The popularity of the Fireman Mike video I linked to has spawned quite the collection of tributes. Through that link I have found dozens of hospital and firefighter related videos that have me rolling.
Then I get a message from the Angry Captain to check my facebook page for an update. I found this.
I can’t wait until retirement.
And I can’t wait until I can dance like that cartoon.
Posted with permission of the Blog Master of the Universe and is all in good fun.
This month’s handover draws from our friends across the interwebs stories of close calls. Times when they or their patients, colleagues or family almost didn’t make it. I was inspired to make this the theme not just because of the holiday weekend here in America, but to remind us all that we are fragile and put ourselves out there sometimes. Hopefully one of these links rings back when you’re in an unsafe or curious situation.
Found with the Where did the angry guy go files-
“What do we do?” asked Eric, his eyes wide.
“I don’t know about you two,” I said, “but I’m about to jump through that window over there. I don’t know if that guy’s getting a gun or what.”
by Buckman who runs Gomerville
From the I don’t think you should be driving file-
“I was overwhelmed by the dreadful realization that I had just accepted a ride from a highly intoxicated snowmobile rider and we were hurtling through the dark northwoods at 70+ miles per hour.”
from Greg Friese of, among many, Every Day EMS Tips.
From the Thank God you’re driving category-
“This was a serious incident. This was no routine, boy, we almost had an accident. This was my death.
I don’t know if my partner would have stopped on his own if I hadn’t shouted. Maybe. Maybe he had it all under control and was already getting ready to hit the brakes.”
from Peter Canning, a new contributor to the FireEMSBlogs family, at StreetWatch:Notes of a Paramedic
In a section titled simply Gulp
“Jill and I found him lying on the floor, fully clothed and in a coat, eyes shut, but eyelids flickering. An almost certain sign of pseudo-unconsciousness. A fake. I took a step back and called out to him. Jill was still standing by the front door, uncertain how to proceed. Something still felt wrong, so I asked her to go and call for police back up. With hindsight, I should have gone with.”
writes Ben Yatzbaz, resident Insomniac Medic
Found in the Basement selection
“This moment, this intense moment, was where I made a decision the likes of which I hope I never have to make again. I knew that if I stayed more than a few moments longer, I would suffocate and burn to death right there on that floor.”
from our pal Chris Kaiser at Life Under the Lights
From the lost in the snow pile-
“Dear God, they’re working a search pattern. Please, not tonight. It’s not mutual aid to another fire department; they’re working a grid search with the police. I grab my boots, then pad to the garage to check the fluids in the IV warmer. Anyone caught in this weather without shelter will be near death, if not there already.”
by Mack505 at Notes from Mosquito Hill
From the trust your guts file-
“I give my partner the “time to leave pronto” hand gesture. “Code 3, hurry up”. I give a little oxygen and attempt the IV enroute with no success. I realize that something is not going well for this patient and I don’t have the means to diagnose or fix the problem.”
by Rescue Monkey of Paramedic:Life on the Streets
From the Old School section-
“The smoke level now was to the floor as I grasped the hose line to find my way out. The urge to rip off my mask was strong but my training had taught me this would be fatal for sure.”
by HMHQ Contributor the Angry Captain
and finally, from the Hmmm…that looks wrong category
“A back board was brought up and one of the other Paramedics on the engine teams attended to him pulling off his jacket. Justin asked us if the building was still on fire. We we told him that yes, it was still on fire, he asked us to put his jacket back on. Not completely out of it.”
from yours truly and the event that launched me into the blogosphere.
Next month’s handover will be hosted by Ambulance Driver, theme TBD, watch his space for details as they develop and, above all else, be safe.
HM Clear.
This month’s EMS Blog Carnival, the Handover, will be hosted here and the theme is “Close Calls.” With November in the US including Thanksgiving, I thought what better time to share an experience when we had that thought go through our mind “I/they might not make it.”
Send in your submissions about a time when you, a patient, or someone you know had a close call and I’ll put them together to share. If just one person can use that information to make their job safer, then we’ll have succeeded.
So with that theme in mind, here is the Angry Captain’s Close Call.
8:30 pm February 1982
The call: Structure fire, “house across the street has black smoke coming from it.”
It is a cold winter night with temperatures well below freezing; we are in a relief unit that had no inboard seats so I was belted in on the tailboard. On arrival, we found a residence with black smoke pouring from the rear. Reportedly, no one was home.
The home is typical for the area in that the base of the home started as a house trailer with several additions around it. As the first engine to arrive, we pulled a 200’ preconnect and forced entry on a side door that appeared to be the entry. The captain and I crawled in below the smoke and worked our way through a maze of doorways to what appeared to be a fully involved kitchen area. The ceiling was flashing over as I trained the nozzle at the base of the fire. Suddenly, my air pack warning bell went off.
We could not have been on air much longer than 5-10 minutes. I patted the captain on the back to notify him that we needed to back out. He gestured for me to head out and took the nozzle from me. My training from my previous department was never to leave anyone alone in a fire. As I turned, my air pack quit entirely; no air at all. The smoke level now was to the floor as I grasped the hose line to find my way out. The urge to rip off my mask was strong but my training had taught me this would be fatal for sure. Holding my breath was all I could do as I struggled to focus on following the line out amid my disorientation from lack of oxygen. As I moved along, I remember hearing a loud mechanical sound further confusing my strange journey through this black maze. The sound grew louder as I slowly followed the hose line hand over hand in the seemingly longest moments of my life.
Suddenly light appeared as the noise grew to a roar, but I crawled out, finally ripping off my face mask, gasping for air, and collapsing in a snow bank. My next memory was lying on the gurney in the back of the ambulance. At the hospital, they ran blood gas tests and flooded me with plenty of O2. As my color returned to normal (apparently I was quite gray), I was told that they found me outside our entry point where the truck had hung a mechanical fan at the top of the doorway for ventilation. (The loud disorientating mechanical sound.) I am not sure how long it was that I lay there in the snow bank before I was noticed. But Mrs. AC got the frightening call about 11 pm to pick me up at the hospital….no one likes that call.
Lessons learned:
1. The air pack I was wearing was found to be working properly back in a warm station house and in fact still had about ½ its air. The speculation at the time was that the moisture in the diaphragm froze causing it to stop the air flow. Had it been checked at the scene, it could have provided the exact problem.
2. Never allow a member to leave alone or leave a member alone in a fire. This was long before 2 in 2 out.
3. Always follow your training; i.e. following the hose line out and keeping your mask on in heavy smoke.
4. Do not block the egress of the hose line with ventilation. Had I been on all fours coming out feeling ahead with my hands, my fingers may have been lost to the whirling fan.
This was a true wake up call for me and cemented in my mind how important my training had been and how things can go wrong in a matter of seconds.
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:
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?
Don't worry Johnny, one day we'll be recognized as a profession rather than a trade, just you wait.
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