So when I got home from the firehouse this morning and Juli asked "Did you do anything last night?" and I answered "Nothing much..." it made me stop and think about all that did happen last night. Then I thought  if I told her everything that happened she probably wouldn't believe that I considered it "nothing". You be the judge...

So I am working Nights this week, I show up around 4 PM and relieve my guy. I start by taking his gear off the Truck and putting mine on. I'm driving Engine 17 this month (we rotate our responsibilities every month) so I check the truck out making sure everything is there and ask the Driver that is leaving, "What's going with the Truck?" and as usual he says "Nothing..." even though it's parked in a different bay. You would think that would warrant an explanation but apparently he has somewhere to go and isn't feeling very chatty. It's really not a big deal to the Day guys but when your working Nights it causes all sorts of problems when you're half asleep and things aren't where you expect them to be. Especially big things like Fire Trucks.

So I finish my checks and wander into the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee. I'm reminded that I have to do an  Accident review tonight.  You see I was rear ended on my last Day trick by some idiot who apparently didn't think I should have parked the Fire Truck where I did. This same idiot who after he wrapped his Hyundai around the back of the truck informed me that he was "not afraid to go to jail again" and that his "cousin Pookie was in County" and that he would really like to see him again. Of course, this made the Police suspicious about the idiot and so after a quick look around they found the 40 oz Malt liquor bottle that his pregnant girlfriend (she was also in the car...) was hiding in her shirt.

My Lieutenant comes in and takes me upstairs to see the Deputy Chief and the Safety Officer who will conduct my review. I don't say  much and come out pretty much unscathed. I'm am told I could have put my Emergency lights on and it may have prevented the accident. Apparently a big RED Fire Engine sitting in the afternoon sun against the curb doesn't stand out enough and we need to add the flashing lights to make sure it's visible to people who might have their vision obstructed by an extra large bottle of malt liquor.  Great way to start the trick...

I get a reprieve from MOST of the driver safety lecture because we get dispatched to a possible "Jumper" on a bridge over the expressway. Hopefully they will give the rest of this lecture to the idiot that hit me.

We get to the bridge and after a few minutes but by then our "jumper" has decided that she doesn't really want to jump so wanders over to the Police who put her into an Ambulance. We head back to the firehouse to start dinner. It is Rich's turn to bring dinner in and Rich likes Chicken so I am fairly sure what is for dinner tonight. We only get one call while we are trying to make dinner. It is a Trouble Breathing call in the high rise down the street. We arrive before the ambulance, stabilize the guy and package him for transport . They drag him off the hospital and we go back to the house to finish dinner. 

While we are eating we, of course, get another call, I always joke that my Lieutenant reminds me of my mother, neither one of them has eaten a hot meal in front of me ever. That and the fact that they both yell at me for goofing around all the time... (note: I did not remember what this call was I had to look it up on the computer) It was for a MVA (motor vehicle accident with people trapped in the car). 90% of people trapped in MVA's are something as simple as unlocking their car door or releasing the seatbelt but who are we to judge. We arrived to find nobody trapped everyone was walking around and members of both families running around screaming at everyone else. Yes I said families, many people call their families first then 911, trust me it's VERY common. It also makes our jobs WAY harder. It makes it so much easier to work in a HUGE unruly crowd.

After the MVA we returned and ate the rest of our cold chicken and rice, I refused to eat cold corn-on-the-cob (you have to draw the line  somewhere...) but the other guys enjoyed it. We cleared the table and did the dishes and hung out for a few before we had to go out and inspect Hydrants.

Every Summer we get a list of the Hydrants we are responsible for this year. Every hydrant in the City gets checked. We make sure the caps aren't stuck or stripped and that they will actually flow water. Also every summer we are bombarded with the same question when we stop in front of every hydrant and start checking it. "What are you guys doing?"  So me, being me,  I have to have fun and test my Lieutenant's patience a little (he is up for sainthood this year by the way...) by giving what I feel are amusing answers to this stupid question.  My personal favorites are; "That we are flushing the alligators out of the sewer pipes." or telling everyone, "That people are putting fake fire hydrants all around the City and we are trying to figure out which ones are real or not."  I also tell them. "We lost the list that tells us where all the hydrants are and we are going around looking for them all." then I ask them. "If they have seen any other hydrants around there."  After checking hydrants for a couple hours we rode around the district for a while and caught another Garage fire. It wasn't much, went out with one hose line and after we cleared in out and sprayed it down we went back to the firehouse. 

At the station we watched a little TV and made our bunks for the trick. Then we got a call for a stabbing. The dispatcher tells us that we are going for a 25 year old male that stabbed himself with a screwdriver. On the way there, they update us that there is a family trouble at the location and there are no Police dispatched yet. My boss tells me to stage down the block from the address and wait for the police. Well I guess I didn't stage far enough away because everyone decided to bring the show outside to us. It starts out with one girl holding a baby running out to the truck. We take her aside and calm her down ask her what's going on. I assumed that the guy running out next with all the blood on him was the guy who was stabbed but I've been wrong before.

The bloody guy is getting screamed at by another guy who is apparently upset about the bloody guy laying his hands on his niece. If you are having trouble following this just imagine an episode of Cops but with no Cops yet just firemen. Ok, now these 2 are screaming at each other and a few other girls are screaming and we are just waiting for the Police. Yes before you ask it was very hard to just stand there and not try to help but you'll see why you can't just rush in later. (PS: I wanted to run over there but my LT reeled me in a few times.) The ambulance is staging about 2 blocks away also waiting for the Police.

The cops arrive and all hell breaks loose the guy takes a swing at the bloody guy and the cops cuff him and put him in the back of the cop car. The they keep telling bloody guy to sit down so we can help him and he won't, he keeps running around yelling at everyone and generally being an ass. After 20 or 30 times the cop tries to sit him down and gets a whole lot of attitude. (Note: most Cops, firefighters and Paramedics consider a bloody person to be a deadly weapon) So this guy is running around splashing blood all over everything. Well out comes the Taser, a little shouting and the guy still doesn't listen, and apparently he doesn't meet the Taser criteria (whatever that is) so he gets forcefully taken down and cuffed. The cops do a quick search before we do anything for him and they find a nice sharpened screw driver in his pocket. Of course he told everyone that he didn't have any weapons or anything in his pockets. We check him out he is not bleeding to death and call the ambulance in and they drag him off to the Hospital under Mental Hygiene Arrest.

We clean up go back to the firehouse it's 1130 or so and we watch try to watch "Saw" the movie that somebody brought in. If you never saw "Saw" my advice is don't see "Saw" unless you got time to see the whole thing straight through. It's a horrible firehouse movie if you catch a run you are completely lost, and of course, we caught a run and I am now completely lost...

So somebody thought the fire they saw on the roof of a building was an actual fire and called 911 when it was actually guys putting on a new Tar roof. It took us a while to find this fire that wasn't a fire because of course we are looking for a fire not a roofing operation. Plus the fact that people never give the correct address when they are driving  by, they say "it's the house across the street from the lady walking her dog." and then hang up.

But we scold the guys for putting on a new roof and then head back to quarters. I say screw the movie that I still don't understand and climb into bed, next thing I know I'm rushing out to where my fire truck is supposed to be because someone is yelling at me over the loudspeaker that there is a garage on fire down the street. Well if you remember my truck is not where it's supposed to be it's in another bay and now I'm thoroughly confused and half dressed but after 2 or 3 circles I manage to find my fire truck and make it to the call, unenthusiastic about "another" garage fire until I pull down the street and see that not only is the garage ripping the house is also going good and the vacant house next store is starting to go... Trust me I'm awake now...

2 or 2 1/2 hours later we got the fire under control and as we are picking up one of the drivers asks me if I have his portable generator. I tell him. "No"  and he heads off grumbling.  It's bad form to take something off someone's truck without telling the guy. Nobody admits to taking the guy's generator so he is looking all over for it it.  It would be be hard to hide considering it weighs about 100 lbs and is about the size of a large TV. 20-30 minutes later he finds it about a block down the street, apparently whoever was trying to steal it decided it was too heavy to carry and gave up.

We pick up all the hose we used after soaking all 3 houses down inside and out, Oh sorry the heat from the flames started the roof of a 3rd house on fire and we had to deal with that, and head back to the firehouse thoroughly soaked and beat. Summer fires are much better than winter fires though at least there are no icicles hanging off you.

After cleaning up all our gear I crawl back into bed about 0530 and drift off until my guy relieves me at 0700. When I crawl out of the rack he asks me if anything happened last night I say " Nope."