it was understood by everyone that I was the fast track guy because I was the only one coming with experience and there was a hole in the rotation that needed to be filled. I was released to operate first as expected, before the year was out.

What wasn't expected is that Eric would struggle as much as he did.  This job just isn't for everyone.  There are so many moving parts, so many things that you need to understand, and it requires substantial capacity to maintain situational awareness of everything going on.  That and the confidence to do your job, be decisive, and take actions as needed without delay.  Then there's loads of mundane abilities you have to master, mostly having to do with navigating procedures and software and such.

Still, Eric was making progress, but despite starting a little later, Dave was progressing more.  About four months after I was cleared to operate, Dave got the blessing and went on shift as well.  Eric and Dave actually were friends before coming in here, they worked together in the field for years before this. Dave being released first was hard on Eric, for sure.

Today was finally Eric's big day to make the final hurdle. Hell Day.  After completing myriad task checkoffs and required courses, getting all of your documentation completed and certifications filed, and after passing a final written exam, you have an all-day intensive review in the training room on the system simulator, getting grilled by four or five other operators and supervisors. Various operating scenarios and system events are loaded into the simulator so the trainee can demonstrate recognition of what is wrong and what to do about it.  Lots of questions, and maybe a few curveballs.  You don't have to get everything exactly right, but you do have to demonstrate that you can function under pressure and are teachable, and that you at least don't do anything to wreck the system.  Better to be decisive even if imperfect, than to do something seriously wrong, or to freeze up and do nothing. It's high pressure, no doubt.

So about three hours into Eric's Hell Day review, during a break, he came out, went to the restroom, and then... left the building without telling anyone, and never came back.

I mean, not everyone is cut out for this line of work, but usually this is discovered in the course of training well before Hell Day or whatever various companies do, and the operator candidate is allowed to coast along and help out as able until they are able to bid back out to a job in another department. Violently flaming out like this is, well... I know it happens, but I've never personally seen it happen before.

It left a dark cloud hanging over the place. Everyone feels bad for Eric. He's a nice enough kid, but maybe he never really recovered his confidence after Dave moved ahead of him. I do fully expect the company will work with him to find him a home elsewhere, probably in his previous department. But man, it's just a horrible thing to have happen.

I'll try to get back to you guys to let you know how it all ends up working out for him. My hopes and prayers are that this ends up ultimately being a good thing, that he finds a job he likes and can thrive at, instead of suffering in here over his head.

Keep the faith, my friends.

Culture

There have been a few challenges in this great reset.  But it seems to be working out so far.

Let me just say, though, that in many ways it is a hell of a lot easier to be a new guy who knows nothing, than a new guy who knows things. How much that helps or hurts, as it turns out, is greatly dependent on the culture of where you land.  Between the cultures of the new power company and the new (old) fire department, the differences have been stark.

It turned out that my new power company historically is known for basically never hiring external power dispatcher candidates. If I had known that going in, there's a fair chance that I would not have even put my name in the bin due to the long odds. But as luck would have it, out of a staff of fourteen dispatchers, they had three openings in short order due to retirements and other factors. Normally they could have handled this because they had enough notice, but COVID gummed up the hiring processes and they ended up behind the ball. As a result, when the logjam was broken, they needed one of the three new hires to be experienced so they could get up to speed within like six months or so instead of the normal 18-24 month training period. And that person ended up being me.

Now it is no secret that I think that I'm really good at what I do, but it still felt pretty good to be the #1 pick for this rare external hire out of a nationwide search. Yeah.

Also, for the record, I put my name in the bin for jobs at other power companies in my plan to relocate. I was offered a job at another one just two days after I was offered this one, before I made it a point to call around and withdraw myself from those other processes.

#1 pick for two nationwide searches in the same week? Yeah, that feels nice.

Anyway... culture.....

At the new power company, open discussion and questioning is encouraged.  My new supervisors and coworkers have all been very open to me talking about my previous jobs. They know very well that this company tends to hire from within, there's not a lot of external influence and therefore not a lot of diversity in ways of thinking about how to do things. When I see something that I think could be done better, they have encouraged me to talk about it, which is pretty amazing really. To be fair, after I say "this is how we did it at this other place", more often than not the response is "that's nice, and interesting, you make some very good points, but we're probably not going to change that right away".  And I'm fine with that.  It's just wonderful being invited to contribute ideas that get a genuine listen. What an amazing culture. Open to discussion, challenges to the norm, respectful discourse. Glorious.

At the fire department, not so much.

I resolved from the very beginning to try to not be "that guy", particularly since in this case I was returning to an agency where there was still some familiarity, a handful of guys I worked with in my earliest Fire days are still here. Still.... mouth shut. Smile and wave. Yeah.... I'm not always very good at that.

Fell in with the old guys well enough for the most part, as I had found and then stayed in touch with many of them via social media, so I was not a total unknown to them.  But there are also of course a lot of newer guys here.  "New" being relative, of course, a lot can happen in 20+ years of absence.  Namely, the agency went through a couple of painful Chiefs, the second of which was so bad that as far as I can tell nearly the entire staff threatened a collective resignation to the City unless something was done. The City got rid of that guy, but the culture damage done over almost two decades of poor leadership had taken root. 

Cases in point: One of the first things I helped with upon rejoining was hose testing. Quite a few recruits and fellow probies there. When three of them grabbed LDH to drag them out, I tried to tell them it was easier work if they'd space themselves out. When multiple people grab hose and they're just a few feet apart, the last person ends up doing the actual pull while the others are carrying just the few pounds of hose in their hands. Also, almost no one was wearing a lid when the LDH and attack lines were pressurized. I've personally seen hoses fail during tests and had couplings launch. That crap can kill you. Tried to suggest people get those helmets on. At least one of the (relatively) older members was greatly affronted by me offering advice (some of it potentially life saving), and he talked crap to a few other members, and that greatly set back my reintroduction to the agency. Maybe I didn't need to give advice about the hose pull and should have just smiled and waved, but I was a trainer for too long, it is in my nature. I won't apologize for suggesting lids be worn, though.

People are just showing up and doing their jobs. People are easily butthurt. People are not open to discussion or mutual improvement to the team. Basically, unless you see something so dangerous that injury is probable, it seems that you mind your own business and look the other way.  And sometimes even in those cases....

This is a horrible culture that is going to get someone hurt or killed.

This has also led to a culture of insecurities and jealousy for some. We don't have room for that in this business. Check your feelings at the door. If I do something wrong or could do it better, I want you to tell me so we can have a rational conversation about it, and if necessary we can do some mutual investigation and fact finding to find the best answers. I might have been right all along, or I might be wrong, and there's also probably more information to inject into the conversation that properly sets context, instead of  just operating with the base assumptions that started the discussion, and until we know, we.... don't. That's how we all improve ourselves professionally. It's not personal. That attitude is lacking amongst several members here, and those members cannot process how much of a barrier that is to their professional development. And as such, in their positions of relative experience and authority, they are passing those errors downstream to new recruits who don't know better.

If I could just bide my time and wait until I am re-established here, then I would be able to gradually try to bend the culture back in the right direction. But there's a wrinkle.... my lovely new bride also decided to join the department.  She is totally new to Fire.  You think you worry about your crew getting home safely, and your trainees being able to absorb enough to keep themselves alive? And now that person is your spouse. Pressure? Worry? Yeah.

So in like our second month back, the wife and I were going over SCBA, just the two of us, with the blessing of the on duty captain whom I've known for a long time. Sean comes into the station, sees us on the floor with a pack.  Being a new (and insecure) Captain who wants to assert his superiority and position, he asks if we need help. Now, I know he is insecure and I want to help him feel better about himself, and I don't want him to feel challenged by me, so I gratefully defer and let him take over.

In my best Dave Barry voice, I swear I am not making this up, he starts going over the various components of the SCBA, and when he gets to the emergency bypass valve, he says "you can use this thing to defog your mask if you need to", and then moves on.  Never identifies it by its actual name. Never mentions what it is actually for, never explains how to operate it, never discusses why you might need to use it.

Dude, you're a Captain.  Really?

Mouth shut. Smile and wave. I can fix this with her later. Right?

Then he moves on and shows her the ICM.... the module with the analog and digital pressure gauges, and the motion sensing unit, that hangs in front of your chest, and says "here's the regulator..."

I can't. I just can't. But still trying to defer to his insecurities and not be "that guy", I try leave him an escape. I know people have different names for the ICM... or just don't know what to call it in the first place.

"What's that? We called it the ICM where I came from, but what is it called here, so I know?", and I casually pick up the actual regulator and make like I'm verifying the bypass is closed.

"We call it the regulator. It's the regulator."

"I thought this was the regulator." I hold it up.

Dave Barry voice. I swear I am not making this up. He doubles down. "No, that just goes on the front of your mask, this is the regulator."

I simply couldn't find the strength to keep my mouth shut. "I've never heard that called the regulator. I'm pretty sure this is the regulator..." (holding it up) "... because this is the emergency bypass which allows higher pressure into your facepiece in case the regulator fails. If that was the regulator, there would not be higher pressure available here at this valve."

I honestly don't remember what all happened after that, but I do know that I basically said we would have to agree to disagree and that he abbreviated the rest of the session and bugged out, but let's just say our relationship has not been the same since. I've watched him bluster through a few other situations, and felt bad for him and his insecurities.... to a point. He's had a couple of times to condescend towards me about "you said you have all this experience when you interviewed, but I haven't really seen it". If you knew how much I wasn't saying, you'd know a thing or two about my experience, Sean.

A part of me dies inside every time we run a call and the chauffeur and officer are more concerned with stomping the Q to death and using the airhorn - through green lights at 3AM - than driving with due regard. Dude, let go of the airhorn chain and put both hands on the wheel.  If something goes wrong, yanking on that chain is not going to be the thing that saves us. Did I mention that our rig, the third out of the house on one of those calls, was halfway out of the bay when the unit that responded before us was canceled by Command, yet we responded anyway by carefully not announcing that we were en route? In order for Sean to sit in the front right seat and make noise and feel important for a few minutes?

Smile and wave.

A few months have gone by since these episodes, and the waters are finally beginning to settle. Thankfully the number of guys with butthurt and insecurity are not in the majority, though their influence is still significant.  There are years of poor formation that will take more years to undo, because so many people just turn the other way because what should be a minor behavioral correction with minimal coaching has turned into hills no one wants to die on.

Next task: Convince certain influential people here that 100psi at the tip is absolutely not appropriate for smoothbore nozzles. They train here to operate all lines for 100psi at the tip no matter what hardware is on the end of the line. Getting zero traction on this so far, but I'm a new guy so I can only push so hard without making those waves. Help.

I'm not trying to bag heavily on my new (old) fire agency.  There are a lot of great people here, and it is a great organization overall, but I remember what it was and know where it can be again. There's work to do here.

If you have a good culture, be ever so thankful for it, and cultivate it constantly.  Recovering it when it is lost is an enormous task. I sure wish some certain new fire compadres could know what it feels like to work in a cooperative atmosphere, one where everyone is on the same team and has the same goals unhindered by sensitive feelings, where a conflict is seen as a growth opportunity, not an attack, without the fear that someone is going to undermine them and pin them with gotchas. Bad culture is toxic. It's not entirely their fault, but they have now become the obstacle to progress... the trick is making some of them realize it. If they were to read this, would they even recognize themselves as such.... or just be offended some more and allow the cycle to continue? I want to bring them to the power company job and let them see what it is like to, you know.... actually selflessly work together.

Or, maybe.... maybe I'm just an insufferable know it all pain in the ass.  Can't rule that out I guess.

All that said, overall it is GREAT to be back.

Stay safe out there, and hug your loved ones.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

It started out small enough, and by the time the first scout unit arrived at the request of the Forest Service, it was still only about 10'x30'.  Unfortunately, the scout unit wasn't a suppression unit, and the Forest Service didn't have resources nearby.

The scout unit thought they could hold it if only they had water, but it was a 20-30 minute response for something that could throw water.  It was worth a shot, and they called in some help.  We got caught up in that request as well.

Things didn't quite pan out as hoped despite best intentions, and it officially became a crapstorm after the USFS finally did arrive to help and promptly tumbled one of their engines down an embankment and into the path of the fire. At least no one was in it, thank goodness.

By the time I arrived with others from my agency, the unnecessary frenzied tone set by the lost engine was in full effect, and there were also at least two ICs.  We parked our rigs and advised up the chain that we were going to remain in staging until there was only one IC.  That took about 20 minutes to get resolved.

When Squad 51 finally got an assignment from an IC that we were willing to listen to, it was to patrol the fire line established on an access road, where the fire had already burned.  Warning bells are going off in my head, because we're uphill of the fire, and the initial burn did not consume all the fuels.  USFS guys are with us on the line, and I foolishly allowed things to proceed assuming the experts wouldn't do this if there was cause for concern.  The rotor was making drops on the far side of the burn, the active front, but lots of smoke is still rolling up the hill and over our location.

Sure as hell though, a little wind shift pushes the fire around a bit, and then a large slash pile lit off just down the road below our rigs.  25' flames are blowing across the road and into the green between us and our escape route.  Every time the wind blows the heated smoke at us, we have to lean into the bottom of the drainage ditch on the access road to get air.  Eyes and lungs burning.  This is genuinely frightening, been quite a while since I had a true pucker moment like this.

About five years ago, I allowed the very same thing to happen.  Got assigned uphill of a fire that sure as hell came up the hill.  Drop and run was the order, and although we lost several hundred feet of hose we were lucky enough to get the rigs and people out without injury.  I said at the time, after that legit scare, that I wouldn't let it happen to me again.

And here I am, eyes burning and tearing up, rubbing them, trying to see so I can drive my rig out during a momentary lapse in the wind when the fire isn't blowing across the road.  If not for the rotor being diverted to drop water on the fire near the road by us, the outcome might have been different.

I try to keep the language clean here, but in this case I think it is warranted to say fuck that noise, never again!  It is trees and grass, we weren't even protecting any nearby houses.  Not worth it by any stretch of the imagination.  What the hell were we ever even given that assignment for, with such high risk and negligible value in holding that line with limited resources?

Don't be afraid to question orders. The 10 & 18 are there for damned good reasons and paid for with many lives.  We all owe it to those that paid the price to heed their lessons.  Fooled me twice, shame on me.  Never again.

Stay safe out there.

Lesson Learned, Lesson Passed On

I was riding with Gary in 579 when we got a call for arcing wires near downtown.  It got slightly more interesting when the dispatcher told us the feeder breaker had operated once and then closed again, so something more than a little spit and pop.  The dispatcher put the breaker in non-auto so if it tripped again it would not keep reclosing into a problem.

We were sort of out of position without many guys working, so it would be a bit of a delay.  Then I heard Engine 1 from Very Big City go en route, so someone had called 911 undoubtedly frightened by the show.

As we were rolling along, the tickets were rolling in, and I was pulling them up on the MDC to get some hints.  Our phone reps are uncomfortable paraphrasing much because of past incidents where they edited something important out, so they pretty much type into the trouble tickets what they hear on the phone.

Customer states lives right near substation, heard several loud booms in that direction and lights flickered, still have power.

Power line arcing on north side of 5th between Sampson and Flannery, looks like trying to catch on fire now.

Lines in front of this address are making very weird noises.

(I love those kinds of tickets, "weird noises", good stuff.)

Customer heard several very loud booms and saw two blinks, lights still on.

And just as we were getting close, the dispatcher called to advise the breaker had operated again and the circuit was out.  Darn.  Was hoping to see something good!

So we pulled up, and Engine 1 had closed the block down, which was the right call while it was burning up.  Now that the circuit is dead, not much for serious hazards, and we told them they could open the road and take their cones, thanks for coming out.  Turned out we had an overhead primary switch that burned pretty good until it melted off a jumper, which then fell into the next phase below and blew the circuit.  The glass was all carboned up and lots of charring on the pole, with some burnt debris in the street.  But the big drama was over.

Engine 1's Captain walked up to our truck as his guys made their way back up the street with their cones to make small talk and bid us adieu.  He got a little close to the pole, and Gary said he might not want to be under that switch.  Either he didn't hear us or he didn't take it seriously, but about 0.2 seconds later he jolted like he'd been stung by a bee and darted back into the street, slapping at his shoulder, "Ouch! Something hot hit me!" He was looking at the ground to find what he had knocked off his shoulder.

One of his crew said "Cap! Your shoulder is still smoking!"  Amusement ensued while the Captain danced a little circular jig in the middle of the street while tearing off his uniform shirt.  Turns out the creosote treatment on this pole was generous, and the fire had melted a lot of it so that it dribbled down to the insulators on the side of the pole and then dripped to the ground.  Just because the fire was out more than five minutes ago does not eliminate the threat.

No helmet, no coat, no PPE.  Lucky he wasn't seriously injured like if it had landed on his head or ears, only a slight 1st degree burn and a destroyed Class B shirt.

When the serviceman stays stay back, there's a reason!  We all have our moments of oopsie so we're not here to poke at the Captain too hard, but for him I am sure it is a lesson learned and lesson passed on to his people for the rest of his career.  And now, to you too.

Thanks for reading.

You wouldn't block a hydrant, but . . .

The internet is filled with fun pictures of what happens to cars (especially police cars!) that block hydrants, but we in the fire service are all very familiar with bane of overgrown and hidden hydrants as well.



Spot the hydrant!

Mayor fail

Of course, you wouldn't block a hydrant or allow one to be overgrown on your property.  But hydrants are not the only things that need to be found promptly at 3AM in the rain sometimes.  Yes, another power company post, I present you the case of the beleagured and oft-neglected padmount transformer.

Where's the love?

When we are switching to restore power after an outage, my guys are usually working these hot, or are heating them up.  They have to stand several feet away and work with a hot stick, and there is always the risk of equipment failure and a flash arc.



Pay no mind to those tripping hazards.

A bad hydrant won't generally injure or kill you, transformers are a different story.  For this reason, there is a near-universal standard that utility companies require for clearances around transformers.  Not that very many people comply.  Generally speaking, 3' to the sides and rear, and 10' in front for working space as shown by the lineman switching above.

 

This comes up because of the topic of the previous post, where we've been out auditing a crap-ton of transformers in our system.  We often find occasional problems in the course of day-to-day operations just like we find the oddball hidden hydrant, but there are many more transformers out there than hydrants, and the special attention we've been giving them lately here has given rise to a large number of fun discoveries.

We get a lot of complaints when we have to trim them back in an outage to access a unit, but at least then those people were out of power and sort of get it.  It's when we find and trim some pre-emptively that people really cut loose.  They've been growing that shrub or bush for years to hide it, they say.  It's ugly, they say.  No one has opened it in 15 years they say.  Funny, since electricity is as essential as water is for fire protection (some would say more so), how almost no one complains about fire hydrants.  Even the ones not used for a fire in 15 years.

If you have one of these at your home, in your neighborhood, chances are good you never gave it much thought.  If it's overgrown, I am not going to tell you to clear it out, but I will tell you to not get your panties in a wad if one day the power company does it for you unannounced.  And to not complain too much when there are delays getting the power on while linemen wrangle chainsaws and heavy trimmers just to get to their stuff.

Now you know.  Knowing is half the battle.

Enjoy the gallery, it gradually gets better as you go down.



Even when you know it is there, you can't see it.



This one is actually behind that center tree trunk, way back.



Fence overbuild.  Priceless.

Thanks for reading.  Stay safe out there.

No guarantees!

We got a single call for power trouble from a place with three-phase service, some of their stuff wasn't working but they weren't totally out.  According to the mapping data, they were served from three individual overhead transformers.  Certainly this meant that one of those transformers had failed, especially since we were not getting any other calls.  We sent Bear over in 574 to check it out.

Upon arrival, Bear is a little perplexed to find that all three cutouts to the overhead banks are closed in and holding.  He investigates at the customer's panel and is getting no voltage on a couple of their low-side phases.  Perhaps something is wrong in the secondary from the transformers to the panel?  No, it is all above ground, plainly visible, nothing obviously wrong.  Bear flies up in the bucket and tests for voltage above the banks, and shows good voltage to all three transformers.

Nothing is apparently wrong, yet stuff isn't working.  Rare is the day that the Bear is stumped.  Today is one of those days.  Bear swallows his pride and calls for backup.  577 Kevin heads his way.

Kevin arrives and goes through the same checks, comes to the same conclusions.  While he is up in the air near the transformers, Kevin also load-checks all three phases of the 12kV overhead going down the tap to the 150 or so customers downstream past this place.  They are stumped, and looking for inspiration.  Oddly enough, Kevin gets 30-something amps on A phase, 2 amps on B phase, and 50-something amps on C phase.  Ideally they should be sort of balanced, and the mere 2 amps on B phase is outside of plausible under normal circumstances.

This isn't making any sense.  If there is voltage on B phase, people should be in power, but according to the load check of just 2 amps there is effectively no flow going downstream, yet none of the B phase customers downstream have reported power outages over 90 minutes into this incident.

At this point, if I was out there, I would want to have a cup of tea to think things over.  The urge to break something in frustration would also cross my mind.  Thankfully it isn't me out there, but the dedicated duo of Kevin and the Bear.

Kevin has a hunch, and drives back upstream to a set of line reclosers just a few spans before the problem site, and much to his surprise, finds the B phase recloser is open.  Yet..... B phase has voltage.  Can it get any more confuzzling?

Kevin and Bear pair up in one of the trucks and go patrolling the downstream tap to try to sort out the mystery.  Sure enough, about a half mile down the way, they find that something.... wind?... has caused a span of the B phase primary overhead to lay flopped over C phase.  Suddenly, the flood of comprehension washes over them.

Under normal circumstances, all three phases should be more or less equally loaded.  Something caused B and C phase to come in contact with each other and cause a cross-phase fault.  The single phase reclosers for B and C phase would have been extremely unhappy about this and would have tripped one or two times hoping the fault would clear.  The timing of these reclosers was just ever so much of a smidgen off that one of the reclosers closed back in and held while the other gave up.  The result was B phase load was now being carried not through the recloser as normal, but through where the lines were entangled.  This is why there was no load on B phase at the outage site, they were now electrically at the farthest end of B phase with its source coming through the tangle.  This is why no B phase customers reported an outage, at most they saw a couple of blinks.

And lastly, the original caller was the only 3-phase customer on this tap.  Some 3-phase service relies on magical AC theory stuff having to do with the gap between phases, and when two of the three phases are unexpectedly tied together (instead of A-B-C they were getting A-C-C), anything relying on the difference between AB or BC phases will get no potential, and stuff won't work.

If not for that one and only 3-phase customer reporting a problem, there's no telling how long this might have sat this way until something else brought the problem to our attention.

And another lesson was driven home for everyone.  Despite the B phase recloser being open, the line was backfed and hot.  Even if you have a visual open, a line isn't dead until it is grounded and dead.

Those guys did a good job sleuthing it out.  Stay safe out there.

What you don't see will still kill you

We got a call at the power company early one morning during the commute, reporting a broken power pole.  Before we arrived, several callers had notified us directly and many more had called it in to 911.

We doubted that it was ours at first, because we had no reports of power outages, figured it might be a telecom pole.  But lo and behold, upon arrival, we have a broken pole with all three phases of the primary under tension from neighboring poles helping to hold it up.

The first arriving serviceman also noted some absorbent applied to the road about midspan to the left of the pole as shown above.  Upon further inspection over there he found random car parts debris, and signs of trauma intervention (bandage wrappers and sundry litter).

A little more research revealed that fire and law enforcement had been out here shortly after dinner time the previous evening for this wreck, a rollover.  Either no one noticed the broken pole, or word never got to us.  Probably no one noticed.

This was a very close call for two reasons.

First off, if you look at the close-up below, you'll note there is something amiss with the center phase.

What you see there is that the insulator stack holding the center phase up off the tip of the pole is broken, and the bare wire is laying on the crossarm.  Sometimes when this happens, the voltage is able to push through the damp wood of the pole and find a track to ground that results in an arc flash and line trip.  Other times, it never finds a good track but nevertheless has a (relatively) low amp sustained fault to ground.  When the latter occurs, touching the pole or even walking too close to it can easily injure or kill you.  Close call.

Secondarily, of course, there wasn't much holding this thing up, and it just as easily could have gone ahead and collapsed into the scene while the guys were working it.  We never had an outage, so those lines stayed hot the entire time until we got out there for repairs.  Close call.

So here's today's message.  Remember that wrecked cars will leave damage for quite a ways, and it behooves the IC or safety person, if not the guy doing the outer circle scene survey, to try to find out where the car came from and what happened along the way.

Saying you didn't notice it doesn't bring dead people back to life.  I don't want to second guess the crew on this job, but I do want them to go home to their families.

Stay safe out there.

From Hero to Goat in ten minutes

Engine 56, Engine 51, Small City Engine, Tanker 56, Tanker 55, structure fire.....

E56 arrived first with the duty crew, running short handed with just two guys.  Had a fire going in the attic of a large shop outbuilding.  By the time Tanker 56 arrived with me in E51 right behind, they had the knock. 

Small City's crew showed up soon after, and we collectively didn't have much to do.  We released everyone but the first three rigs, did some cleanup and overhaul, packed the attack lines and were in service within an hour of arrival.

The Engine 56 boys were feeling pretty good, and rightfully so.  Not ideal working with a tiny crew, but some days things work out, and at least for the next few shifts they would be the staff heroes.  Five years ago the Small City was light years ahead of this agency, but these days with our staffing changes we tend to cover more of their calls than they do ours.  It feels good when we do not require their services, though we always appreciate them coming out.

We were still motoring home to our various stations when the tones dropped again.  Chimney Fire, not too far off.  Same rigs, sans the Small City.

The heroes of E56 got the jump on the call, seeing as how they were aimed in the right direction and already rolling.  The address was on one of the main roads, easy to find. 

As long as it is on the main part of that main road.

Unfortunately, if you go far enough north, it veers off to other exciting locales and changes names, but if you turn off early and then wind around the back way far enough, there is another section of that road in line with the original, with the same name.  Aaaaaand you can see where this is going.

So, E56 asked for the Small City engine to go ahead and respond with us again, since they were short-staffed.  And then E56 went up the road to la-la land, and you could hear it in the officer's voice when he eventually said "in the area, attempting to locate" a couple of minutes after we expected him to arrive.  Not a good sign.

Small City engine was not fooled, and arrived first.  Tanker 56 was next, then me.  The first-due Engine 56 heroes, by the time they figured out what went wrong and had doubled back to correct for their ways, arrived fifth.

Fifth.

Small City engine canceled and cleared everyone before E56 could even exit the piece.

Ouch.

C'mon guys, read the map!  Hero to goat, just like that.

So they'll have to carry that mantle for a few days or weeks until someone else gains infamy.  Builds character.

Stay safe out there.  And Read. The. Map!

Look again, you probably missed something

There were four of us working that night when the tones dropped for a police assist.  They were asking for scene lighting for something.  It was about 0230, and I was the junior guy on a very cold wintry night, so seniority played a role in me being sent out alone with the utility rig while the other guys stayed warm inside and went back to sleep.

As I rolled up, there were about six police cars arrayed along the edge of one of the city parks with a gaggle of cops not too far off the road in the soccer field, standing next to a pile of clothing that looked like it had been collected elsewhere and dropped for further review.  I tried to figure out where the clothes might have come from so I could figure out where they might want me to park the truck, but it was a mystery.

So I walked on over towards and then around the pile of clothes to get some directions.  They seemed a little annoyed at my proximity to the pile and the body language was clear as they moved away that I should as well.  Just put the lights right there on that, they said, as if it was obvious.  And walk back to the road that-a-way, one of them added, pointing to a longer return route.

It was not until I fired up the generator and was raising the scene lights that I was able to get a better glimpse of the now lighted scene.  There were tire tracks all over the field and a lot of damage, looked like someone was doing donuts, typical midwestern hooliganism.  I was still perplexed, though, at what warranted such an extensive middle-of-the-night investigation.  Then the ME's van showed up..... the heck?

I just stayed in the truck and watched as the ME and cops conferred, and then as they walked over to the pile of....... holy cripes!

It's a frickin' BODY.  It had been run over several times.  There was not enough blood to draw my attention, apparently because the person was dead before being run over several times.

One of my career's most epic situational awareness fails, I was traipsing and blundering through a murder scene, atypical of the stereotype that cops have for firefighters in crime scenes.  Lived it out right there.  At least I could try to blame it on being the new guy without experience.  I am amazed to this day that the ten or so cops there showed such amazing restraint when I would have expected to get a new one torn open by them, and rightfully so.

Pay attention you guys, things are often not at all as they seem, even when you think you've looked everything over.  Chances are you've still missed something.  Try to not let that something be a murder victim's body.

As dawn was breaking, I was released to return to quarters, and broke the utility truck on the way when it snapped the serpentine belt, and I had to fight the power steering pump the rest of the way back.  When it rains, it pours.

Happens to All of Us

Beeeeep.

Engine 54, Engine 51, Engine 53, respond to a smell of smoke in a home.....

Upon my solo arrival in Engine 51, 54's crew was already in the house with the TIC trying to find the source of the burned plastic odor.  The air was clear, no visible smoke, but the smell was unmistakable.  I was directed to bring my TIC in as well, to help investigate inside, as nothing at all was visible from the outside.

We weren't making any progress by the time 53 arrived, and they were detailed with going around the perimeter outside with their TIC.

Furnace?  No problems.  Attic?  Nothing.  Electrical?  Nada.  Bad ballast in a fluorescent fixture?  Nope.  We kept coming back to the living room where the odor was strongest.

The fun part of this call was that the homeowner was a firefighter for the Very Large City Fire Department north of here across the county line.  He had tried to find the source for himself without success for quite a while, and eventually hit the point where he had to swallow his pride and call us in, because having your home burn down after you self-patrolled it for 30 minutes without successfully finding the source is much more embarrassing than having to call in the local firefighters.

Finally, it was Trev's voice: "Got it!".  He was by the wood stove, which the guy used to heat his home.  We had searched around it, behind it, checked the walls around it from the front and behind in other rooms, and had thoroughly inspected the chimney's path through to the roof several times and found nothing other than the normal and safe heat signature expected, with nothing unusual found to explain the odor.  Until Trev took a fourth long look, and was the first of us to look under it.

There, on the brick base near the fireplace, were three toy cars melted nearly into blobs, that Trev had scooped out from the 2" gap under the wood stove.

There you go.  Darn kids!

Don't worry homeowner firefighter from the VLCFD, it happens to all of us.  We won't tell.  At least we're not naming names.  And to be fair, it took us forever to find it, too.

--------------

Our prayers and thoughts go out to those affected by Hurricane Sandy and the brave souls working to keep everyone safe from harm and get the power back on.  Read of some freakishly amazing feats of courage and heroism by many out there.  Well done, and please make sure you get back home to your families in one piece.

Us and Them

Had a kid take a dip in a local lake, seems he and his brother and some friends managed to slip the childcare provider.

Engine 56, Engine 53, Engine 54, Medic 98, near-drowning at Lost Lake.....

I just happened to be at Station 53 on an unrelated chore and made the scene. We responded with purpose, anticipating someone maybe needing to be plucked from a rock in the middle of the water, with respiratory and/or thermal issues.

We didn't know it was a kid.

We also didn't know that he'd been missing for over half an hour before the call ever came out.

A not-very-cheerful recovery project followed. But, that's what we do. Can't always have fun and games and saves, right?

Damn it.

- - - - - -

Sorry for the lag in posts. Was off on a road trip family vacation. In fact, speaking of water rescue, several of my children and those of a family friend, with the other Mom, went tubing on the river. I was tasked to wait at the meeting point.

When they were almost an hour overdue, I started getting concerned. Started nosing around. Turns out they had made a massive situational awareness fail - that I also failed to catch - where they tubed down a different waterway and never passed me.

A quick check of the map showed them on a river with no realistic road access, deep in no man's land. There were perhaps three hours of daylight left, no phone coverage, and no idea in the world where they were, if they had gotten out or just went on, looking for civilization.

Drove a ways to a hill to get phone coverage and reached the Sheriff's Office. Turns out they were on a path to a couple of dicey river canyons. The Search and Rescue coordinator from the SO had a tone in his voice that induced a notable pucker factor. The SO started to scrounge up aircraft resources.

Expletive.

Long story shirt, they figured out the mistake, landed and scrabbled up a steep slope to the dirt road, where we stumbled on them by sheer dumb chance/luck, a good three miles from camp. A quick drive back to coverage and a call back to the SO to call off the help. And he didn't even taunt me for being a fireman and letting this happen. I had it coming, though.

Many lessons (re)learned which I won't burden you with, and our day blessedly did not end up like that of the family of the first bit above. A thin line separates "us" from "them" at all times, and a reminder to avoid complacency is in order once in a while.

- - - - - -

Going back to a second interview for a new power company dispatch job this week. Looks promising, but not a for-sure deal. I debated even bringing it up, but if I get the job it will likely mean a return to interesting power company stories of craziness experienced by the line and substation crews and the dispatchers, as it will place back me closer to the trenches, so to speak. Way more fun there. A pay cut, if necessary, will be worth it.

Stay tuned, and stay safe.

Snip

The new junior cadets are usually amusing to observe. They fall into a few different categories. I won't try to identify all of them, but some of the major names I use are "whacker", "zealot", "trooper", "student", and "roadkill".

Sometimes they move from one to the other over time. I try to move as many as I can into the "student" category, but some never escape where they started, and it is all you can do sometimes to simply keep them alive after they've been cleared for whatever reason to run calls with the duty crews. But we do manage to create an adequate number of decent contributors from them to make the effort worthwhile.

I used to just let them come along on whatever came up. When it was up to me, there were various unofficial loose limits that I would impose on their proximity to the subjects of the call, depending on what was up. That all changed on an otherwise fine late October evening when trooper cadet Sean was hanging out at the station.

Engine 61, Medic 61, car vs. pedestrian on the State Highway.....

That is never, ever good.

Sean was immediately excited, because he knew immediately that it was going to be a good call. As Jody, the senior medic, strode to the pole, Sean asked if he could ride the box. Jody didn't even pause, just nodded. I don't think Jody was thinking about Sean, he was already thinking about the good call, or rather how it wasn't going to be all that good.

I didn't think much of it either at the time, except for the aw crap sinking feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you pretty much know exceptionally bad things have happened leading to this 911 call. I just joined the procession to the apparatus floor to take my place on the engine.

Medic 61 got a pretty good jump on us, but we could see them way up ahead of us as they turned onto the onramp, with a deputy coming from the other way and following them onto the highway. We were just approaching the scene when Medic 61 cleared us. There was nothing for us to do. There were two deputies on the scene, blocking the highway, just a couple of cars stopped. Traffic was light. The Captain didn't argue, and likely was as relieved as I was that we were let go. Conveniently, there was a median turnaround just before the scene, and we took it.

It wasn't more than 20 minutes or so when Medic 61 was cleared. After we got back, someone said something about Sean being on there. Well, it is what it is.

Sean got out of the ambulance as soon as it stopped backing up, stone faced. Gave a few half-hearted grins with empty eyes, and went to the bathroom. He waved absently as he went home shortly thereafter.

We never saw him at the station again.

Jody told us that the victim was missing a leg, and they asked Sean to stay in the safe zone behind the blocking squad cars while they helped look for it. Doing as he was told, Sean did. Morbid curiosity probably drove him to examine the striking vehicle, a full-size pickup. And very bad luck led to Sean finding the missing leg, embedded deeply in the smashed front of the truck.

Not a good welcome to the job for young eyes. Just that fast, Sean went from trooper cadet, one with some promise, to roadkill. Violently.

Sean might have eventually been a valued contributing member to the service, but the trauma of what he'd seen snipped him before he could grow into the role.

I don't know where Sean is today, but I think about him from time to time. And I have tried very hard to not let another cadet or probie get snipped. Some still leave for whatever reason, but we don't have to help them out the door by unnecessarily throwing them in to the proverbial fire either. Now, I evaluate most every call before I let the cadets come along.

Go easy on the new kids and give them time to grow into the bleak tragedy we sometimes face. Don't snip them.

When Murphy Smites You

Worst winter storm of the year to date in full effect. A few feet of snow on the ground in a few short hours. High winds. Ice-inducing temperatures in the lower teens.

What winter storm would be complete without a structure fire?

I was out of position from home (why I was out in that weather is another story by itself). I drove straight to Station 54 to pick up Tanker 54, to follow the duty crew of first-due Engine 54.

When I next saw 54 was not on the scene of the fire, but about two miles from the station, where the pumper had decided is was not going to go any farther up the gentle hill.

Tanker 54 can go 4WD, and I was already in that mode. You know how on some calls you learn really unexpected useful things unrelated to the nature of the incident? Well, we learned that day that Tanker 54 can push Engine 54 bumper-to-bumper without so much as a blemish to either truck's bumpers.

Over the crest and down the hill, approaching the scene, E54 now had an opposite problem. It didn't want to stop. The engineer made a split-second decision. The choice was to pass the driveway, turn around and try to come back if you can make it up the hill, or ditch it right there and make do. He chose Plan B, and I won't second-guess that. I still doubt E54 would have made it back up the hill.

So there's E54, nosed into a snowbank in the ditch at the end of the driveway, tail end blocking half of the road. I was able to stop the tanker short, and we went to work.

We were humping a lot of hose in, and hauling equipment up the driveway. Other rigs were coming, but so far we had just four guys working the scene, with flames showing from the rear. The homeowner advised everyone was out, which was a relief.

Putting down a porta-tank was not a really practical plan at this point with me on the high side and opposite from where other units would be arriving from, so I set up to pump the tanker's water to the engine and get set up as a backup pumper. I switched the tanker into pump gear, and it quit.

WTF. You're joking.

Started it up, shifted to pump, quit.

Son. Of. A.

So porta-tank it was. I dropped it on the uphill side of E54 next to the E54 pump panel, but below me so I could gravity drain into it through a hose. And this whole call is going to crap.

Then we heard on the radio. Next-due Engine 56 was in the ditch, too. Lost it some miles away from us. But a snow removal crew was right there and was hooking them up to chains and heavy equipment to get them out.

Can you say defensive mode?

Engine 57 made it in, followed by Tankers 57 and 53, and finally we were getting somewhere, but it was mostly a spectacular Charlie Foxtrot despite all efforts to reign in the bad luck. There's only so much you can do in these cases, you know.

As luck would have it, and there was plenty of luck to spread around, the closest fill hydrant was a ways off on the downhill side of E54, so T53 and T57 were having to pump off their tanks uphill into the porta-tank, which is quite less than an ideal configuration. I would have preferred a downhill-side relay pumper by another porta-tank but it just wasn't happening.

On Tanker 57's second return, we found the pump panel compartment frozen closed. Are you freaking serious? Someone was a little over excited and didn't take enough care to completely close one of the outlet valves. It dribbled inside the compartment all the way back to the scene, caking ice along the bottom of the compartment door. A kind neighbor who came out with a thermos of coffee for the guys instead donated it to us so we could use it to melt off the ice and get to T57's water.

Engine 56 did eventually get extracted from their ditch and made an appearance, but this was a loser before the tones dropped. Sometimes that just happens. Sucks to come off like keystone kops to the neighborhood, but these were extreme circumstances and Murphy certainly brought a big stick to adjust some attitudes that day.

Hours later, as E54 was being extracted, I noted that the driver's window and mirror were smashed out. Seriously? What happened? The engineer related that, just prior to when we first met and pushed their engine up the hill, a chunk of the front left tire chain had come loose. It came around, tore the axe right off the side of the cab and launched it off the road into an anonymous snow bank (it wasn't recovered for days, until some snow melted), hardly paused on its way by while tearing off the shoreline cover, smacked into the mirror, and then deflected into the driver's window. Of course, that narrative summed up something that happened in about a quarter-second.

It was not a happy day for the E54 engineer. Or really for any of us. I learned a valuable lesson myself, something I had absolutely ZERO excuse for not already knowing: Tanker 54 will not pump when it is in 4WD.

Murphy enforced his law, just in case we were inclined to forget that it happens sometimes.

The homeowners were unhurt, and we all made it home as well, and that's what matters when you can't have it all.

Ugh.

Reflection

The internet is a strange thing. It is a great equalizer even while providing opportunities never before possible.

Michael Morse recently spoke of Blog Snobbery over at Rescuing Providence. It allowed me to reflect on why any of us blog about anything at all.

This blog is not all that popular in the world of Fire and EMS blogs, and I'd be the first to acknowledge that I'm not much of an expert, nor do I have years and years of inner-city or busy suburban fire and EMS experience from which to form my views.

As an aside, I am killing the top ratings of power dispatcher blogs. Woo hoo! Perhaps this is because, as far as I know, this is the only one out there.

It amazes me that I get any love at all, really. Most of my favorite blogs have added this one to their blogrolls. This astounds and humbles me. I am not worthy. When the blogs run by the Happy Medic and MotorCop were on the rise, I was inspired by their examples to start this one, from a mutual desire to vent a little on the side.

So I am sitting here tonight, thinking about my very young days. Even as a teenager when I realized firefighting was something I'd like to do, I remember visiting the fire station in my neighborhood to learn more and absorb from the guys. I remember their stories. Mostly laughs, a lot of rants, a few holy-crap-how-did-we-do-that moments, and every once in a great while someone would open up a little on bad calls.

I reflect on those guys, now all retired, part of a great generation of the fire service in the 70s and 80s. Bigger than life, and I know I can never measure up to that standard.

But somehow, thanks to the internet, I write a little blog. And I get readers who I esteem highly, that I would probably be afraid to approach at FDIC or Emmitsburg or wherever. I will never be able to accept that anything I write is ever going to measure up to how I look up to those guys from back in the day. Yet I continue to be - for lack of a better word, astonished - that I ever get quoted or commented on by so many whom I hold in high esteem.

Really, one day I am sure you guys will figure out that I really am a nobody. A dedicated and occasionally humorous one sometimes, but not otherwise a contributor of note.

This service is filled with nobodies. To those we serve, none of us are nobodies, though. While we are rarely recognized for what we do, I know that we make a huge difference. We are nobodies who work hard, train hard, live right, operate with integrity and honor.

Few of us will have our names written on anything that will see the light of day after five or so years of our retirements. But here we are.

I still can't comprehend that I am a card-carrying part of this brotherhood even after almost 20 years of membership. It means something, and is an exclusive group.

So I am forced to conclude that I am not a nobody, that none of us are. That we all are capable of contributing without going down in history.

And my part is to write a silly little whiny blog. A few laughs good for the heart, and maybe a couple of brothers who learn something about power lines enough to save their own lives or others.

That's worth it, I guess.

I'm not sure I ever made the point that I vaguely had in mind when I started rambling, but this seems like a good place for me to shut up and reflect some more.

---

Update late 4/15: Per the comment added by Chicken Little, see also this post at Firehouse Zen.

The Changing of the Passions

Mr. January (the best-looking Captain with our agency, nicknamed as a male pinup calendar picture) was standing next to me as we looked down the embankment. We had three relatively new guys with us on Engine 53, and had sent them down. Full of vim and vigor, rummaging and blundering through the brush and sticks, looking for a body, living or otherwise, they labored on. Fumbling with TICs and box lights, tripping over vines, getting branch whiplashes to the face. Occasionally looking under the upside-down car yet again. They were a determined crew, and wanted Mr. January's silent approval. They wanted to find the prize.

Behind us, the crews of Medic 98 and Engine 56 were packaging the guy who had been the passenger in the car, which was now missing almost its entire front section. How he got out of the car and climbed up here is anyone's guess. Considering that he should probably be dead, he's doing pretty well. Well enough to insist that his girlfriend was driving, and that she never wears her seatbelt.

We found his stuff in the car and strewn around, and not a shred of evidence - purse, makeup, clothing - to suggest a female presence. He gave us her cell number, and we called it. No sign of a ringing or flashing phone anywhere, and no answer. Car is registered in his name. Is this sounding familiar yet? Assumptions in this business can be a dangerous thing, but everyone knows that he was actually the driver, trying to duck the charges. Still, we played the game, and got plenty of just-in-case searching help from the deputies.

Mr. January just stood there. No smile, no frown, no emotion, as his kids continued to crunch around down there.

I reflected on why I wasn't down there with them. Nor the Captain. We agreed that having energetic greenhorns can be a good thing. I looked at him with a grin and asked a question.

Where's your passion? Nothing seems to excite you any more. Doing this too long?

This is me being passionate. You should see me when I am bored.

I can't tell the difference, then, you always look the same to me. Stone cold good looking, but unchanging.

That's because I'm always passionate about this job. Our young crew is doing a good thorough job down there, right?


Yes. Yes, they are.

They make me happy. They're enjoying what they do, and I am enjoying helping them enjoy what they do. You enjoy that, too, don't you?

Yes. Yes, I do.

Mr. January's passion isn't gone. It's just different. As is mine. Slowing down and staying calm isn't a loss of passion, it is a focus of it. Those who lose it, leave. Yet, here we are.

I hope I never lose it. Thanks for the reminder, Captain.

Still, I didn't feel too bad about letting the kids do the searching on the hillside. I'm getting slightly too old for that kind of play if it can be delegated. And sure enough, the girlfriend was finally awakened at home, oblivious to the events where we were.

Check your passion. It's probably still with you somewhere, so don't lose track of it.

Conflagration

Long post warning.

My father-in-law, a former Coast Guard officer, often regales us with tales of his days in uniform. He's an excellent storyteller, and I always like listening.

A few years ago he was telling the tale of a "conflagration" training drill, where multiple major contingencies happen all at once. The example he gave was a botched helicopter landing on deck resulting in a crash/fire/rescue incident, almost immediately followed by a torpedo hit, which indirectly caused a shipboard fire elsewhere on the vessel. That defines "oh crap", but was an excellent training tool in prioritization and improvisation, as all of those emergencies are critical, but none of them will get their nominal full standard response.

I designed and implemented a drill with that concept. It went well. I tell the tale here so you can perhaps lift the ideas and mold them into something you can use at your agency.

The setup: A traffic accident (into a power pole with wires down on the car, of course), with one patient, requiring extrication. After a fixed number of minutes into the incident, a fire in the spilled fuel would be simulated. A randomly-chosen response unit would be prevented from joining the response, and its crew withheld from the action other than to observe for the later review. After another fixed time interval, a serious-sounding but unrelated EMS call would be paged at a nearby address. Finally, at a randomly-chosen time (but after the command structure was set up), a random rescuer on scene would be "re-cast" as the victim of an accidental pedestrian hit-and-run by a driver passing the scene a bit too closely.

This was at a previous, all-volunteer agency, where the same people tended to get the station early on and drive certain rigs. The first order of business was to mix up the "normal" crews. Every member in attendance wrote their name on a paper keytag, and the tags were placed in a bowl. Drawn one at a time, a list was created from which the unit assignments and POV arrivals would be filled in the list order.

Prior to the drill, the units were also written on keytags, and one was drawn to be the withheld unit. Sweet. The first-due engine. That will mix them up. I rolled dice to set the number of minutes, after a formal incident commander was identified, that the car/ped event would take place.

The local auto recycler provided a car for us to tear up. It was placed adjacent to a wooden streetlight pole (not a power pole), and authentic distribution wire (courtesy of my power company employer) was draped over the car.

The members were informed which units they were assigned to, or if they were designated as POV arrivals, and the order of all arrivals. The members were NOT informed prior to the simulated page out exactly what it was we were doing tonight, other than that it would be a simulation of an incident. Then I "paged" the call over the training channel as a one-car vs. pole accident with wires down, no additional info.

And so it began.

Two POV arrivals were first on scene. The very first person approached the vehicle, stepped over the ditch, and steadied himself with a hand on the roof of the car as he removed his helmet (!!?) and placed it on the roof. I tapped on his shoulder and said "lie down, you're dead from electrocution". He whined about the mud. Too bad. Muddy is better than dead.

I told the second person that there was a flash and bang from where the first person had been, but it took them a moment to realize that the other person was in fact down. Two patients. This got fun real early. The remaining responder caught on and requested the power company. (C'mon you guys, you HAD to expect this angle from me of all people.)

The first due engine was told to go en route. Upon their arrival I directed them to park well out of the way, informed them that the simulation involved their unit being involved in a minor non-injury fender bender that disabled their apparatus, and they they should watch carefully and take notes on their observations.  The lone POV guy on scene so far was informed by radio that his first engine was not coming to play.

Two more POV responders arrived. They dragged the downed firefighter away and began treatment. I told them he was coded, and that tied all three of the initial responders up for the rest of the drill. Personnel resource management sucks in real life sometimes, and this drill was supposed to be worst-case real life, so be it.

The rescue arrived next. They had been en route before the engine was taken away, or else they would have brought the second engine. They had tools, and quickly set up for an extrication. I informed them that the power had been shut off by the power company, and they went right to work stabilizing the guy in the car (himself a randomly-chosen member) and started to work on his extraction.

Three more POV responders were trickled into the scene to see if they would freelance or integrate into the command structure, which still didn't actually exist yet. One of those three picked up on this, assumed command, and designated a safety officer. The keystone kops activity promptly began to subside. Good job.

The second engine arrived just as the fire timer came up. I informed everyone by radio that the underside of the vehicle was now on fire. The EMS crew with the downed firefighter scrambled to hurry up and move farther from the car, as they were downhill from it. The line was quickly stretched, its crew forgoing SCBAs, which I gave them a pass on considering the circumstances. Getting the line charged was delayed, because the randomly-chosen apparatus operator was not well-practiced on that engine, and it took an extra minute or two for the line to be charged. Unfortunately, the attack crew did not see the downed firefighter and three personnel working him behind the car, and pushed the "spilled fuel and fire" right at them. That was exciting.

More POV people were dribbled in, the Utility rig arrived with four personnel, and then the last couple of POV guys were allowed to join.

Fire more or less controlled, I then keyed up on the training channel and simulated a chest pain/difficulty breathing call about four blocks away. The IC was having none of it, replied requesting mutual aid from the next closest facility, and then ignored the new call entirely. This was the appropriate response considering our staffing and typical usage of mutual aid there. Good job.

Things were going sort of swimmingly, and the predetermined time arrived to throw the next curve ball. Who is going to be hit by a passing car? I grabbed the bowl of names and pulled one out.

You've got to be kidding, right? It was the incident commander's name. For realio.

So, I went over to him, tapped him on the shoulder, and told him to walk about 30' from the scene and lie down without saying anything. He actually laughed as he walked away.

It took maybe three or four minutes for anyone to notice the IC wasn't answering the radio, and a few minutes more before someone (the safety officer) became concerned enough to try to find out why. And then another minute or so to find him (it was dark). I'd say there was nearly a ten-minute delay between him being "struck", and him finally getting aid. That was not good.

Once it was announced on the air that the IC was down, disarray ensued. The safety officer became the defacto IC in the eyes of the crews, but the safety officer did not take that mantle. Eventually someone said something to prod him into the discussion, and a new IC was soon designated. Still, it was surprising how disorganized some things got in the fifteen or twenty minutes that there was no leader.

Once they had the (former) IC packaged up, the crews having started with one patient and ending with two patients and a dead firefighter, I stopped the drill.

What did we learn? What did we reinforce?

• Everyone needs to be familiar with all of the equipment. You never know when you're going to get assigned to a job you don't usually do, and you better know how to do it.
  
• Situational awareness 1. Frankly it blew my mind that the first guy got himself whacked (let alone took off his helmet, WTF?). He was snippy at me for a long time after this, because it made him look bad. This was not my fault, and the lesson was learned by all, so whatever pal.
  
• Situational awareness 2. The attack crew did not evaluate the scene adequately to determine what was behind the fire, and the patient care crew working on the downed firefighter did not realize that the burning car was between them and the engine. The safety officer also failed to pick up on this problem. Thankfully, the patient was on a board and they moved fast enough that I didn't ding them with burns and respiratory injuries (which would have generated three more patients), though it crossed my mind.
  
• Command. Establish it early! Form a somewhat self-healing command tree.
  
• Law enforcement. The brothers in blue are your friends. We could have simulated using them for traffic control and to assist with nearly every task that was short-staffed, but not even one person on the scene though about calling them in to help.
   
• Resource management when things are dire requires quick and decisive decision making, mad triage skills, and the willingness to cut your losses.
   
• Doing an unannounced drill does a much better job of exposing your weaknesses by simulating real life, where personnel do not have a time period to think about what they're going to be doing before being neck deep in it.

It was one of the most productive training drills I ever organized, and a lot of really excellent points were made in the debrief round table.

Try this idea out at your place, and let me know how it goes. If you send me your review, and with your permission, I'll post it here on the blog. grumpydispatcher [at] gmail

A Couple of Demerits

Arrived by myself in Engine 51 to a truck off the road with some front end damage.

On the other side of the road, some people were kneeling in the ditch.

No one is in or by the damaged truck

Are you serious?  You whacked a deer and called 911 so we can save the deer?

Wrong.  Two demerits for me, for jumping to early conclusions.

I spent about ten minutes as the only firefighter on the scene, trying to get the guy to cooperate.  No seatbelt, drinking, smacked a tree, involuntarily used his lower abdomen to push the bottom of his steering wheel into the column. Wouldn't let me put a cuff on him or get lung sounds or anything. Pretty whiny when I touched his belly, though. At least his feeble struggle against me told me what I couldn't get from his vitals: Enough blood was still going round and round for him to function up to that point.

Sometimes those drunks walk away.  Not this time.  Though he gets two stars for trying, seeing as how he made it to the other side of the road before collapsing.

Eventually, more help started to finally show up.  About 25 minutes after that, the helicopter took him away. Dude was seriously messed up.

I will never, ever get tired of calling for a helicopter and watching them take my patient away.  I don't know what it is, but I always get goosebumps watching them take off with a hot one.

Last I heard, he's still alive.  Amazing.

And then I got to go to that housewarming party I was on my way to in the first place. They still had beer, so it was all good.

.......

And by the way, I apologize for the misleading title of the last post.  There was nothing at all about the literal "truth" about lying.  It was just a catchy title that I wasn't bright enough at the time to realize was misleading.  If you didn't notice, then go ahead and forget you read this paragraph.

Losing Sight of the Purpose

I cannot explain - maybe some of my readers can - the train of thought that prompts some of my brethren to place apparatus wheel chocks at an angle to the tire.

Wheel chocks are designed to take the brunt of a rolling tire square on, so as to evenly transfer the force against the lower far edge of the chock to the ground.

Placing the chock at an angle creates imbalanced transfer of forces, inviting lots of interesting new scenario outcomes. One interesting possible outcome is the violent launching of the wheel chock.

So, seriously, why do some guys do this? Maybe I should ask, I admit I have not done so. The only thing I can come up with is that it makes it easier to see from the mirror so you don't miss it and leave it behind and/or drive over it.

If you do your walk around and practice good apparatus operator habits, this should not be a problem. That said, I've driven over a few wheel chocks myself.

But, I digress.

I recently came across this wheel chock deployment on Engine 55.

When you reach the point of modifying your practices so far that you nullify the point of the practice in the first place... well, I don't know what to call your behavior, but wake up and pay attention to what you're doing, please. Seriously.

I took the proper steps to get this corrected here. If it's happening at your place, here's your chance to see what lies ahead and why you should nip it now.

That is all.

Lessons Learned and Reaffirmed

Got dropped for a traffic accident, details unknown.

First unit arrives in the area, nothing found. How many callers? Just the one.

This is the same result we get when someone pulls over to tie down the junk in their pickup truck, or somehow has driven into a ditch but is able to self-extract before drawing too much attention. Other units on the way back off a bit.

Initial unit decides to go a few more miles to be sure.

Whoa. Good call.

First unit makes it just over one more mile, and then comes on the air reporting a car vs. semi accident, all lanes totally blocked, and with a fuel spill.

Those of us that backed off, un-backed off.

Lesson Reaffirmed: It isn't an unfounded call until proven to be unfounded.

Turned out there was no other car. All those bits of wreckage assumed to be the remains of a splattered passenger vehicle were actually from the truck. He just ran off the road, hit the hillside, then jacknifed back onto the roadway. Just the one patient, and though he's clearly had his bell rung and is bleeding from many superficial locations, he'll probably be fine. The truck cab ended up on the far side of the cargo trailer from the arriving medic, and both sides of the blocked roadway are essentially impassable to an ambulance cot. Not going to be easy to go around the trailer safely, but the vehicle is stabilized, upright, and secured, and there is some room in front of the trailer axles....

Lesson Learned: An ambulance cot, when fully lowered, just fits under some of those low-riding moving company cargo trailers - as long as there is room between the trailer axles and the bottom compartments.

We ran out of absorbent, as catching all the fuel from the nearly-full saddle tank was beyond our first-response capability. But wait, when we checked through the hole in the moving company's cargo trailer to perhaps identify potential hazards, it was found to be empty save for several bales of furniture padding blankets. Ding. We hauled a bunch of those out and laid them on the spill.

The haz mat cleanup contractors showed up, and approved of the method with a nod and a chuckle.

Lesson Reaffirmed: In a pinch, remember to think (and look) outside the ol' box. Or in this case inside the box.

Just another day of taking care of business, really, which is what we're here for.

Sorry for the previous drought of posts. I went overboard and ran out of creative things to write about. Not that I was ever creative before, or that this post is creative now. Blah blah blah. Y'all that still hang around and aren't tired of my act are so patient with me, and I appreciate that.

Keeping It Real

Just minding my own business, hobnobbing through the Station 53 area, when the tones dropped for a medical fairly close to my location.

When I'm not on a shift, I don't just jump every call, because the duty crews generally have enough help along, but this was a COPD patient with difficulty breathing or speaking. Don't have to think twice, as in my location I'll be first in and can start getting the ducks aligned before the cavalry arrives.

It's a pretty routine call, really. The guy is not in great shape, but he's not circling the drain just yet, either. I don't carry a full med kit in my car (though I probably should since I do drop in now and then), but I'm not doing any procedures that create an exposure situation. I mean, common sense here.... if I met the guy on the street, I would not put on gloves to shake his hand. I'm just writing down information and getting the most basic of vitals.

Engine 53 arrives with more help than I expected. Three cadets are along for the ride. Fresh, a little uneasy, but wanting to be in it. Remember that feeling?

I let the E53 guys move in and take over while I rattle off the patient info and high points that I've gathered, and take up a position by the cadets. I like teaching, keeping them involved. Any time I get asked to do something, I walk one of them through it. When Medic 97 arrives, I take a cadet out to the ambulance to show him how to remove the cot, lower the wheels, lift the hook. It's all new to him. I make him do it all so it is hands on.

I like teaching. I like feeling confident, in the know, and showing the new guys how its done.

Back inside, I am asked to get a blood sugar reading. I grab the glucoscan kit, and am twisting off the lancet cover, when the captain taps me on the shoulder.

Gloves, he says, eyebrows up.

Holy crap. I was totally in tunnel vision, and never grabbed gloves when the guys arrived. I know better. I sheepishly hand the kit to the next guy and step aside to get gloves on.

One of the medics asks me to change out the cannula, and go high flow. I grab the NRB, hook it up, check the LPM and go to place the mask.

Holy crap. I grabbed a ped mask and didn't check it. The medic gives me a look. I get another mask. I know better.

We get the patient on the cot and head outside. I see my truck with the flashers on, positioned to be visible from the road to draw in the other units. The Medic is really close to me.

Holy crap, I nearly blocked their good access. I am constantly riding people about making sure to leave lots of room for the ambulance to get in and out. They managed, but my truck could have been spotted a lot better.

I like teaching. I like teaching the new guys what to do. Well, they learned some things today. I cashed in a few too many examples of how NOT to do things.

Didn't affect patient care, but it's good to get a little smackdown on your confidence to remind you of things now and then.

I was due, apparently. All that confident, self-righteous power dispatcher attitude is hard to swallow back down. Keeping it real reminds me that I am not all that and a bag of chips, either.