Last day with the Hill City Bravest

Yesterday started out like it usually does at Station 1 on the C-shift. I made a pot of Folgers coffee, put the tables and chairs back, went through the fridge yard doggin' B-shift's leftovers, and grabbed the Lynchburg News and Advance and settled in for a good tour in the city's downtown district. I don't live in the city, but every third day, the historic district in Lynchburg becomes my home, I spend 24 hours interacting with the people here on all different levels, some good, some bad. Yesterday, was my last day. I was fortunate enough to have spent the majority of my time in Lynchburg, at Station 1-C, because there is not a better group of guys. I have tried to mention names in previous posts but these are the men of Station 1-C in order of appearance and rank.

Battalion Chief Fred Mills
Captain Michael Thomas
Captain Sean Regan*
Master FF Frankie Campbell
Master FF Scott Kelly*
FF Steven Evans
FF Neil Patterson
FF Charlie Shealy
FF Jeremy Pillow*
FF Stephen Curry*

(* denotes ALS)

With Shealy and myself holding down the medical unit, the rest of the guys piled on the Engine. I need to make mention that it was also Jeremy Pillow's birthday, he wasn't sure if it was 36, or 37. Either way, we all decided the day was going to be celebrated in true St. 1 fashion: good food, sloppy lookin' homemade cake, and a whole bunch of runs to keep us busy. With the truck down for the day, there was only 6 of us at the station, so we invited E2 down for meals. Scott Kelly had to ride EMS-2, which meant his normal black cloud and ridiculous amount of call volume affected every medic unit in the city, thanks a lot Scott. Shealy and I tried to run out to the stations so I could say some goodbye's grab a few photo's, yadda yadda yadda. Well...that didn't happen, after 9am we ran, ran, ran...and ran some more calls. We went up and down the spectrum of serious to complete BS as far as calls go. The important thing was we ate every meal on time. I will say this, when you run from the morning up until midnight, with no time to yourself, barely time to use the bathroom between calls, just enough time to eat 3/4 of what's on your plate, you tend to sleep very good (when you do finally get in the bed) and by divine intervention, Medic 1 slept ALL night, after midnight. It was a great last day in the city, C. Lombre was with us working for Steven Evans, and cooked two incredible meals, with limited culinary assistance from the rest of the guys. Shealy and I missed the cake lighting but were able to scarf a piece or three down around 2200. Also, the continuous agitation throughout the day at my expense kept us all in good spirits.

 Again, it was a great day, and for a finishing touch, this morning around 0715, one of the LynComm dispatchers toned out the city and wished me good luck. It's CURRY, not Carry! (that was for you Shealy).

The last view of Station 1:

Until next time fella's...

Curry

C-Shift catches Miller Park Job

Every dog has his day, apparently, that day was last C-shift day for two of our St. 1 members. Just after 4pm, as dinner was getting started, Battalion 2 saw some work in an unoccupied structure. The run card included: E6, E1, E2, E4, T2, R1, M6, M3, B1, B2, EMS-2, and Chief 1. I'm pretty sure M6 marked first on scene with heavy smoke from the Alpha, Bravo and Delta sides. E4 who was just leaving the Food Lion added to the run due to their location and arrived just ahead of E6 and stretched the first line through the front door for an aggressive interior attack, FF Shealy at the nozzle (St. 1). The Rescue Co. took care of the primary, Miles in the lead, yelling something in spanish the entire time, typical. E1 arrived and grabbed the second line and stretched through the front door to assist E4 in extinguishment. Crews found a bedroom well off with extension into the hallway, heat and heavy smoke throughout. The fire was under control in 10 minutes. Due to medic class and a full vacation list, St. 1 personnel were spread out, but we all made it to the fire on about 4 different pieces of apparatus...except for Neil, because he was on Medic 4, and that's just funny. I was fortunate to be riding with 2 captains on Engine 1 again, Mike Thomas (my captain) and Chris Adams (A-shift EMS-2), two salty old dogs. Lets just say the Growler got us there in great time, he put that ole reserve American LaFrance in the wind and let her eat.

C-Shift Tech Rescue

 Friday in the Hill City turned out to be a busy one, with what seems like half of the department in medic class during varying parts of the day, we made do on the Engine by putting work in early on a few medicals along with the Medic. Truck 1 was down for the count, so Truck 2 had the city, which gave them the opportunity to run pretty much all day between both battalions, strong work fella's. Late afternoon, E6, M6, T2, R1, EMS-2, and B2 caught a pin job in the city near the hospital. I didn't get pictures so I posted the news link:

 WSET.com - ABC13 - Update: Man Hit By SUV In Critical Condition

When it was toned out, M1 and E1 were working on clearing from an assault a couple blocks down, naturally, being the tech rescue station, B2 got us to start that way with the trailers in case we had to shore the house in question. We got there a little late after they had transported the patient, but as usual, the second battalion guys did a helluva job mitigating the situation all the while providing aggressive advanced life support treatment to the patient. St. 1 ended up bringing USAR 1 and 2 to the scene after we were added to the run card. We cleared from that, got back a little before 7, and I finished cooking dinner, which I might add was delicious (not bragging or anything).

On a different note, St. 1 will be losing a member in 2 weeks, more on that later. We're back Monday, I'll be sure to keep you posted.

C-Shift Re-cap

1000 hits! Many thanks to the design and publishing team, aka myself, on accomplishing such a feat. Just kidding, but seriously, it's been awhile since I updated, so to bring you all up to speed on the happenings around here. B-shift caught an underground transformer fire downtown a week ago, and the pictures were too dark to even tell what was going on, but from what I hear, they were down there a good couple hours flowing water and foam to control it. The next day on C-shift, the Fire Prevention office lady, Jenny Mayberry, set up a station tour for some Kindergarten students from Lynchburg Christian Academy. I'm hoping the kids and parents had a good time, 4 yr olds are tough to read sometimes. Anyway, we were glad to show them the station and trucks.

The next work day I got shipped off to St. 3 to ride backstep on Lynchburg's busiest engine company (according to them). A. Morton chauffeured, while K. Turner rode boss. All in all a great day, we stayed busy during the day, knocking out a few fire runs and medicals. B. Barber (squadman) cooked a delicious salmon dinner, which, consequently we ate while watching a hellacious storm pass through the city which eventually dumped a couple tornados out in the county. The Rescue is OOS, something about a PTO, so the guys are using USAR 2 until they get the Rescue back.

A couple things before I get out of here, first, there's a possibility of selling some St. 1 t-shirts, custom obviously, there'll be a sign-up posted in a few days. Second, some of the guys are going to the Walter Sisk Memorial Truck School in Charlottesville, so I'll be sure to get the guys to take some pics. For now, Pebble and I are going to hold this little medic unit down 'til 0730 tomorrow.

Downtown 2-Banger

I take 1 day off, and I miss a downtown second alarm. Yes, downtown, which means its in the first due, also it was my engine/truck day...Naturally, the exact second that it came out I had already received a text from Thor (who by divine intervention actually missed a working fire) saying I was missing a worker. This was followed by, "Oh yea and they just struck a second..." Anyway, over the course of the next 12 hours, several (all) of the guys on my shift ("C") in both the first and second battalion, made sure I was aware of the fact that I missed a 2-banger, so thanks. Well, since I wasn't there, I'll give you the rundown as best as I can. The first alarm assignment looked something like this: E1, E2, E4, T1, R1, M1, B1, B2, and EMS-2. E1 arrived first on scene, reporting fire and heavy smoke coming from the 5th floor on the 8th St. side (side D). Upon notification of a working fire, T1's officer, struck a second alarm, which brought E6 and T2. M4 and M6 were also added due to the occupancy of the building. Quick side note, Steve Ripley (3-B), who apparently catches every working fire in Lynchburg, just happened to be on the second alarm riding backwards on T2, figures. E1's crew humped the high rise to the 5th and hooked up to the standpipe. E1 and M1 entered the involved apartment and were met with a well involved room and contents fire. M1 found the fire and performed a primary of the apartment, while E1 worked on extinguishment. T1 performed ventilation and searches. All other incoming units performed the rest of the necessary fire ground tasks, including the rest of the primary and secondary searches on non-involved floors, water supply and RIT. Miles Tranks (R1-C) in typical fashion, was fully dressed and packed up before setting the parking brake on the Rescue, and up 5 flights of stairs, waiting, before Kenny and Stewart (the other squad guys) had even exited the truck.

I had some pictures of the involved apartment, but I can't find them, sorry. This all went down on 03/03/2012. So, to catch up on some more recent activities, it turns out that St. 6, who notoriously, have been the most consistently busy station in the city (engine and medic) for a couple years, couldn't bring the pain like M1 did last workday. We pulled in 16 runs for the shift, although, we only transported probably 10 or so.  Now, I know that number seems low but we probably didn't run our first call until about 2pm. That day the rest of the station got to do the normal Friday maintenance.

I just want to point out the enthusiam that Pebble shows while sweeping the back of the medic. This will probably be the longest post yet, but since I have pictures of B- shifters playing around in the Blizzard of '12, I might as well put them up for your viewing pleasure.

Grass is mowed, kitchen is cleaned, leftovers are put away, and Ripley is driving the Engine...the night is young.

Big Lift University and "C" Shift Rope Rescue

It's been pretty busy here, last weekend, 3 more guys went back down to Sanford, NC for the Heavy Lift University class which was part of the Big Rig Rescue program a couple of us went down to two weeks ago. From what I hear the class was great, they came back with a lot of new knowledge and ideas that we'll be training on here shortly using what what we have on the trucks here between the truck company, USAR 1, and USAR 2 (Airshores/Res-q-Jacks). Here's a couple shots of the guys working on some of the different scenarios.

The next work day after the guys got back from class, we had a surprise tech rescue drill over at Riverside Park. The drill started out, with LynComm toning out E4 for a fall at the park. E4 responded and found the Training Capt and Battalion Chief of Training on the scene, who in turn informed them of the scenario. E4 special called the tech rescue team (St. 1) and took command until the appropriate resources made it on scene. E1, M1, USAR 2, and R1 added to the run card to fill the rescue assignment. The scenario was this, a hiker fell off a cliff onto a rock outcropping approx 50 ft. The p/t was unresponsive, and the training division advised that the option to lower the patient from where he was was not possible, so we had to construct a haul system to facilitate victim removal.

Special thanks to Capt. Turner (St. 3) for taking ALL 8 pictures. We had to hike our equipment about a quarter of a mile to the location where the victim was last seen. Unfortunately, the victim suffered a catastrophic amputation of the lower extremity (special thanks in part to the Training Captain) so from the get go the prognosis for survival was low. The drill went well, all members worked toegether well to set up a solid anchoring system from which we sent 2 members who rapelled down to assess, treat and package the patient. Off that system, a 5:1 was used to bring the patient and a rescuer up the face off the cliff. The whole drill took about an hour and a half from start to finish and we were able to get back, clean the equipment, return to service just in time for dinner.



Big Rig Rescue

This past weekend, four of us, (Mike, Steven, Van and myself) rode on down to Sanford, NC for the Big Rig Rescue Class put on by the Central Carolina Community College. Registration started on Friday at noon, and class started at 1. Friday's portion was all classroom and focused on recognizing the different loads that we may encounter and limitations of different equipment we might use. The class is similar to the VDFP Truck Technician Course, just more in-depth material and emphasis on critical thinking. Alot of the information was centered on overrides and underrides and rollovers involving big rigs (hence, the name of class) All of Saturday was spent on the training ground doing different lifting and stabilization scenarios. We were split into groups of 10, So we joined up with 4 guys from Prince William Co F&R and 2 from Richmond. Quick side note, the guys we worked with were knowledgeable and experienced and great to work with.

Here are a couple shots of our first scenario in which a sedan was underrided by a loaded tanker truck.

We finished the day doing two more scenarios, one, an overturned cement mixer on a sedan, and the last a
bus that had rear-ended a small pickup truck and run it up onto a road tractor. Unlike other classes I've taken where the instructor tells you what to do, and you just have to follow instructions, we were challenged to think for ourselves as a group and find a solution. We wrapped the night up by going to the Sagebrush Grill and Saloon and met up with the guys from PWC, Richmond and Wilmington. If Applebees and Logans had a child, well, it would be Sagebrush and thats all there is really to say about that. The next day, we did three more scenarios, all building on principles from the day previous.

All in all, this was a great class, although we don't have alot of the heavy duty stabilization equipment that the Paratech trailer had, we figured we could still do alot with a little. I highly suggest that if you get the time or money, take this class as it is offered a couple times a year. We met a lot of good guys from as far away as Prince William Co, to Vail, CO. Side note, turns out one of the guys who was there from CO was also the guy who "won" the Bachelorette a couple years ago. And in win, I mean he married the girl. Naturally, after this became known amongst a few of the VA boys, a plan was made (at the Sagebrush) with the help of members of Prince William and Wilmington to place a single rose on the desk of you know who. Now, before you go asking yourself why myself or any other career fireman would recognize a TV celebrity like this, well, I'll be honest, there isn't one, its just easier to say I wasn't the only who recognized him. Ryan Sutter, Lieutenant/Reality TV Celebrity, Vail Fire Department. Needless, he was a good sport about the rose.

Thats all I got, also many thanks to Brittany, our beautiful waitress at the Sanford Ruby Tuesday for putting up with 15 fireman at one table during dinner rush. We were well fed, and never went thirsty. I'll be putting some pics up tonight covering a little of the snowstorm last night.

Curry