Getting back on the truck..

I'll start by saying that our Department as a whole as well as the Brown family continues to receive much needed prayer and support. For that, we are all grateful. The "Big Show" posted a thank you note on their site found here. It was discussed at our Union meeting last night that some calls are still coming in asking where you can send cards etc. The address is as follows.. (address has been removed until approved by the family, we will add it back following authorization). It should also be noted that donations can be made to Captain Brown's daughter's ( his "girls" ) college fund. Checks should be made to Stephnie Brown c/o Caroline and Hannah's college fund. Donations should be sent to the Daleville, Va. branch of SunTrust Bank 72 Kingston Drive. Daleville, Va. 24083 Phone (540) 992-6972 to the attention of Tonya Brown.
OK, in our last post I added a clip from Ladder 49 and in it, the Captain (John Travolta) told the men that getting back on the truck was the way to honor their fallen. "Brown's Hounds" down at #1C have done so and so will we with our postings. Our regular readers know I can get long winded but, I'll try to be brief tonight. I want to try to catch you up on a few of the recent happenings here at Station #9. Back on Oct. 13th our brothers from A-shift posted on a motel fire they had up Melrose. The were pretty humble with the facts though. They were 1st in to our "technically" 3rd due. Multiple companies were out of service for one reason or another. The call was received with a report of a handicap person trapped! They arrived with smoke and flame showing and WENT TO WORK! Fire knocked down, exposure doors forced and rooms searched before the 2nd due made it in. Luckily, the victim was able to self rescue just as they arrived. Reminds me of the other fire service movie Back Draft ... John Wayne time boss..

HELL OF A JOB THERE BOYS!! HELL OF A JOB!
Ok, on to C-shift, we've had several more nursing students ride along with us and I promised them a pic on the blog ( told em we'd make em famous). Sadly, this will all soon end because the part-time Medic Unit will be moving over to "The Deuce" aka Station #2. Here, Medic #101 has been parked outside and with cold weather approaching, admin felt the need to move them inside. The good news is that they'll be back when we move to our new home, hopefully sometime in March 2010. So here's our latest students Megan Caldwell and Virginia Vaughn at the top and Rebecca Dunham and Margy Bacon below.



Yea yea I know..it's a hard life here at #9 but someone has to do it. Our very own "Ninja Cook" has been making remarkable improvements. With a little guidance from yours truly, he even baked a few pies. Our old friend Officer Combs (aka "Evil Knievel" or "Awful Kanaful" now that he's assigned to a motorcycle) couldn't believe Opie was baking so he stopped in to sample the results.



You can't tell be the expression but he did have 2 slices lol. In our last post, I listed the names of the County and Salem brothers and sisters who covered our rigs during the funeral. I'd like to point out again the ones who covered here for our B-shift Misfits. They were Geoff Tuck, Ron Stone, Matt Bradshaw and Brandon Carroll all from Roanoke County Fire / Rescue. The City's own Captain R.T. "Skippy" Flora (from Lucky #13-B) also missed the funeral to cover as the Officer here. Again, I want to thank these guys before busting their balls...and you know I gotta. You see, there's always been a little friendly "competition" if you will between the City and County. Good, clean firehouse fun. Well, C-shift worked the tour the following day and at 07:30 when Lt. Bugg went out to check and prep our War Wagon, SHE WOULDN'T FIRE. The County boys worked a 1/2 day on her and she just laid down a QUIT! I don't know if they tried to take her in the woods or up in the mountains somewhere looking for brush fires or what.. but she wouldn't crank. We had to pull her out with the "Cowboy Cadillac" and call the hook. Oh the shame of it all..LOL

You guys know I'm just kidding and again want to thank you for everything you did. They actually made a few runs and caught a kitchen fire. Speaking of catching one, we did that ourselves today. Looked BIG. HEAVY black smoke from 9 blocks out. Marked it a worker from that far away. Got there (a junk yard) and there was so much fire and smoke, thick, black smoke, that I really couldn't tell what was burning. I had the boys pull the 2 1/2 and they WENT TO WORK! Man am I proud. Wheels, Tyrone and Opie did one hell of a job knocking her down. In the end, it was 2 cars, 1 van, a motor home (next to a building) 6 industrial loader tires (400 lbs each), vehicle tires, gasoline tanks, and general rubbish burning. Looked worse than what it was but a good job by everyone involved. Also on scene was E4, E5, L13, E3, L7, M9, M4, BC2, ST2 our PIO, FM1, and Chief 1 (who opened the hydrant). Here's a shot moping up..

And yes, we kept it out of the building..just melted the door a little. If you noticed, I said "Wheels" Tyrone and Opie. Wheels (an A-shift Misfit) is covering for Coon so he can attend the Va. Tech Chokey game...oops I mean Hokie, must have been thinking about the Ga. Tech game :-) Anyway, I hope the tailgating was fun cause at this point, Tech is LOOSING. Thanks to Wheels for making the trade, and "well done" today humping that 2 1/2". Wheezy's off on vaca, no doubt at Allsports catching the game. We're back on Halloween so, see ya then. Stay safe and in house, thanks again for all the support. Captain Wines.

A WILD one for C-shifts last day

It's been another one of "those" days but the good thing is that in just a few short hours, Im outta here for 13 days! The morning started off with promise. The brothers of A-shift all met here to go on a little float trip. With a group like the one gathered I was kinda glad we were working. Here they are planning to leave

All those men and just 1 canoe?? And how bout the fella with the crazed look aflexing his muscles?


Wonder how it all worked out?? Sounds like a movie I once seen...

'Deliverance' - 'Dueling banjos' scene
Uploaded by scorpioman1357. - Explore more music videos.

LMAO!!! Squeal like a pig boy!

OK OK I'm just funning (but we do owe em one for the post they made on us). The guys made it back just fine and said they had a really good float despite the fishing being a little off. And, all kidding aside, that's what makes this house such a good one. All the shifts do things together on their days off. It makes a great bond between the brothers and only makes us stronger when on duty. Ok on with the day... We started off with EMS con-ed..WoooHooo! BORING!!! Although the boys did enjoy seeing me in the back of a Medic unit

Just a glorified taxi to get me back to the ol War Wagon :-)
After class, it was lunch, a wash down for both pieces and brass polishing in the house. Then it was wreck after wreck. We had a decent storm roll through this evening here's a view looking from the County towards the City and one from my seat.


The good thing about the storm??? We found our long lost Cop pal Combs. He must have taken a shot to the head in that last scuffle he was in because he now thinks he's Evil Kenivel. Guess that cushy promotion has made him soft.. when he was beating the streets ( and perp's heads)he would have never "ducked for cover". Put him on a Harley and he turns soft on us... what do ya do?

Guess he was still getting wet so he decided to relocate. How does this look running out of the house? As much as I begged, he wouldn't let me or Tyrone take her around the block.


The other good thing about the storm? Just like at the Hippie Hotel, we now have a pool too. I posted in the past about their "pool". Learn about it in this post or here.



At least Tyrone had on some of his SWR gear (that's a life jacket he's wearing). I mentioned wrecks, and we've had a couple good ones. The 1st took us all the way to the County. A 4 vehicle chain accident with minor injuries handled with the Brothers from Medic Unit #4.


The 2nd looked worse but also netted minor injuries. This one was handled with the Brothers from The 12th Street Express Engine #5, Engine #13, Medic 4 and Medic Unit 101.


I know, I know this is a long one but just a few more quick notes and I'll stop. We had a visitor the other day and it took me a while to get the pic where I could post it. Retired Chief Southall stopped by at lunch. He retired as Chief of Operations. During his career, he worked through the ranks and made it as high as "acting" Chief of Department. He was also stationed right here at #9 for a good while. He said he has a lot of good memories from this house. Stop back ANYTIME Chief.

We also want to say CONGRATULATIONS to Lt. Dean Russell (from up at Lucky 13)and his wife on the birth of their new daughter. Moma, baby and even Deano are all doing fine. OK, I'll stop here, just a few more hours until Capt. Bedwell from B-shift relieves me early so I can get a head start on my 13 days off. Heading to Nashville. THANKS Capt. Yall check in on the boys next cycle and make sure they're behaving. If they're not, GET OUT OF THEIR WAY! They're dangerous LOL. Everyone stay safe, and keep em in the house tonight.


UPDATE: Apparently today was the last one on duty for Captain Charlie "CHUCK" Fotchman. Chuck left #11 station tonight at around 6pm to go into retirment. I believe his last day on the books will be Sept. 1st. I worked as Chuck's Lt. at station #6 and really enjoyed the time. Most of his career was spent at #2 on C-shift. I searched Rhetts blog and could only fine 1 set of pics. Here is the link, Im sure there will be more from other bloggers soon or if you have some send em to us and we'll get em up. Either way, GOOD LUCK and ENJOY the good life Chuck!
Capt. Wines

EARLY POST FOR C-SHIFT

It's days like today that you don't want to be at work. Clear, warm sunny skies ! One of the nicest days we've had in weeks. Oh well, the "Melrose Misfits" always make the best out of what we have. It's been plenty busy this morning and that has at least helped the day pass. Extensive EMS equipment check offs this morning in preparation for upcoming state inspections. We mowed the grass because it was high. We washed trucks because they were dirty. We went to the store because we need to eat. Speaking of which, we had a visitor for breakfast. One of Roanoke's finest, our good friend Officer Combs stopped in to break bread.

I didn't update after our Friday post, but our ride along photographer got to see plenty of action on Friday's tour. It seemed as though he really enjoyed the ride and said he believes he got everything he was hoping to capture. What is 2nd nature and everyday occurrences to us caught him as somewhat comical. Several little things throughout the tour such as an accident victim not willing to leave the scene for transport to the local ER without taking the fresh box of donuts she had just stopped to purchase. What was even funnier was that Coon ended up driving the Medic to the hospital ... he's attempting that "eat more healthy" close to a "diet" thing and KK Donuts are his WEAKNESS. But, being the professional he is, he did NOT eat the lady's donuts. As bad as she wanted to take them and as bad as he loves to eat em, I just knew it would be a struggle in the ambulance. He said he didn't even lick one and flip it over in the box so she wouldn't notice! What disipline! Makes a Captain proud. Seth also got to see Bug take on an attack chiwawa ... poodle or some kind of mut. Short story, our "cat whisperer" won. Later in the shift, Seth was able to read some of or local signage. This was a sign posted next to the front door of a house that we responded to for an assault. Apparently someone didn't read the sign, and when confronted, she answered with a Louisville slugger. I wonder if he'll take the sign down when he gets out of the hospital?

We are excited to see how Seth's article turns out. We'll have a link posted as soon as it's published. Well, to move along, breakfast wouldn't be the last visit for Officer Combs today. Another "Northwest Sickle" was applied following the fight and then a whole bunch of pepper spray to end it. Well, Combs has done this song and dance enough to know where to go. Again, the "bad guy" was crying too hard to read Comb's "No Whining" sticker so he brought him by for a wash down. Read the original post and see the sticker here. I have to find out just how much peper spray he goes through a week (LOL).

Yep, that's Tyrone saving another one. So, things have quieted down some what. The boys put a Boston Butt on the smoker (in honor of our friend up at the Hippie Hotel...she likes the Sox). We're looking forward to dinner, an evening drill (training) and hopefully a game of cornhole. We even splurged today and have a movie for tonight. I just hope it works out like we have it planned. Oh yea, speaking of our friends up at #3, their Medic had to pass through our territory this afternoon on their way to the ER. Always looking out for our brothers and sisters, we gave them an escort through Northwest so nobody would pick on em...LOL

We may update later tonight...depends on how it all goes. If not, we're back on Tuesday.