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Tuesday, December 19, 2006

My first fatality

I was staying over my girlfriend's house and it was snowing heavily. The pager went off about 2:15 AM for reports of a jacknifed trailer on a major highway near her apartment, Route 17. I jumped in my front-wheel drive car and slipped and skidded my way to the firehouse. When I got there, we heard chatter on the radio about a possible fatality. I looked at my Lieutenant with a little bit of fear since I haven't seen one yet. We jumped on the engine very quietly and creeped our way through the snow and ice to the scene.

We parked the engine a little bit down the road and we could see the 18-wheeler that had spun out of control and was jacknifed with the rear of the cab smashed up against a huge concrete divider. It was still very dark so we took some hand-lights and started approaching. The chief called us on the radio that there was no spill therefore no need for any speedy-dry.

As we got closer to the trailer we got better visibility and the windshield was totally knocked out and I could start to see that the driver was hanging out of the front of the cab. Closing in even more, it was evident to me that the top of his head was partially severed and some of its contents had spilled onto the snow in front of the truck. I looked at my Lieutenant and said "...is that what I think it is?" and he said "Yup. Stay with me."

As we walked up to the trailer we confirmed what we thought. He was dead on impact and his head was indeed busted open and its contents were partially exposed. A few of us stood there for a few seconds looking before my Lieutenant told us to go back by the Engine since there was no longer anything we could do. No stabilization of the vehicle was necessary since it was pinned up against the column and there was no extrication to be made until a coroner could get on location, which they said could be several hours. About an hour later we were sent back to the firehouse while the Chief and Police waited for the coroner.

I didn't sleep the rest of that night and images kept popping in my head of what I saw. I called another fireman the next day and talked for about an hour about it. I thought I was the only one affected until we had a meeting at the firehouse the following night to discuss the events. A special trauma team came in to talk to us a few nights later, and they encouraged us to talk more amongst eachother and not to act like tough-guys and bottle the emotions in.

Very difficult to see things like this, whether one has already seen it or if it's just the first time.

Saturday, December 9, 2006

Freezing Housefire

There was a fireman's funeral in Carlstadt and I was working at home. About 10:20 AM we get toned out for a basement fire that Police Dept. quickly confirmed. We got to the firehouse and rolled out really light, maybe 3 guys total. This was my second fire out of fireschool so my cherry was popped but I was still hyped up.

It was about 25 degrees out and the wind was whipping fast. We pull up and as I walk down the sidewalk towards the rear, I meet John K, Lou and B. Woods. We get a line stretched to the back and start scotting up as dark smoke is pushing up back at us. There was about 5 steps to the basement, where visibility fell to about 30% in a dark haze. No fire to be found but the smoke was thick.

I dropped down to my knees and realized I was kneeling in about 8 inches of water. Apparently the fire was above us and to the left and was hot enough to melt a water pipe, causing water to flow down the wall. We all searched the basement when the windows were finally taken from the outside. John K stuck the nozzle out a window and fog-vented it and we then realized the burst water main had probably knocked the fire down.

When we went upstairs, we found one room that had no floor as the fire had eaten it up about 50%. Good thing things were clear enough to see this before mistakes were made. When I got out, the sloped driveway was slick with ice from our fog-vent. Down towards the truck, my wet fire jacket froze from the wind until it was a block of ice that i could crack just by bending it.

I left the scene early to get new boots since mine were filled halfway with icy water from the basement. Then John K calls my cell and said everyone on the scene was looking for me. I made the mistake of not telling the officer I was leaving the scene, stupid probie mistake, and I got severely repremanded for it.
Later on, a picture similar to the one on the left won an award and we all got tshirts for free with it on the back.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

First Fire after graduation

I got dicked on Eval, so I was in my month (seemed like a lifetime) waiting period until the next Eval. Of course I knew we'd get work within that month so I was being a rebel. I put a Scott on at every call, and went into every building for every CO and False Alarm that we had. The other companies hated it, and even my own captain gave me a whole bunch of shit over it.

Anyway, part of my rebellion was taking the shield off my helmet - that dreaded, horrific orange P for "please let me do something." Well low and behold, like 2 days later we got a working fire on grove street. We were all hyped up on the engine, as usual, and Artie woods told me and john to go in with him. We took a handline in through the front door after masking up and crawled up a small staircase to a dining room. There was a lotta smoke. Artie was on the nozzle, with John behind him and I was behind John.

Artie's knees hurt so he backed off and John and I moved up a spot, putting me right behind the front man. A chair kept falling onto John and he kept pushing it off, so I grabbed it with one hand and launched it across the room. Then Moses pushed his way to the front and took the nozzle from John, but John took it back. Someone threw a stuffed Finding Nemo overhead and it ripped open, sending little foam balls all over the place - it was so chaotic. We moved to the edge of the kitchen which was to the floor with smoke.

John put some water around but we couldn't see the flames. I saw some orange glow above us in the kitchen so i pointed it out and John put some water on it. After a while we made no progress and backed down the stairs, where an eager members of another company took the nozzle (later claiming that we bailed out.)

I went to the side of the house and saw a hoseline was burnt open on the ground. We then stood on the side of the house next door and watched the fire through a huge hole in the roof but had no handline to put water on it.

The rest was a surround and drown.