Hometown Happenings

Well I've been back home this past week for Spring Break, and had the chance to run about again with my local Fire Department. First though, I should mention that I coulda/shoulda posted about an event that happened two weeks ago, but due to some of the implications legal and whatnot, I'll refrain from doing so for now. However, I'll give you a keyword: RUM RABBITS! When I mention this keyword again, refer back to this post to give yourself a timeframe when I do write about the events that occurred.

It's been a busy week here at home. My town of about 20,000 is essentially a suburb in Upstate New York. Not unexpectedly, the type of calls we get here are different from the calls down at school in Manhattan. For example: no substance abuse calls. However, this was a three wreck week with three MVAs (together with a structure fire last week, a car fire this week, and a variety of medical calls: including the ever-joyful recurring trip to the local home for persons suffering with Alzheimer's.)

The first MVA occurred on a clear, sunny, morning with dry roads. A 79 y/o female lost control of her car on a winding road by the river and drove across the lane of oncoming traffic (thankfully missing everyone) and into the grass, trees, and shrubbery on the opposite side of the street. Tones went out on the pagers and I responded from home. I live almost exactly a five-minute drive from the fire house, so after hopping out of bed, into my clothes, driving to the station, donning my turnout gear, I had missed the first-out rescue truck. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your point of view) many of the department's members work during the day and therefore can't respond, so I was the second person into the first-due engine and got to play officer. We left the station on that piece with a crew of two. Arriving, I see a mostly unharmed vehicle, I'm asked by the Chief, as one of the few EMT members of the department to help with the medical aspect. I walk up and see that the crew of the rescue rig are already maintaining C-Spine, with a member in back of the sedan holding stabilization of the driver. There is only one patient. Another EMT is conducting the PE and so I start the paperwork. Overall, she's not badly injured, but due to the MOI (and the fact that he car's no longer drivable), we ship her out via the commercial Hudson Ambulance company (the fire department is strictly first response, name changed) to the local hospital. Since I had arrived on the engine, the rescue packed up and left, and I got to stay and now play Fire Police, directing traffic around PD and the tow as the vehicle was removed. 20-30 minutes on scene and we're done. Not a difficult call at all.

Number two didn't actually happen in our fire protection district -- The town is split into three such districts: District #1 (clever name), District #2, my territory (equally clever name), and Magical Heights (name changed, except the 'Heights' part). This one was a more interesting call. Initially, my pager announced the dispatch, which it shouldn't have since it was alerting District #1. I was just about to reset the pager, when I hear "...two car collision with multiple injuries, multiple calls coming in. Repeating for District #1..." "Uh oh," I think, "could be bad." As apparatus start to arrive on scene, it sounds even worse. I decide that the we're probably going to get called for mutual aid on this one and I change out of my PJs, and head to my car. As I'm leaving my home for the station, I hear: "OK. We've got four patients. Send out tones for addition manpower from District #1 to the scene, put Medflight in the air, tone out District #2 for assistance in extrication, call Hudson Ambulance and give me two additional ambulance on scene, ALS if they have them, but we'll take a BLS, and put Magical Heights on standby in their station to cover the town for fire and medical." I hear first the call go out for the additional District #1 manpower, then my tones drop, then the call goes out for Magical Heights. Aside: note that District #1 is a paid, professional department, while we're volunteer, and that their paramedics already had two district-owned ambulances on scene (and all their on-duty personnel). It's now about 9 PM, and I'm the second person in the station. I start the rescue rig and run to don my turnout gear. I'm riding in back, and we're out the door about 3-5 minutes later. It's a relatively long drive, ~8 minutes, since we have to go across town. We also sent one engine to establish a landing zone for the 'Bird' at this time, but my truck goes to the scene. By the time we arrive, some District #1 medics have already rapid extricated and sent an ambulance off to the hospital for a trauma-arrest. This patient is the first and only death of the evening. The scene is pretty bad: A full-size pickup had ignored a stopsign at an intersection and is T-boned by an oncoming small compact car. Due to the velocities of the vehicles and the circumstances, the compact acted as a wedge and slid under the pickup, causing the truck to roll and adding to its momentum. The truck, however, never completely rolled over since a three-foot wide metal utility pole impeded its rotation when it was at about a 45 degree angle, causing the cab to collapse in on itself and "squishing" the passenger's head between the truck body and the pole, ultimately causing her death. I couldn't believe the status of the pickup when I saw it: The entire bady and frame were actually visibly and uniformly bent in the middle, to the tune of a good 15-30 degrees, such that the floor of the truck was almost touching the surface of the road when it was set back straight, regardless of the height of the wheels and axles; this being a large truck whose strongest characteristic is supposed to be the frame itself. Unreal. The two passengers of the compact were relatively unharmed and that vehicle did not require extrication. Extracting the driver of the pickup was fairly easy since that side of the truck was largely intact. The door was popped off, and the patient was fairly OK, though in the end he was flown to the Regional Trauma Center, because of the MOI and because the chopper was already on scene. Once again, the crew of our rescue truck did some Fire Police: closing down the roads surrounding the scene while the site was cleaned up and PD conducted their investigations. We returned to quarters after about an hour after initial arrival.

MVA #3 happened last night during the blizzard that swept through Upstate, leaving behind about 18" of snow in my town. One of our department's members actually was driving behind the vehicle involved in this one and told us the complete story. Through my town, runs a fairly large state highway, two lanes of traffic in each direction and a center turn lane. People were traveling at reduced speed due to the snow, but apparently not slow enough. My comrade-in-arms stated that she was watching this car slowly lose track of the lane markings in the road, and watches as the driver gradually drifts over to the left. At the time of the accident, he was actually driving almost exactly in the middle of the turning lane. Cresting a small rise in the road, the car collides with an oncoming snow plow approaching in the opposing direction, one of the big mothers owned by the state. The blade of the plow hits the left side of the car, spinning it and destroying almost all of the front end. We're toned out and due to the snow and the distance of the station, I proceed slowly to the fire house, actually displaying my blue light, which I rarely do (irregardless of the title of this blog!). Ironically, I have to pass the scene of the accident on the way to the house, but such are the rules of the department. Expectedly, I miss the first out rescue, but again, I am the second person in the first due engine (a different one from MVA#1, and a brand new one that arrived in the past week, post on that to come). I again get to play truck officer. We make it off the apron, when the Chief radios us to remain in quarters. Not an easy thing to do: turning this new beast around, and not wanting to take a chance, we do the great circle routing of going three right turns through a development to get us back home. Second bit of irony for the night, we come within about 300 feet of the accident scene before we hit the street that will allow us to start heading the right direction. Nonetheless, we sit back for the ride and enjoy the comfort of this new piece of apparatus, basking in the knowledge that I got to take it out on its first call as a fully equipped piece of fire suppression goodness. The patient was able to RMA and this was a close call that could have easily been a whole lot worse.