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Firefighter Intern: Day 11 and 12
Jun. 1st, 2018 09:04 am“Today I will do what others won't, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can't” ― Jerry Rice
We started the shift with a long safety meeting with the discussion of wildland fire risks being higher with high winds, heavy dry fuels and hotter than usual weather. As a result, we're all now carrying our wildland gear as well as our structural turnouts. We inspected and familiarized ourselves with Engine 478, which we are borrowing from St. Helens FD until our own Engine 481 gets repainted -and I'm glad we did! We collected an old pump and tank we had previously retired to be worked on for Wildland Fire service. I spent the rest of the morning installing my new load-bearing system and inspected and added to my wildland gear. After lunch, we got a long medical call that turned out to be my second code. This was my second time of doing CPR on a human being. Although we got pulses back with the epi, we didn't get a good outcome. This was lots of practice with my recent CPR and AED training at SOAK, although I learned to go faster and deeper. I will never forget the sound and feel of the cartilage cracking under my palms.
We got to bed early, but we were toned about midnight out for residential fire with deployment in full gear. It turned out to be a false alarm from a mentally ill person, but we spent over an hour searching for fire and standing down and getting back and in bed, but we got right up again just after getting to sleep for a walkup at about 2 am for a possible cardiac issue that also turned out to be nothing.
We slept until 0700, then up for a long debrief about the fire call and another discussion of wildland fire risk, then we started a rig check - but then we were toned out to a pretty horrific 9-person, 2 vehicle car wreck on Highway 30. Knappa FD, and our department, as well as two Lifeflight choppers, responded to the scene. Our station crew did vehicle rescue and extrication, lifting people out of the car on backboards and got them stabilized and on the choppers out to OHSU. I saw my first dead bodies as a firefighter. I also saw myself and the accident on the news once we got back to the station for the first time. We got followup later from Lifeflight that the mother and child we rescued were stable.
If you're reading this, then maybe be a little nice to me for a while. *wry smile* Any firefighter who does this job sees this kind of trauma on a regular basis - be nice to them, too.
We started the shift with a long safety meeting with the discussion of wildland fire risks being higher with high winds, heavy dry fuels and hotter than usual weather. As a result, we're all now carrying our wildland gear as well as our structural turnouts. We inspected and familiarized ourselves with Engine 478, which we are borrowing from St. Helens FD until our own Engine 481 gets repainted -and I'm glad we did! We collected an old pump and tank we had previously retired to be worked on for Wildland Fire service. I spent the rest of the morning installing my new load-bearing system and inspected and added to my wildland gear. After lunch, we got a long medical call that turned out to be my second code. This was my second time of doing CPR on a human being. Although we got pulses back with the epi, we didn't get a good outcome. This was lots of practice with my recent CPR and AED training at SOAK, although I learned to go faster and deeper. I will never forget the sound and feel of the cartilage cracking under my palms.
We got to bed early, but we were toned about midnight out for residential fire with deployment in full gear. It turned out to be a false alarm from a mentally ill person, but we spent over an hour searching for fire and standing down and getting back and in bed, but we got right up again just after getting to sleep for a walkup at about 2 am for a possible cardiac issue that also turned out to be nothing.
We slept until 0700, then up for a long debrief about the fire call and another discussion of wildland fire risk, then we started a rig check - but then we were toned out to a pretty horrific 9-person, 2 vehicle car wreck on Highway 30. Knappa FD, and our department, as well as two Lifeflight choppers, responded to the scene. Our station crew did vehicle rescue and extrication, lifting people out of the car on backboards and got them stabilized and on the choppers out to OHSU. I saw my first dead bodies as a firefighter. I also saw myself and the accident on the news once we got back to the station for the first time. We got followup later from Lifeflight that the mother and child we rescued were stable.
If you're reading this, then maybe be a little nice to me for a while. *wry smile* Any firefighter who does this job sees this kind of trauma on a regular basis - be nice to them, too.
