Engine 9 RFD: Feels like Monday

It's been a rainy, slow day for C-shift's return. Over our 4 day, the brothers of A and B-shift have kept pretty busy though. Looks like a week for GSW's and stabbings. The brothers on B-shift also caught a smokey job on the 3rd floor of HoJo's resulting in a FD injury to one of the boys from our house. Maybe Capt. Bedwell is cracking the whip a little too much. It seems as though hydrants all morning and then a lunch time fire could result in dehydration for some of the younger firefighters. They knew something was wrong when they got back to the house and Bevo Lotti wouldn't / couldn't eat lunch. He couldn't stand without falling, couldn't sit without sliding out of the chair and couldn't even make coherent sentences. Firehouse doctoring didn't even bring him around, so it was off to the ER for brother Larry. I've searched and searched but can't find a good face pic of Rivers but here is a pic that shows his most notable feature...his shirt. Each morning at shift break with B-shift, it's always worth the wait to see what slogan he has on his shirt that day.

The good news is that he made a full recovery, was released later that day and worked his entire shift yesterday without falling out. Due largely to the fact that his ever caring Capt. and Lt. assured he had a fresh cold glass of water in front of him every 30 minutes...LOL. Come to think of it, he did look a little bloated this morning at shift change. Anyways, we're glad Larry is OK and will add this link in his honor and in hopes of educating our brothers and sisters out there in blog land with hopes of preventing future injuries of this type.
Well, as I said, it's been kind of a slow day. Only 4 runs so far, shots fired, burnt food, an EMS and another "good intent". We're gonna settle in and try to watch the big fight tonight. No exciting new pics today so I'll use some older ones that you may enjoy.

The pics above are of of service truck (aka. messenger truck)drivers. At top is Jimmy "Jimbo" Jennings. Jimbo is a retired Roanoke City Firefighter and work several years along side my dad who is also retired. The 2nd pic is of Donnie Foutz who is also a retired firefighter from Vinton. I wanted to add a pic of David Rich who served as our 3rd messenger driver after retiring from the City. Dave spent alot of years here at #9 station as Lt. on the Ladder (yes we had a ladder). Dave passed away back in March of '08 and is missed around our station daily.For some %#%^@*%@$* reason, I can't find the pic I want or get the other to work so I'll add this link to Rhett's site for a pic of Rich.
UPDATE** Here's one of the pics I wanted to use. That's Rich changing my bottle and giving me hell the whole time. I can't remember about what but you can bet he was fretting. I borrowed this picture from retired Firefighter Mikey Overacker's site which can also be viewed here. Thanks for the pic Mikey.