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OK, I’ll tell you

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Well Captain Tom, you asked…

“OK HM, It’s November. When does 999 land in SF?”

…and I’ll answer.  Sunday.

Paramedic Team Leader Mark Glencorse will be the guest of the San Francisco Fire Department beginning on Sunday November 8th, when he touches down at SFO.  From that moment until he departs on the 16th we will be comparing our systems at the ground level, care giver to care giver.  No “company line” no prepared statements, just two friends meeting and getting the low down on what is really happening in each other’s systems.

Later this week I’ll be adding links to the sidebar here at HMHQ to help you follow along on our experience.  Follow us on twitter @thehappymedic and @ukmedic999.  The new slideshow on the right hand side there is the Project Flickr slideshow.  That will certainly be added to as we go along.  Daily if not hourly.

Then there is the youtube channel we established that many of you are already following (subscribed to).  We have decided that the visiting medic will do his best (nights of drinking aside) to do a nightly update as to the day’s activities, impressions and thoughts.  Mark will of course be updating you mostly at first, then I’ll start when I arrive in Newcastle on the 19th.

We are both not only representing our Departments but, more importantly I think, the power of this new creature we all have come to embrace, social media.  Twitter, Facebook, blogs, online news, flickr, IM, SMS, all these amazing on demand services at our fingertips and we’ve harnessed them for a good cause, making ourselves better care givers.

So not to make this another boring “the Project is coming” post, maybe something new?

Since the official SFFD press release went out today I guess it’s fair to tell you who I am.

the Happy Medic is, and always has been, Justin Schorr, a Firefighter/Paramedic currently employed with the San Francisco Fire Department.

ems6That’s me with the patches-Photo Credit SF Chronicle.

I hold a Bachelor’s of Science in Emergency Medical Services from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine where I studied under Larry Cobb and Rick Lynn, to name a few.  I was one of the first 10 graduates of the BS in EMS (no giggling) program there and was one of 4 to first stand within the School of Medicine group to graduate (God they hated that!)

My career started as a Fire Explorer, then as a volunteer firefighter getting hired at 18 with a small Indian Reservation outside Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Talk about rural EMS.

I later moved on to a small suburban department struggling to find it’s identity with a strong Public Safety model that relied on fire trained police officers to assist when emergencies struck.  It was there that I learned the best way to confirm a house has been ventilated prior to forcing the door is to do it yourself.

Now I find myself in beautiful San Francisco and raising my family.

So there you have it.  The first official, documented privacy violation of the Happy Medic, my own.

See you at the big one,

HM

Mark’s Orientation to the SFFD

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Mark,

and the entire interwebs,

I planned on writing a long post about the ins and outs of working in the City and County of San Francisco, but figured a mini-series might do better.

A few years back, film maker David Furtado with Tule Fog Productions, shot a webisode, webi…web…heck it looks like a real TV series, so I’m using “TV series” here in San Francisco.  It is called The Battalion.

Watch the pilot, then keep watching until you feel ready.  You can access the player through THIS link and click on the episodes on the right hand side, just start with episode 1.  I was not part of the filming at the time.

In a related piece of news, you can now follow the Battalion- the Series on twitter at @the_Battalion.  they’re currently trying to get the series on A&E in the states.  All of you drop by the site and have a link over to A&E and tell them to get more real firefighting shows on TV!

Sunday Fun – And we’re walking, and we’re walking…

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the Angry Captain recently returned from spending my inheritance his well earned retirement in Washington DC and New York City.  He and Mrs AC(Ma!) had a wonderful time and were tech savvy enough to send constant updates via PDA to facebook.  The HM jrs also got a number of postcards in the mail, which still makes their eyes light up.

Angry, at first, sent photos of DC fire units responding or parked near his double decker tourist bus.  For those of you not in an area where these giant red buses block traffic on a regular basis, when you’re in the jump seat of your engine you’re just high enough for the folks up top to get a possibly embarrassing picture.

As the trip progressed they started posting pictures of the Tomb of the unknown Soldier, the Korean War Memorial and some other really emotional stuff.

Later, the NYC pics showed more fire apparatus, since they were right near E54 L4 in the theater district.  No surprise there.  Then they trekked to the Today show with giant posters so the grandchildren could pick them out and sure enough, there they were up front, signs clearly visible and Ann Curry talking to the folks next to them with no signs who were simply squealing.  Dang media.

But the reason I share this all with you is because no matter where we travel we seem to find ourselves passing by a firehouse or ambulance posted and want to say hello.  But what to do then?  Years ago I developed a walking tour of San Francisco that takes you around the original Station 1, Coit Tower, the fortune cookie factory, the building used to film Towering Inferno and a brief walk down the street where the great fire of 1906 decimated one side, but the firemen saved the other.  The difference in architecture is clear.

I’ve tested the walk on friends before, but the real test will be Mark when he arrives 2 weeks from today.  Hopefully it will go well and he’ll tell you all about it, with pictures.  If he approves it, I’ll post up a map and things to see so when you come to San Francisco you won’t be chasing sirens like I was in Chicago a few years back just to say hello and buy a T-shirt.

BUT – A few rules on visiting San Francisco Firehouses:

We do not trade patches on account of we don’t wear them.  Only the Ambulance EMTs and Paramedics and Firefighter/Paramedics wear patches, so if you ask to trade you’ll get an odd look and an offer to post your patch on their wall.  Most houses’ patch walls are quite elaborate with Station 2 having easily hundreds.

Lunch is at noon, dinner often at 7, so 1130-130 and coming by after 6 PM is not usually the best time to visit.

Each house has it’s own logo and T-shirts, sweatshirts etc.  We do not sell the official screen printed T-shirts in the stations, don’t ask.  Those are issued to us and us only.  But usually the members of the house are more than happy to show you their extensive collection of Company apparel.  Some houses even have websites like Station 1.

And I’ll leave you with a quick video so Mark can get ready for his engine time:

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That will be UK Paramedic Team Leader Mark Glencorse responding with Engine 13 (Engine 35 in this video) in a little over 2 weeks.  Are you ready Mark?