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.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX !

Ok folks, by now everyone knows I'm long....errrr...winded yes, long winded and today's post may be a record setter. So, If you want to know what the C-shift Misfits have been up to today, go get a drink and snack, sit back and continue to follow along. If you could care less and / or don't have the time, check out these sites for a shorter, less entertaining read ... here here or here. Ok, today was kinda all about one of our beloved part-timers, Alex Helms. Today is Alex's birthday and he decided to pull a tour and spend it with us ( ain't that special??) He even brought T-bone steaks in for dinner. He brought em and wouldn't let us pay for em (his other job is as a meat cutter). All he wanted was for someone to fix em...and that we did! T-bones, baked potatos, corn on the cob and a salad. We waited, slowed things down, then sped em up trying to get everyone here between calls and, have all the food done at the same time... it worked. Everything done to perfection, on our plates, the blessing said, forks in the air and.... you guessed it "ding ding ding". Out the door they went. Poor fella. The good news is that we're keeping it warm for him and we didn't cut the "special" cake the boys made for him. Until he made it back that is...Here's a few pics (the cake blurred out...ask him about it LOL) Just like all of our part timers, Alex does a great job and we are proud to have him run out of this house. He currently has his application for full time and should take the C-PAT in a week or so. Good luck and HAPPY BIRTHDAY Alex, I hope you enjoyed the day. Well, I say I "hope" he did but actually know he did. You see, being it was a sunny and beautiful day (despite or wonderful local weathermen's forcast) we had a little pump drill. We had Medic 101 tag along and Alex and John both got a little nozzle time. Soaking wet (accidental of course) but grinning from ear to ear. Here's the pics and a short video of the boys laying in..
That's Alex in the 2nd pic from the top.. bet that's the biggest thing he'll have in his hands tonight, birthday or not LOL. I guess I should have started out with the happenings from this morning rather than jump straight into the afternoon events. We had a couple visitors first thing. Roy Layne from the Shriners stopped in (as he often does) bearing gifts. A whole box of candy bars donated from our local shriners. We've posted on Roy and the Shriners before ( a must see post here) and have a really great relationship with their fire unit. If you are not involved with or don't know what the Shriner's do for our children's burn hospitals, take the time to look it up or contact your local Shriners unit. Here's Roy and the boys We also had another nursing student. OK today was more like a ride-a-long rather than a student. And just when we thought we were on to something here... they sent a guy! Yep' the exact oppisite of last day's students. Of Course Kaylor didn't mind, he jumped in the pic just like with the gals..here or here. OK, so we're having a litle fun today. This ride along (John) was from one our local hospitals (LGH). They send their new hire nurses out for ride alongs with Fire/ EMS so that they can see the other side of the incident or where their patients come from and what we have to do to get them to the ER. John was a good sport today and Im certin he'll be an asset for all our local medic units when he begins work in the ER. Speaking of fun.... well you know us misfits, we try to squeeze in a little anywhere we can and today was no exception. Even while training, we sometimes break the tension. Today, I was able to combine the two. I've been talking alot about the development of a local FULL CONTACT football team and at least here at #9 we take these things serious. So, our training has already started, and we're working our way towards 2-a-days. We managed to toss the ol pig skin a little and Bugg even shot some video (sneaky bastard) of yours truly. They thought it was funny that I was wearing a helmet and a pink one at that, but I explained...hey, make due with what you have and practice like you play ..LMAO.. Just look at them boys...ATHELETES!


Now I've tried to explain that I will be a running back and NOT a receiver but they still don't seem to understand. They laugh, giggle, mumble something about me in a hospital bed and things like that. The most recient jokes are because I've found some of my old High School equipment. Like they've never seen high top Puma cleats! They snicker and mumble something about a leather helmet and even made a new screen saver for our computer...
I still don't see what's so funny and look damn good with that head of hair. Wait till we hit the field next year...THEN we'll see who's laughing ;-) OK, to wind it up here..and oh yea, thanks for hanging in. We check our blog stats fairly often (click "view my stats" at the very bottom of the page, just below the stat counter) and have noticed several regular out of town, state and even country readers. Now, the out of country comes from Iraq and we figure that to be one of our previous firefighters Gary "Fish" Fisher or my soon to be son in law "Little Dave". The others, we're not sure who they are but are glad they're reading. Anyways, we wanted to say THANKS to ALL of you and ask if you have any requests or if there is something you'd like us to post about. You know, a loyal reader pic, a link for your personal or dept. blog, a practical joke video that we'd need to top, if there's something about the station, our department or members in particular you'd like to know about or see. I guess in short I'd say, give us some imput and feedback.
To close (I know...make it quick) we posted here on Charlie "Chuck" Fotchmans retirment and although he's WAYYYY behind, Rhett has added something on his "feel good" site here. We wanted to update you on Palmer in that he made it through some more surgery but is still not able to receive visitors. Keep Dave, BJ and the kids in your thoughts and prayers. And, it's with regret that we'll add the passing of William G. "Stick" Walters. Rhett also has a post on Sticks death here. Please keep his family in your thoughts and prayers as well.
I would think that's enough for tonight, thanks again for looking in on us. Stay safe and in the house. Capt. Wines

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS..BUSY BUSY BUT IT'S OUR LAST DAY OF THE CYCLE

10 more hours and we're headed for a 4 day break! I can't wait. In typical fashion for this cycle, it's been a hectic day. The morning once again started with physicals at the City's Nurse's Office. Oppie, Bugg and Wheezy all got a stamp (or finger) of approval from Occupational Health. Good thing there's no psychiatric exam. Anyway, Wheezy also got his EMT-I learn on this morning so we had a fill in from #13 (and past member of #9) Todd Reliegh. Thanks for the hard work and tolerating all the switching etc. Todd. Today also marked the first day that we ( C-shift) got to work / run with our new renters, Medic Unit 101. They report for duty @ 09:00 but pick their unit up from over at station #4 ( because we have nowhere to park it). Well, as soon as they picked up the unit, marked in service and on air, guess what... got their 1st run of the day and, THEY THE RUNS KEPT COMING! They didn't make it back to the station until after 14:00. I guess the day's of "gravy" part- time work down at "The Big Show" are over. We did our best to make them welcome and comfortable but they didn't get to stay long...back on the road in less than 10 minutes! Here's a shot of our 2 part timers and their 2 ride along students... that's 9 bodies in the house today.

From left to right is Mark Cromer, Steve Melone, Jessica Creasy and Jose Kaniday. Thanks for knocking a chunk out of Medic 9's run load and for all the hard work guys! The Engine has stayed just as busy with EMS runs as well.. a band-aid here, a band-aid there and always sticky side down...that's just how we roll. We even caught a run with our Hippie buddies from over at station #3 ( or the Hippie Hotel ). The sad thing is that we both had to run all the way over to Stradford Park (station #4's territory) to see one another.

And yes...we beat them in as usual. That's about the most excitement we've had for the day. We've been anxiously awaiting the stroke of the 10 o'clock hour in hopes of catching the season premiere of Rescue Me. Check out the shows Official site here. If you've never watched it, and are interested in the job...it's worth the hour. That said, it's a FULL MOON tonight and that never ends well for the Melrose Misfits. So, we are trying to find someone to TEVO it for us JUST IN CASE!
Everyone be safe tonight and remember... Talk is cheap, it takes money to ride the train! Peace out