Blood, Sweat, and Tears (Part 1 of 2)

I had only been running with the ambulance association for a few months.  In fact, the patches on my uniform sleeves were still very crisp and clean.  To this point, however, I had proven myself to be a reliable asset to whichever crew I was riding with.  As a “third”, I was like a bonus provider… not necessary, but often very valuable.  I was learning the “old school” methodical treatment from the regular Monday night stalwarts, Ron and Glen, and picked up loads of great experience by watching them work.  You could tell right away that they had been partners for quite some time.  Each knew exactly what needed to be done, and there was seldom any unnecessary activity or discussion; just compassionate care delivered with confidence and efficiency.  

During the weekdays, things were different.  There was much less regularity in the crew schedule.  This gave me the opportunity to learn from a host of different providers.  I picked up many great habits from a number of different partners, and the diversity helped me hone my own style of emergency medicine rather quickly.  I learned I could deliver the skills required by protocol in the manner dictated by my own personality.  I had been on a few difficult calls, helped save a few lives, saw some trauma, and of course, dealt with the multitude of “hospitality calls” that required a smiling face, a little bit of TLC, and 2% oxygen via nasal cannula during the trip to the emergency room.  

One particular afternoon sticks in my head.  While some of the specific details have faded over the years, I still remember the roller coaster of emotions that I felt as the event unfolded.  It was the kind of call that you knew right away would be in your memory for a long, long time.  The radio began to squawk about a 10-73 (yes, I pre-date the elimination of the 10-codes) in a town about 15 to 20 miles away.  The severity quickly escalated, and before long we were dispatched to assist.  Because of the location and status of several units in the area, we went from 4^th or 5^th due, to “guess what, we will be 2^nd arriving”.  I had the swagger of a young trauma junkie, but was ill-prepared for what we were about to encounter.

What started as excitement soon eroded into terror as we went screaming up the highway toward the scene.  The radio chatter painted a rather bleak picture of a head-on, two-vehicle crash with conflicting reports of up to 8 patients and heavy entrapment in both vehicles.  I had been running rescue calls as a firefighter for a couple of years, but my company was rich with very talented rescue technicians and a strong tradition of earning your place.  Most of my on scene work included staging, cribbing, tool set-up, and peeking over the shoulders of the more experienced guys.  As an EMT, most of my trauma experiences were visual only, from endless slideshows (with actual 35mm slides) during training.  All of that was about to change.  I could do the math…8 patients, 5 EMTs… It was time to suck it up and prove my worth.  

I sat back, and tried my best to quietly control my adrenaline rush.  I needed to compose myself, but my brain was spinning with all the things I may be called upon to assist with.  I didn’t want to screw up, and I could tell by the tone of the voices of my crew that the normal ass-busting and goofing around that was sometimes an appropriate part of our team-building was not part of this mission.  We were about 2-3 minutes from the scene when I heard quite a bit of “exasperation” from the cab.  I broke from my attempts of calming meditation to spin around and look through the windshield to see the first due ambulance whiz by us, en route to the Reading Hospital with two Class 1 trauma patients.  Through the profanity laced heat -of-the-moment critique being conducted by the other 2/3^rds of my crew, I gained immediate understanding of the need to triage when you are first-due.  We were now, for all intents and purposes, starting fresh, and would be FIRST DUE to an accident involving 6 patients and multiple entrapment.  I felt oddly comforted knowing the two in the front of our rig were as stressed about this call as I was, despite their experience during their years of service.  

We approached the scene, which by now looked like a disaster area!  There were car parts splashed from one side of the road to the other.  A few public servants were on the scene, but the majority of the people swarming the site were civilians… panicking, hollering, pointing, crying civilians.  There were so many cars and people choking up the scene that we still hadn’t laid eyes on the involved vehicles.  We hopped from the rig, and grabbed as much trauma gear as we could, and headed into the core of the disaster. 

Along the guardrail was one young, teenage patient, buckled over from pain and spilling blood on the side of the road, but sitting and conscious.  The two vehicles involved in the wreck sat only 20 feet from each other, after what was an obvious headlight to headlight impact.  The first vehicle had one male, heavily trapped behind the wheel, and gravely injured.  The second still held three young patients, also in poor condition from first glance.  Our medic and the driver were forced to make a quick game plan, as the next due EMS unit was about 20 minutes away.  We would triage and treat the remaining patients (as the first unit should have) and through the process of selective elimination, I was assigned to assess the old man in the first car.  I gulped back the fear of the overwhelming responsibility that was just entrusted to me, grabbed what I thought I may need from the jump bag, and made my way over toward him.  I have to admit that I was mentally prepared, and fully expecting to perform a quick assessment and determine that there was nothing we could do for him.  The minutes that followed would test my skills of emergency medicine and patient care in a manner that would mold my compassion for all future patients that would ever be in my care.  

Watch for my next blog post on “Hittin’ the Hot Spot” for the conclusion of this story…           

Do You Remember Your First Time?

They say you’ll always remember your first time.  I believe that to be very true.  My first time was about 32 years ago.  I can remember how excited I was; and my partner was a “virgin” as well.  We both felt that performance anxiety and worried whether we would be able to do it right.  We had been thinking about this moment for quite a while, and on this day, it was finally going to happen.  The one thing I was not prepared for was how quickly it would be over.  Nevertheless, both Dan and I were left sweaty and satisfied when it was over.  Everyone congratulated us and said we did a great job!

Of course, I am talking about my first interior fire attack; what did you pigs think I was referring to?

It was a typical afternoon at the “hosey”, the regular gang was hanging around the station, watching Leave It To Beaver, playing Burger Time, shooting pool, and snacking on Mays’ food and Icy Tea in the little cardboard cartons.  Fire calls were scarce “back in the day”, so we weren’t exactly expecting any action.  Even if the tones did drop, there was no telling how long we would wait for a driver to show up to get the apparatus out.  That was the worst part of being the “daytime crew”.

I had been a senior firefighter for a few months, and had been in on some fires, but Dan was a few years younger and had not had the opportunity to “pack up” on an actual fire yet.  We both had done our time as junior brigade members, “laying out and staying out” for the first two years in the company.  But we knew where every piece of equipment was, and we sponged up as much education that was available at the time.  We knew that one day, it would be our time.  Mentally, we were prepared; we had been trained, we practiced, and we dreamed about finally getting the opportunity to have “the knob” on a working fire.  

Then the tones started dropping… reported structure fire at 8 Hawthorne Road.  We saddled up quickly, lucky enough to have a driver, and a chief, plus Sticks and me.  Because of the terrain, we could see no header on our approach, and began convincing ourselves that this would be a letdown.  Boy, were we wrong!  We pulled up in front of this rancher, and saw the gray smoke squeezing out of every open window, crack and seam of the house.  Told that the fire was in the rear, Assistant Chief Powell ordered us to stretch the line to the back of the house.  We sprang into action… this was our time!   

The house sat on a steep slope, and the rear of the house had a walk-out basement.  One of the upper level windows was spewing fire like there was no tomorrow.  Ignoring the fact that we were petrified with fear, we masked up and within seconds, the hose line swelled with water pressure.  It was time to put out some fire.

Despite all we knew about getting inside and pushing the fire out, we panicked, and drilled the fiery window with a straight stream of water until it darkened down.   “Now let’s go get it”, I mumbled through my mask, as we yanked all the hose we could into position for the interior attack.  I felt like a bull, pulling open the screen door and kicking in the wooden door with a single boot strike!  The downstairs scene was eerie.  It was a finished recreation room with a pool table, and barely a thin wisp of smoke.  There were no signs of the inferno that raged one floor above.  Hell, this was going to be easy… or so I thought!  

We spotted the stairs immediately, and dragged the hose toward it, around the corner, and started up the steps.  We reached the top of the stairs, and BAM, we ran out of hose!  We were so close!  A quick peak around the corner and down the hall revealed fire still pouring out of the room of origin; it had lit off again.  We were able to stretch a few more feet of hose up the steps and direct a stream of water into the doorway, and again knocked down a bulk of the fire with our indirect attack.  I remember thinking, “if we just had 10 more feet of hose…” merely seconds before my wish was granted.  

I heard banging at the front door, as the second arriving crew was trying to gain access with the back-up line.  The cussing I heard from Mike and Jason on the other side told me their door was a bit more of a challenge than ours was.  I scooted over to the door, flipped open the deadbolt, and yanked the door open.  The look in their eyes was priceless as the object of their frustration disappeared into the billows of smoke and was replaced with my smiling face.  Taking advantage of their moment of hesitation, I grabbed their nozzle, and remember saying, “Thanks, we need this!”   I dragged it back to where Danny was holding his ground at the top of the basement steps.  “Look what I found”,  I yelled enthusiastically as I showed him the second hose line now in my possession.  He didn’t hesitate to drop his line and join me as we turned the corner into the kitchen and finished dousing the flames that had devoured that room.  

We basked in the afterglow of our achievements and loved that, despite not exactly going by the book, we successfully stopped this fire from taking the whole house.  It took a few decades, but the latest scientific studies now are suggesting that fires be attacked exactly the way a couple of green, smart-assed eighteen year-olds did that warm afternoon.  Ah yes, we were so far ahead of our time!

I have done battle with so many fires since that one, but will always have fond memories of that first time.  If there were ever any doubts about whether I would love doing this “job”, they were washed away that day.  I had a taste, and I liked it!

Hide-and-Go-Hydrants

Thanks to a steady stream of winter storms that have plagued the northeast, near record-setting amounts of snow have accumulated and neighborhoods are piled high with plowed and shoveled snow.  The labyrinth of catacombs built from this frosty mess makes driving in the urban and suburban areas quite a challenge.  Streets are narrowed, vision is impeded, and the road surfaces are often sketchy at best.  As a fire safety professional, one of my obvious concerns during this time period is the accessibility of the fire hydrants in the event of an emergency.  

Locating these vital water resources, even during warmer seasons, can be a problem.  There is seldom an understandable pattern for their location to anyone except the most experienced water system grid study bugs.  Left side, right side, middle of the block… it is anybody’s guess.  Parked vehicles, shrubbery, weeds, and even those mailboxes that look like single-seat outhouses can obstruct line-of-sight vision of responders.  Keep in mind, also, that the forward-riding firefighters with the windshield view of the world have a host of other things on their mind as they approach a fire scene.  The apparatus operator is looking for traffic, pedestrians, overhead obstructions, and the “perfect” vehicle placement, which has to be decided in seconds.  The officer in the “thinking seat” of the apparatus is sizing up the structure and planning a course of action based on the manpower (quality as well as quantity) sitting behind him.  Playing hide-and-go-seek with the closest hydrant is not something either one has time for when every second is precious.  

To make locating them easier, fire departments use a multitude of methods.  First and foremost is standardization of color.  While it may seem cute for hydrants to be decorated like people, or dogs, or blended into the décor of a property, this camouflage effect is not helpful.  A standard barrel color makes for a consistent target to spot.  Colorful, reflective markings can help, especially at night, and many municipalities have a standard for this type of identification as well.  I have seen stenciled street markings, recessed road reflectors (one of my favorites), sign posts, and even the stripped “antennae” markers prove to be effective as well.  Let’s not discount a good map book, whether paper or electronic, with an accurate spotting of the hydrants in a jurisdiction.  Of course, all of these aids are secondary to knowledgeable personnel who take the time to become familiar with their run areas.  

Then there is the Mother Nature Factor; or her partner in crime, Old Man Winter.  As the frozen precipitation accumulates, it needs to be “relocated” so life goes on, uninterrupted.  Streets need to be plowed, sidewalks and driveways need to be cleared, and parking lots need to be scraped clean to allow safe travel.  What one vital device sit right smack in the middle of it all?  The FIRE HYDRANT!  While I understand that the likelihood of needing the fire hydrant near your house is extremely slim, the consequence of NOT having it available could be catastrophic!  Yet, people continue to gamble by taking the risk. 

 

Yesterday, I was taking my truck for “a walk” around the neighborhood, taking in the sights of the latest winter snowpocalypse.  While I would like to say I was amazed at what I saw, that stopped happening years ago.   Not only did I find hydrants that had not been shoveled out, I actually found one that had been completely buried by blown snow!   I would guess this house had a value of about $275,000, and estimated contents of another $150,000. Adding in the $80,000 of vehicles in the driveway (which, by the way, was clear and dry) and we have eclipsed a half million dollars of combustible property gambling that the 500 gallons of water in the first arriving engine will be enough to save everything.  The hand-laid herringbone walkway was whistle clean, as was the sidewalk that traversed the front of the property.  I even noticed that extra effort was made to clear the snow from in front of the satellite dish on the rooftop.  The clear path to the front of the brick mailbox was a nice touch as well; they wouldn’t want their mail carrier to be delayed in putting the latest issue of Fortune magazine in there, right?  They apparently felt that clearing the numbers from the side of the mailbox wasn’t necessary either, since they weren’t ordering a pizza for delivery any time soon.  Hell, there was even a spot in the grass cleared so your pampered puppy could poop without getting her precious posterior in the snow.  But what did my trained eye spot?  About 10 inches of the tippy-top of the fiberglass marking post that I can only assume is bolted to the hydrant about four feet under the man-made mountain of snow deposited conveniently on top of it. 

I don’t want to pick on just these cement-heads, there are many more like them.  I can’t believe the lack of concern by not only people, but entire neighborhoods.  I even passed a hydrant that was used less than a year ago at a rather significant house fire on the block.  You would think at least ONE of the folks that live on that block would be concerned enough to spend the five minutes it would take to shovel the hydrant clear.  Well, I would think that, other firefighters would think that, but would YOU think that? 

In an emergency, responders do not have the time, or extra manpower it takes to find and uncover your fire hydrant. 

Please take the time to walk your shovel to the fire hydrant closest to your home.  Use it to clear a circle around the hydrant so firefighters can operate it without delay.  Clear ALL THREE OUTLETS as well.  Try to picture how much room a charged hose line will need.  Three feet on all asides would be ideal.  If the snow mountains around it are high, try to knock them back so the hydrant is VISIBLE from the cab of an approaching fire engine.  Finally, be sure it is accessible from the sidewalk side as well as the street side, that way both dogs AND firefighters will be happy!  Then go get a big mug of hot chocolate or coffee, and curse that damn groundhog for these extra six weeks of winter. 

Rest easy, brother, we'll take it from here.

I just had the painful experience of having to say goodbye to yet another great man.  Just days before his diagnosis, he was telling me about strange leg pains he had been having.  Ignorantly, I laughed at the fact that he was finally starting to feel “old”.  I reminded him of his need for reading glasses at an ICS class we attended together (a crutch that I soon discovered I would rely on within the year, as well).  After over 30 years of fire service, time was beginning to take its toll on both of us.  Of course, you wouldn’t know it to look at him.  He stood there in his city uniform, having just got off a long shift at work, followed by a municipal meeting, and now he stood in one of the stations where he was a volunteer chief officer overseeing modification to the rescue truck that were in progress.  The gray hair was starting to win the battle on his head, and his indulgence in firehouse culinary treats was tipping his belt buckle ever so slightly, but he was still running full speed, just as he did his entire life, fearless and unstoppable. 

He asked me to bring some equipment from my station to try some different mounting configurations for equipment they had recently ordered.  I remember feeling honored that my opinions were both sought and respected.  That was our relationship; professional respect, personal connection, and typical ass-busting that comes with the territory.  Over the years, our relationship took many twists and turns.  We “tuxed-up” for each other at the altar, he helped me land my first “uniformed” job, and I helped him test his Vascar.  We fought bad guys together, we fought fires together, and we dug people out of cars together more times than I can remember.  We talked strategy, we talked firehouse politics, we dreamed, and we laughed.  We also disagreed…a lot; usually about strategies, firehouse politics, and even our personal dreams.  Watching him in action, I could never decide if I should admire the way he risked his life, or chastise him for nearly getting himself killed. I remember one nasty double fatal where he lambasted me for pulling his crew out, keeping them from getting killed.  There was no one left to save that morning, but he hated that we gave up trying.  The risk was not worth the reward.  We were never angrier at each other, even though we both knew the other was right.

This news, however, was chilling; a malignant brain tumor!  He had bounced back from so many line-of-duty injuries in his career, we all believed he could do it one more time.  And he believed it as well.  We often hear talk of people “bravely battling cancer”, but he was the poster child for the stubborn fight.  We watched as he boldly stated that he would beat this “thing” as he called it.  He then took action, doing everything the doctors asked, and then some.  If anyone could beat this beast, he could. 

The fight raged on, lasting so much longer that any doctor thought it would.  Those extra months with him, while difficult to comprehend, were certainly cherished by his family, friends and comrades.  Even as treatments seemed to be losing ground, somehow he still believed.  I personally don’t know when he finally realized that this was a battle he could not win, we never discussed that when I visited.  Perhaps he never gave up hope.  Nevertheless, he was a realist, a planner, so it was no surprise that he was more concerned about everyone else than himself.  That is one of the characteristics that made him so great. When people pass away, they say “He is in a better place”.  Whatever your beliefs are, you have to believe that the place where he is now just got better when he arrived.  

As the sadness of his death passes, the celebration of his life will go on.  I have many fond memories that I will cherish, and many lesson that I have learned from knowing him.  I will certainly recall and share the multitude of great stories where he is one of the main characters. His passion for duty and crazy sense of adventure was unmatched.  His greatness as a public servant, devoted father, loving husband, emergency responder, leader, and great friend will inspire me for the rest of my life.  For now, I join so many others as we struggle through tearful eyes to focus on our lives without him.   

Rest easy, brother, we will take it from here.

RONALD E. “MOOSE” WENTZEL, JR.  

11-13-62  -  1-12-14