Suspended Ceilings

Day 2 at the Big Show and it was going to be an early start to those on the engine and medic unit. We were scheduled for class at the training center first thing even before getting some breakfast.
(well at least one of us got to have a steak egg and cheese biscuit from Tudor's)
But before marking out of service we responded to Avante for a working code and after clearing up we headed to RVTC for a suspended ceiling class.

This class reminded us of the potential hazards we may come in contact with in commercial and some residential structures. Several videos of fire from around the nations with veteran firefighters and officers surviving collapses but getting in tangled with the different objects above suspended ceiling. Some hands on at the end of class again reminding us of how to handle different types of entanglements.

We made it back for lunch and then the medic truck got busy again. The Ladder truck went to class this afternoon leaving the engine with one task and one task only, to go to the store and get stuff for dinner. When the ladder and medic truck made it back to the station around 5pm we were surprised that the one task had not been carried through. We had a visit from Lt Craft (in compliance) today looking for JJ and inquiring about some contact he has received from a certain animal rights activist group, did I mention (in compliance)

Chef Decker made the command decision and order pizza after giving the engine grief and listened to their excuses. After dinner an attempt was made to watch a movie but was disturbed by the engine, medic unit and RS1 running a few calls. I was hoping the rain would keep most people inside tonight but they can only stay in so long before they get tired of each other and start calling us. Until Sunday. . .

Help us find the villian

Another 4 day break over and we are starting Day 1 at the Big Show. Normal start to the cycle unit check offs, equipment checks, station chores before getting a little breakfast. Backup Blogger Becky and Young Compton are off this cycle and 1st Lt JJ Price is riding RS1 for Capt Bocock so one has to travel this cycle. Medic 1 was busy and Medic 101 was somewhere, at least we thought they were here today or Red Alert could have been wrong. Ladder 1 was heading out to the store today when the engine made a "strange sound" it was brought back to the station and determined it was the turbo, so it limped to the garage for repairs and replaced with Ladder 7's truck. Joe had to step up and fix lunch today and when Capt Bedwell heard about this he had to come by and see it for himself.



This evening JJ was asked to look into the mystery of a cow and its missing cowhide.

It seems that a cow was stripped to make a set of chaps for a compliant Lt to remain nameless.

We are contacting PETA and until their investigation is complete we will not divulge this information. At this time if anyone has any knowledge please contact us here at the Big Show so this culprit can be brought to justice.

Slow Sunday?

The day started as it usually does; chores, unit checks, shipping bodies here and there to cover, paperwork, and meal planning. The Medic unit has kept the roads warm today, in & out on various calls for assistance (aka a fast ride to the hospital).
The picture below is a quick snap shot of Engine 1 staging on Jefferson at one of the multiple fire alarms at RMH. I managed to take this while waiting for security to find the front of the building. The engine has been on several calls today for various reasons from alarms to bum fights at the rescue mission.



Ladder 1 has had several runs herself today. Of course they went on the alarms, caught a pedestrian struck by a car, and even managed to get in some saw work at the fire over on Brandon with Engine 4. Luckily the fire started during the day instead of at night, it could've been alot worse than it was. All of the shifts here are happy to have the tiller truck back. Here she is on the fire scene.



If you notice in that picture Investigator 1 got out of the house today for us. It has even answered a couple calls. The Chief and RS1 have been up and down all day for one reason or another.

All together today (combining all 6 units) we've had close to 20 runs. Hopefully (knock on wood) that'll be enough for the emergency services god Motorola tonight.

Sorry we can't bring pulse pounding journalism or special interest stories like the unicycle olympics on C shift but stay tuned, maybe we can drum up some talent of our own (dodge ball with barbells?) who knows.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Well since the blog master went to play at Medic...I mean Station 14, I will be blogging. It will be a little tough to do since Smiley and I weren't at the station most of the day. The reason behind that is that Smiley is on the 2nd Phase of becoming a Doctor....I mean EMT-I, so we were trying our hardest to get him some calls. Needless to say Medic 1 stayed busy well after midnight. Thanks to REMS Medic 151 for helping out through the night time.

The Ladder and the Engine guys mounted the 1000 GPM Mercury Monitors on Ladder 1 and Ladder 13. The guys organized and straightened out the Old Girl and getting her back into ship shape. Chef Decker was back with us today to give a hand in the kitchen. Randy and JJ did some sewing up in the sewing room.

We had some visitors today sporting birthday balloons, health kabobs (cheese and fruit) and cake for Josh's 30th. We always enjoy having company.....Thanks for coming by Lori, Teagan and Ryder. While they were at the station Josh decided that he was going to show us his guns and try to bench press 300 lbs.....almost Smiley. (Pictures to follow as soon as I get a hold of the Lead)




While getting fuel I learned something pretty interesting. Our own Captain Scott Mutter can ride a unicycle and is very good at it, really. I must say I was rather impressed, way to go Mutter. Smiley gave it a good whirl.


On a more serious note we are keeping Sydney Richardson's family in our thoughts and prayer. What a tremendous loss for Roanoke Emergency Medical Services and the community. We are also keeping Greg Gardner in our thoughts and prayers while he is battling health issues.

Have the ghosts found us?

Busy start this morning with a couple of alarms and then a extrication. School bus vs car our PIO Tiffany arrived and capture a couple pictures after the door was removed and the pt's were being extricated.

We made it back to get our house chores done, trucks washed when Capt. Brown noticed a trail heading out the middle bay across the apron to the street. Apparently when water gets into the exhaust pipe of the reserve Ladder, once started and in motion leaves a trail of soot. Not one to ask his people to do something that he would not do he attempted to clean this trail. The only way to get the broom from him was to trick it out of his hands, unfortunately it was too difficult to get with just elbow grease.

Young Compton AKA "Smiley" was getting some cram time for his protocol test so he proceed to the next round. (*He took the test after lunch and passed Congrats young Smiley)

Chief Barker stopped by to look at his shift draft. If you have questions about your new assignment give him a call and he can explain who is going where and when.

The Big Show had a tour today the youngsters from Head Start got to see the Busiest Fire Station in the city. I am not sure who was more impressed the kids looking at the trucks or C-shift watching how 3 ladies and wrangle 14 kids and not lose it. Does the phrase "herding cats" mean anything?
Chef Decker took the day off but Chef JJ our resident thrifty shopper whipped up a batch of fajitas and fries.

After lunch we headed down to Station 6 for HTR training, unfortunately the medic unit did not get to stay for the entire training and only got to get a few pictures before leaving.

After training today, an alarm came in at 704 Franklin Rd Station 1 "the Big Show" A quick response time maybe the quickest in City History to get a Ladder, Engine, Medic, Battalion and RS1 all on scene. After searching the station top to bottom neither the pull stations or the Emergency buttons had been activated. The panel was not showing any activation. So now the thoughts of the "ghosts" from the old house had finally found the Big Show. Attempts were made to find out where the alarm may have come in from by pulling a pull station but for some unknown reason that information never made it to dispatch. Talk of bringing back the night watch rumbled through the station.

Before dinner Randy's wife Jill stopped by to check in on her beloved with hopes of keeping him in line. As we all sat down for dinner the tones went out for a report of a vacant house on fire on Riverland. After running around that area of Southeast we found a lady cooking her London Broil on the charcoal grill.
The medic units kept the roads hot into the night. Now we are hoping for a good night.

St Patty's Day is starting like any other; checking trucks, running a few calls, getting the grub for our meals, and precepting students for the college. If you haven't seen them yet Overacker's site www.Roanokefirefighters.com has some pictures of the parade the other day posted. The Big Show had itself represented well. Be safe and enjoy all the green beer you can swallow.

Lessons Learned

This St. Patty’s Day was filled with lessons learned for B Shift. To start there were 2 JCHS students riding the Engine & Ladder, so we got to review a lot of stuff with them. Next, a man from Waste Management is trying to obtain his EMT certificate and came to ride along. Most of us didn’t get to socialize with him because the unit he was riding stayed on the road. Then Engine 1, Ladder 1, Medic 1, Engine 6, Medic 6, Ladder 7, Engine 5, and a few assorted members gathered at 6 for HTR training. I was looking forward to hearing some good music until we got there and I realized they said we were training on the Bi-pod and not the I-Pod; oh well, still fun anyway. We all got some needed reminders of basic and advanced skills.

The students got a lesson in washing every unit in the house, and station chores which they thoroughly enjoyed. It's good to bring joy into the life of students. We learned that a fellow in a north side station was heard to say “she was only 185 at 5’ 2”, I’m not sure what the context was here but I felt obliged to include it. The Medic unit doled out some lessons yesterday too. For instance; a person went to RMH complaining of nausea and vomiting and belly pain. This person grew weary of waiting for the staff there to call her back to be seen after 1 ½ hours so she signed out and left. Instead of going home in Southeast they decided to visit our lovely southwest fire station. After smoking a cigarette, talking on the cell phone for 25 minutes, and eating a burger they came in and asked for assistance with ‘severe’ abdominal pain, exactly 2 minutes after the chef called the troops to the table for dinner. After a discussion the pain, err patient, was transported to the ER where the nurse immediately recognized her and sent her back to triage 15 people down on the list. Important lesson to her, the ambulance can’t get you seen any faster than walking in some times.

Our final lesson of the day came to a member of team transient deciding to nap away the ½ gallon of Wild Irish Rose he decided to consume in the St. Patty’s Day celebration. What was his lesson? Don’t go to sleep on a bench at a hotel, they’ll call the cops.

Over all this was a good cycle for B Shift. No major incidents and everyone is going home safely with all of their appendages and healthy as when they started the week.

Council man Ride-A-Long

Last day of the cycle at the Big Show for C-shift and before the day got started we had to ship Hunt to Station 9 to see if he could work on those Misfits and Becky to Station 7 to give the newlywed a break off the bus. I want to say a big thank you to 1st Lt Price for stepping up and going beyond what he is required to do by riding Medic 1 today and then we went and stuck him with young "future AIC" Compton on top of that. Just after finishing morning chores and checkoffs we were informed we would be having a ride along City council man Court Rosen spent the day with us and JJ was the one that grabbed his ear first.

The ladder truck has IMS training this morning, the engine and the medic unit had a couple runs. When we got back to the station we cleaned the stairwells and put down some new wax. After the IMS training we met for a quick lunch out today,

before the Engine had to go to the afternoon session of the IMS training. Today IMS class was the annual refresher and the use of the command board.

Chief Beckner expressing how important using IMS is for the safety and control of all fire scenes.

Here we have Capt. Wines in command riding on Engine 1 (apparently he is coming to front) after his request to be moved to the "Big Show" This training was showing how important it is for everyone to know and be comfortable with using the IMS board. We all discussed how command could be taken to a higher floor and the steps taken to prevent confusion.

Tiffany stopped by to talked to council man Rosen about some child seat installation for the near future as he and his wife are expecting anytime now.

After dinner and are normal clean up, we wanted to look and see how bad it was behind the stove. It had been a while since we had done it but after moving them out it was no where near as bad as we thought it might be. We knocked it out and mopped up ready to "kick it out" for the rest of the night.

Chef Decker fixed a post dinner snack something between a glazed doughnut and a cinnamon roll.

Chief Beckner's son Zach stopped for a visit to see dad. The night slowed down a bit from the steady day and now we are hoping for a quiet night.

Where did the day go?

It has been a busy day here at the "Big Show" between calls and training. Medic 1 was out early and often and when 101 marked in service the paced did not slow down. The Ladder boys dropped the Tiller off at the service center and then spent the entire morning at the training center on the driving simulator forcing the engine to cook. But Chef Decker switched over to save the day. Today's lunch menu consisted of beans and grilled cheese sandwiches and I can almost guarantee they were both better hot, or at least warm.




Engine 5 stopped by today to pick up their copies of the new map books and you too can have one for a meager $10. Our two resident fire investigators were in class all afternoon upstairs for a monthly, annual, whenever we can find the "right time to train" class. The medic units paced did not slow down and before we knew it it was time for dinner. Chef Decker worked his kitchen magic tonight and fixed his version of Capt "skinny" Graham's stuffed shells and salad.

Despite the look I do think Joe approved but one can never be to sure. We had a visitor show up tonight flaunting a new shirt that a few thought would upset the "Big Show" but knowing it is all in fun we wanted to post it's picture.

Maybe some of the boys from 2 can start their own blog and show some more of their creative writing juices. Well I know today's post is shorter with less pictures but when your gone most of the day you only get to hear about it and not see it. I just hope tonight is better than Saturday night?

She's back!

She's back!

Ladder 1 our tiller is back from Pa. She returned sometime last night. A sight for sore eyes, now if we could just get her back in service. The cab was lifted to check the oil after her trip.

Today we had to ship Hunt to 11, Smiley to 2 and Joe to 11.

Remember last week when we received all that snow? "The most in a few years"? Well, today it was going to reach into the upper 70's. Some of the boys decided to ride their bikes into work and take advantage of the beautiful weather. Once we finished our normal morning chores we were asked to rinse down the front apron that was still covered with salt. This may have been an easier task if we would have had some water pressure, but we made due with what we are given.

Once we finished with the front, we headed to the back. Before getting started we asked Becky to move a couple of the bikes to the front of the station. Becky used to be an avid rider but those days are in the past.

Smiley says it takes a real man to ride his bike but Becky wasn't impressed with the weed eater.

I did hear that she was fond of moving Randy's bike to the front of the station so we could finish washing out the back aprons.

With Ladder 1 back in the station we decided that she needed a thorough cleaning before she was restocked and put back into service.

Chief Beckner brought his ranger in with his pressure washer so we could give the ol' girl a scrub down since she has not been washed since mid October.

Cheif Barker stopped by to go over some strategy and tactics with Chief Beckner. Here you see the two of them enjoying the nice day and arm chair quarterbacking the proper techniques used in a high pressure washer.

We had another visitor stop by today and many of you will remember Sport. He used to work with us about 6 years ago before re-locating to the Henrico Fire Dept. Sport has not changed but his boys have (not pictured) it seems like last week when Decker was wrestling them in the back yard at Station 2. Now Decker says he doesn't want to hurt them and get them in trouble but I think Sport's oldest might take him. Here is a small reunion shot with Sport. He wanted to let any one interested know that they are accepting applications in Henrico.

After finishing what we could do on the ladder truck we put her back in the bay and let the compartments air dry. It was the first chance to actually enjoy the nice day, hard to believe last week it was in the 30's and we had 8 inches of snow Monday.

Chef Decker never gets to rest as we can see here. He fixed another great meal with ham, potato casserole and creamed corn.

After dinner we ran a couple calls but nothing to brag about. We are settling in hoping for the night to be nicer than the day.

Popsicle patrol

Last day of the cycle for C-shift, I don't know about being a "blog master" but I worked today and thought Becky did a fine job while I was off. Well as many of you know who live in and around the Roanoke area, we had the first significant snowfall in a few years yesterday and last night. A-shift had the pleasure of putting the chains on last night and seemed to test the snowy "waters" a couple times. Today we had to get Adam over to Station 6 to grab the service truck with the plow and he got the pleasure of cleaning the aprons for all the fire stations. So if you get a chance tell Adam Thank You.

After morning chores, Decker, one of our resident chefs made some fine homemade biscuits. Those and last day's pork chops were a great breakfast.

Young Smiley was playing musical trucks again today trying to get those ALS calls needed for his first hoop. The more calls he runs the more the number needed goes up according to the training bureau.

Medic 1 was on "Popsicle patrol" with all the people falling outside today. They were probably wondering, is sleigh riding as fun as I remember it? For lunch today we had JJ's special potato soup, and I quote "I bet ya never had potato soup like this before!" As usual JJ was right, the soup and grilled cheese hit the spot on a cold snowy day. We had a visitor stop by the firehouse today

Retired Lt. O. Smith of the the SML Smith's, the only thing changed with Oscar was the beard. He was looking for his buddy Joe who had a case of the "white fluffy flu" or something? Kidding you Joe, hope you feel better at least next Saturday the temps will be in the high 60's. After lunch JJ and the boys brought out a large carrot cake to celebrate the Captain's "??th" birthday. It was yesterday so call him up and wish him a belated one, he will tell you how old he turned.

After lunch the Ladder truck had a chimney fire with the boys from 6 in Southeast and were capable of handling with the units on scene.
As the snow melted we were able to take off the chains and cables.

Waiting is part of the game.


Things picked back up just before dinner but we were fortunate to sit down and eat tonight. Today Medic 101 started their new budget shifts working 9-7pm and they got to eat before getting off tonight. We are going to watch a movie but you know how that goes. So wish us luck.
Well it figures, towards the end of the movie the fire tones went out for a house fire in Southeast. Ladder 1, BC1, RS1 were on first dispatch with E6, M6 and E11. M6 was on their way back from the ER and gave a sizeup bu most missed it because of their quick response everyone was still on Tac 1 marking enroute. M1 and E14 were the WF units, Engine 6 arrived and made a quick knock down on a mattress fire extending to the entire room. Check out Station 6's blog for pictures and more info.