1st day back for C-shift

Feels like fall now. Cloudy cold day and a belly full of Lt. Bugg's 500 bean chili. Bet the bunk room will be right tonight! I never knew there were so many different kinds of beans. Anyway, it's been a so so return for the misfits of C-shift. A bad run for the Medics (Coon and Tyrone)and the guys over at Lucky L-13 that I'm not sure how to tell about and keep everyones privacy so I'm not gonna. On a brighter note, I didn't post last day but we did have some pretty comical runs. I'll add a few pics of one and let you decide the caption / title... check it out.


LOL I can't wait to see what kind of response those get. Moving on, Wheezy has been gone all day working as an evaluator for our regional CPAT (ok, I know we are not in Ca. but it's the same test.. google CPAT here and look for yourself). Sounds like we had several candidates competing for a shot at working for a Department here in the valley. The good news is that we heard some of the part time guys we work with here on Medic 101 did very well and will advance to the next step. Good luck to Alex, John, Josh and all the other candidates who have chosen to make ours their profession. With Wheezy gone and Tyrone all jacked up on Ritalin, it turned out to be Opie's day in the "hot seat". It seems as though each day, someone has the privilege of being the one everybody else pokes at. Today, it was Opie's turn. Seems as though he had a bad experience hunting yesterday. He's looked, searched, photographed, mapped, documented, you name it, he's done it in preparations of killing this ONE deer. Now this is not just "ANY" deer mind you, he seen this monster way back in the summer and called "DIBS". Well apparently, he forgot to tell his neighbor or maybe he's just not doing something right. Either way, the neighbor got the kill.We've gone over it a thousand times today, retracing every step and we can't pin point exactly where he went wrong. It couldn't have been his stand placement..that was perfect

Even his secondary stand was in a good location... a great view of the near by soybean fields..

Maybe this deer was just smarter than Opie?


Could have been that Opie is a little behind in today's hunting technology

I guess it really doesn't matter at this point because the deer is dead and that's that. How do we know for sure you ask??? With all the EMS training we've had lately, as soon as Opie heard the deer had been shot, he sent the Stewartsville Medical Examiner out for verification..

DRT...Poor Opie, he did everything right for the hunt... everything except the part where you shoot the deer (which I thought was the most important). He's been heart broke.. HEART BROKE!! I tell ya. I've told the boys to lay off, but between us, I think they've still been fretting a little. I even offered to let him hunt over around my place but he said he was after a "wall hanger", a"trophy" deer, some "antler stew" something he could be proud of... not those thin, small, mountain farm, garden eaters like we have over in Catawba

**(NOTE: not my kill. Shot by Chuck Hartman 2008 / 2009 season)**
Anyway, the good news for all you PETA members out there is that Opies has sworn off hunting. It's the Kroger meat Dept. from this point on, well, Kroger and what he's eligible for from Hunters for the Hungry.

I'll close with a reminder of the upcoming meeting on October 20th for our newly formed football team. Plans are well underway and it looks as if it's going to be a BLAST. We have been accepted into the National Public Safety Football League and need to get to work ASAP in order to be ready for our 1st season. Capt. Stone and Chris Price have been hard at work on our behalf. They have created a web site found here and will be able to address any questions at the October meeting. Make plans to attend and PLAY! See ya there... until next day (Tuesday) be safe and stay in the house. Capt. Wines

Less than 9hrs til 4 day!

Last day of the cycle for C-shift and it looks like we'll have a pretty decent 4-day as far as the weather goes. Today started out rainy but turned into a sunny and hot evening. If it wasn't Sunday, we were thinking about making some modifications to the Medic truck. They managed to be first in on 2 fire calls today. Coon and Rhett (filling in again from Lucky 13) have requested a booster reel or at least an additional water can. They were thinking and said that if we removed the stretcher and it's mounts, we'd have enough room for a small water tank and maybe some hand tools. Of course the added stress of operating such a piece of equipment may be more than some could bare so I told them we should just keep it simple. Right now all they really have to worry about or to remember is "sticky side down" (that's for putting on band-aids for all of our non-medical type readers LOL). All kidding aside, some of our readers may not know that our Medics are firefighters also. They respond to fire calls on the Medic truck just as we respond to medical calls on the Engine. They carry their turnout gear in the side compartments and even have SCBA's (air packs) on the truck. In most cases, the first arriving Medic units gets put to work fighting fire and an additional unit is dispatched once a "working fire" is signaled. That 2nd Medic unit usually is then assigned as a medical group. Our medics and firefighter / EMTs also rotate apparatus. Some days they ride the Engine, others they ride the box (medic unit). Anyway, the system seems to work well for us.
Today has been a day for appliance fires. We had a dryer on fire earlier today with our brothers from The 12th Street Express (#5) and Ladder 2. Then a stove fire tonight with Lucky Ladder 13 (Medic 9 arriving 1st with Coon providing an excellent size up). Not much work involved with either incident. Engine 5 did stretch a line on the dryer but the stove fire was out on arrival. Here are some pics from those two runs, sorry about the night pictures, I still haven't figured out this camera as far as night shots go.Not much else to blog about tonight. Were sitting on 5 or 6 and are hoping for a quiet night. We made a little change to the banner of the blog. We were playing around with the look and thought some color would look good. We didn't consult with the other shifts, so it may not last long. I will admit that it looks better than what I originally thought it would. Let us know what you think about it under the comment section. I'll throw in a few links for ya to wrap things up. These are a few of the sites I check in with regularly and you may enjoy, look here here here and here. I also hope you folks have taken the time to check out the Fire Critic . We added his link to our blog a few days ago. The site is looking pretty good and today he has a link for some company level training that stems from a Sacramento Ca. close call. Take his advise, set your company down and watch the videos. Here's the direct link as well. The last link I'll add is a really cool one as well. It's about a little fire buff ... little as in a kid... worth the read here. That's it for now, an update if worthy as usual. Until then, stay safe and in the house, lock up the women and children, we're heading on 4 day! Capt. Wines.

Slow runs but a busy day in the warm weather for C-shift

Not alot of runs so far but a busy day with pre fire plans and training. The weather today was beautiful and that has allowed us a chance to get out and flow a little water without the fear of freezing up. Capt. wanted a pump drill using the ladder pipe and Ladder2 was out for high rise training and Ladder 13 already had a company drill planned. Thankfully, Capt. Perdue and 1st Lt Stump extended the invitation for us to join them and it turned out to be a very nice drill. All the boys got a little time on the pump as well as some time on the stick (if you can call a 75' ladder a "STICK"). Anyway, here a just a few cool shots from the drill (top to bottom.. E9 from the tip, Lt. Bug looking down from the tip, Opie and Tyrone on the tip, and E13 on the hydrant supplying L13).