Shouldn't we move off this rickety-ass dock before th—

[FLOOOOSH]

The fireboat brought my firefighting gear from hot and dry to wet and swampy in a mere second. My brain reminded me of standing on the bridge in front of Busch Gardens' Log Flume ride, when there was actually a railing to catch me as the water battered me back.

Instead, I was forced backwards onto the rotted strip of wood slatwork that had been weakened by time, water, and the embers drifting over the Washington Yacht Club. I heard the boards crack under my feet, and clutched my hoseline in the orange light of the boats burning all around us.

Image courtesy of Sgt. Wayne Nelson, BFC3 Aide.

—————

I glanced at the clock.

2:52

Ugh, dammit. I'll never be able to stay up until the first man shows up.

As I prayed for the earliest possible arrival of anyone from the next shift, my half-closed eyes drifted up towards the computer monitor with our dispatch information on a fifteen-second refresh.

Aw, shit.

My stupored run to the watch desk smacked my head off the sitting room door—thankfully, my echoes of "everybody, everybody, marina fire at fifteen hundred M street!" had died down and my skull's buzzing had stopped by the time we all rolled out the door.

My midnight routine of donning my gear is pretty well burned into my psyche. I have, as I've mentioned before, awakened to the wagon lurching to a halt and looked down to find myself in full gear, helmeted, and with my hand already on the door latch. I guess we're here, wherever that might be. But this time I paused; I glanced out the window, struck by the large fireball reflecting off the glassine surface of the Anacostia River.

Engine 18 had already driven down a small hill that led towards the docks. I grabbed 250' of pre-connected hoseline, and my layout man grabbed another hundred feet that was neatly bundled into a hose rack.

The dock was just wide enough to allow us to squeeze past another company already operating a hoseline into what used to be a fairly sizeable boat. Three yacht-type things and a small speedboat were fully involved on our arrival, and we quickly discovered that pissing into them with our handlines was proving futile.

Image courtesy of W. Nelson

"We should just knock holes in all of 'em and let the river put it out!" joked an officer nearby. I sighed as a adjusted my grip on the hose and leaned into it. Well, I did say that I wanted something to do… but this is gonna take forever.

Suddenly, a solution arrived, guns cocked and ready to go.

"Fireboat to Ops, we're in position, opening up the line now."

Wait… what?

Either I hadn't been paying attention to my radio, or some officer hadn't been particularly talkative tonight, but all I knew was that the Fireboat and I were now directly facing each other—and I was sadly out-classed in weaponry.

—————

A line of firefighters made our way back towards the main boathouse, lumbering up the gangway through sheets of water cascading down around us. Truck 7 had left a circular saw on the dock, and I grabbed it—I figured that the junior man on their shift probably wouldn't want to go fishing for it after it was blown of the dock.

We watched the rest of the proceedings from the relatively dry accomodations of a nearby lawn. After our Fireboat had knocked down most of the fire, we still had to go in and mop up a few stubborn hotspots, including the engine compartment of the speedboat (which proved to be a real pain in the ass to access because the fire had riddled the dock with holes). Nevertheless, the universe maintained a sense of humor: as soon as we had flowed enough water into the speedboat to "save" it… it promptly sank.

Image courtesy of W. Nelson

—————

The sun was breaking over the horizon as we packed up and headed home. Driving back across the bridge, I took one last look towards the marina. All of the soot and oil and garbage from the fire was slowly making its way downstream, marring the surface of the already-dirty river. But despite the Halley's Comet of filth flowing under the bridge, it was still a beautiful morning.

I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes, feeling the breeze cool my sweat-soaked clothes.

Man, I really hope my relief is here.

You know what they say… the best camera is the one that's with you.

What's amazing about the advancement of technology is that the iPhone actually has more resolution than the first "pro"-level Nikon digital SLR (The D1, with a hefty price tag of almost $5,000 and a weight to match, sported a groundbreaking 2.7 megapixels). In comparison, my iPhone 3GS has 3 megapixels—I'll concede that the sensor size is different, but without going too much into the mechanics of it, it's still pretty damned amazing. Plus, I can do some post-processing in-camera by using an app called… wait for it… "BestCamera," created by photographer Chase Jarvis' awesome team. It's only $2.99, but you can get some amazing results with it. In fact, Chase's vision has started something of a neat community of iPhone photographers, whose work you can browse here.

Plus, this Apple hardware seems to have held up pretty well kicking around the inside of my bunker coat pocket, along with some door chocks and a few random tools. (Thanks, OtterBox.)

Regardless, it's always with me at work, and I enjoy those "ohmygodIwishIhadacamerarightnow" moments. Because I do! And I revel in going through my phone's photos every few months, because I forgot about most of the ridiculous stuff that's on there.

So here ya go. As always, click to embiggen.

Burn Foundation Fundraisers: a good excuse for firemen to get together and bowl at 8am in the morning.

—————

A poorly-built third story addition in NE… on one hell of a windy day.

—————

An early morning fire in our first-due area, from a few tours ago.

He had just put a new helmet in service that day, and said that he wanted to burn it up a little bit…

—————

Basketball, anyone? I think it adds a genuine Southeast touch to our firehouse.

—————

Potomac Gardens, up in Capitol Hill. An apartment off on the 3rd floor displaced quite a few residents. The woman from the fire apartment was (quite literally) dumped in my arms by Truck 7 for medical care, as she was found in the apartment with significant airway damage from smoke and heat.

View from the courtyard; the windows that weren't smashed out were coated with a thick, greasy soot.

I was pleasantly surprised to see other locals bringing coffee and hot chocolate to the displaced elderly residents who had to sit outside in the cold for a while; it looks like people from Capitol Hill have hearts, after all!

—————

Every firefighter in the city knows exactly what this is… but what it's doing sitting in someone's yard on Park Rd in NW, I have no idea.

“Keep your head down, dammit!”

Even with my head safely turtled into the collar of my turnout gear, I could still recognize the voice of Truck 15′s driver above me. He had given me a sharp smack on top of my helmet as a gentle reminder that there was a large hydraulic tool nestling its way into the space above my head.

As my legs started to cramp from my awkward placement between a tree and what used to be a car door, I wondered how I had arrived in this position.

“Units responding with the first battalion, respond on tac channel zero-alpha three.”

I stumbled out of the bunkroom and caught snippets of the radio transmission as I climbed into the wagon, trying to shake sleep from my brain the whole way there.

“…vehicle into a tree…”

“…report of persons trapped…”

I snapped up the last of my turnout coat and grabbed my helmet as the engine pulled up on scene. A four-door sedan had lost control on a turn and slammed broadside into a thick tree. The (now) horseshoe-shaped vehicle had only a single occupant, who was now pinned between the front edge of the passenger seat and the glove compartment.

“Hey, man! Get me the $@&* outta here! Pull me up, man!”

Okay, he’s breathing. That’s always good.

The layout man went over to put the car in park while I headed around to the passenger side. The vehicle had rebounded off of the tree, providing a two-foot space in which I could talk to the driver through the shattered side windows.

“Good thing the squad’s coming. They’re gonna have to cut this guy out.”

My officer’s voice spurred me into action. I saw an opportunity for something interesting, so I grabbed a c-collar and squeezed into the narrow space. I mean, if I’m going to be up at 3am, why not get my hands a little dirty?

With the collar firmly in place, I assumed my awkward half-crouch stance, arms extended to hold manual spine stabilization. I felt the rescue squad rumble up on the street behind me, and I could hear their voices discussing the best way to get the patient out. Suddenly, a sheet descended on the patient and I, whiting out our view of the surroundings but enabling me to clearly talk to him and determine the extent of his injuries.

Moments later, bits of windshield bounced off our makeshift tent as the glass saws went to work. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t banged up too bad; he was just pinned into the car. I tried to stretch my neck a bit to combat the strange angle I had it at in the window–which brings us back to the beginning.

I heard a hydraulic cutter hit the B-post of the car, inches above my head. It hissed to life as metal bit into metal, making the first of several cuts necessary to remove the roof.  Several minutes later, the top of the car and our covering were lifted, having completed the modification into a convertible.

This, of course, only served to give us a little more breathing room for the final steps: rolling the dash and extricating the patient. Using hydraulic rams, the squad guys actually pushed the dashboard further away from the seats, giving us enough space to wiggle the patient out. Now, it’s good-news/bad-news time.

Good news: while in the car, the patient had full functionality of his extremities, a normal blood pressure, and was answering all of my questions appropriately while denying any pain.

Bad news: having his torso/abdomen squeezed by the dash was apparently keeping his blood pressure at a decent level. When we stretched him out onto a backboard, we found his blood pressure had dropped to around 65-70 and he was acting a little woozy. Oh, and now everything hurts. While inside the medic unit, I helped package him up, started two IVs, and sent him on his way to the trauma center.

Back to sleep?

Well, it’s almost 4:30am.

Nah, might as well stay up and wait for the first relief to arrive.

"Uh… aren't we fourth due?"

I flicked my light on, and panned it slowly across the room. 

"This is too smoky to just be the idiots setting off fireworks inside the building… something's on fire here."

My mentor's voice cut through the haze of smoke, and the outlines of the guys from Engine 15 were visible as we moved through the debris in the basement.

(I stopped for a moment, remembering my old Sergeant telling me to follow the smoke as you see it in the beam of light.)

"Is it over here? The smoke's going that way, so…"

As if on cue, we all moved towards a big pile of wood that was blocking a small hatch. Two of us started tossing doors and hunks of wood out of the way (one of which gave me a pretty good smack in the face), and we were able to open it up after a minute or two.

I'm not 100% on how it happened, but a mattress was smoldering under the first floor. Extinguishing the fire was pretty anticlimactic, but that's how we found ourselves running the last few feet of our 400' hose line into a four-foot-high crawl space littered with old beer cans and trash. 

—————

Was it a rockin' good fire, full of excitement and good stories? Nope. Was it a chance for me to learn something about working on a fire scene? Absolutely. I mean, I'm happy for whatever I can get to do while in the street—I'm still technically assigned to the Training Academy, so I appreciate the time I've spent crashing on E15's couch (figuratively speaking, that is). 

Besides, the best "tips and tricks" seem to come from the guys when they're actually working a scene. Sure, they can sit at the watchdesk with me and tell stories, but the stuff they share while we're in the middle of doing something can be infinitely more valuable.

—————

As we crawled out and began gathering up our sections of hose, it was impossible not to notice all the fireworks going off around us. I mean, I expected people to be setting off fireworks on the eve of the greatest pyromaniac holiday of the year, but this many?

Damn near every apartment building around us had something exploding, whistling, flaring, or shooting into the air above it at some point. Courtyards, roofs, steps, middle of the street; not to mention the Nationals Stadium was putting on their own show, so we had quite a spectacle to watch as we racked hose. (I had a slightly better view, because the new guy always climbs up into the hose bed for this process.)

It was Friday night, a little after 11pm, and we still had a long night ahead of us.

I love this city.

—————

I hope everyone had a happy 4th of July, and I bet the crews on #4 had a good bit of fun.

As opposed to standing, sometimes an opportunity comes along that's just so well-placed in front of you that you can't help but rocket out the door, grabbing your camera and an extra lens on the way out. 

"What in the hell…?"

For what seemed like the hundredth time, an MPD cruiser went screaming past our classroom window, making as much racket as possible with the siren. 

"So, is there something going on that we should know about?" we wondered out loud. 

As if on cue, Sgt. Paulson threw open the door and announced that because of what had just happened at the Holocaust Museum, the Department was now on a special alert in which nobody who is currently on duty can leave their respective posts (at this time, very little was known about the situation or the perpetrator, and the ever-present possibility of "terrorist incident" loomed eerily overhead). 

He left in a rush, leaving us with more questions than answers.

Oh, well—stuck here again. We turned back to our cardiac rhythm workbooks, the news of the shooting quickly fading from our minds. Suddenly, Sgt. Woodward's voice echoed down the hallway, his quick-stepping self not far behind.

"Three-five-nine! Three-sixty! Go home. All the medics in three-five-eight, get your gear and bring it to the apparatus bay."

We looked at one another, momentarily surprised.

"Engine 34, Engine 35, and Truck 41 are to be placed in service, stand
ing by for the city."

—————

Sure, there were enough instructors and officers at the Training Academy today to fill three pieces of apparatus with seasoned firefighters. But what in the hell did they want with us newbies, and where were they planning on stuffing eight probationers with full gear? 

It was a neat idea, but I had the same thought as when I saw the latest Star Trek movie, and Kirk is appointed Captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise at the end of the movie:

"Uh… wasn't he a cadet in Starfleet Academy, like, a week ago?"

Nevertheless, we ran around for about twenty minutes, scraping together SCBAs, axes, saws, radios, and anything else that would bring our three beloved pieces up to par for a box alarm. PAT tags clipped onto the UDCs, gear laid out beside our respective apparatus, and radios holstered, we were ready to go—I won't even begin to describe how crazy the staffing was on each piece. 

And then… we waited. Always listening to the murmurs from the dispatch channel, we hoped in vain for the call that would never come. Nevertheless, I thought it was cool that we were officially in service, so I grabbed a quick picture in the downtime. This was the first time since I've been at the Academy that E-34, E-35, and T-41 have been ready to respond to an actual box alarm, if need be. 

Hours passed. Four grilled cheese sandwiches and hundreds of bullshit conversations later, we were finally allowed pack up and go home; the alert was lifted, and the Training Academy staff was freed. 

—————

What's that, you say? It's a crap story, because nothing really happened? Well, you're right. However, I relay it simply to drive home the point that this job is completely unpredictable, and any given day might bring something really intense. It's the uncertainty that draws me to the profession, you see—there's not a single day that's the same as any other. 

Regardless of what happens, the paramedics of 358 will continue our time at the Academy, refreshing ourselves on EMS things so that we can eventually be mentored out in the street. We've got a few weeks to go, for sure—but that's certainly no reason why we can't have any fun. 

Most-excellent-yet-unrealistic daydream #2,961: Let's keep the engines and the truck staffed by Academy personnel every day, and we'll do our Fire & EMS mentoring the old-school way.

Image source: http://www.startrekmovie.com