A busy shopping day and, apparently, a busy alarm day. E16 made 11 calls (mostly medical) all through the day and night. Calls ran from a child locked in a car, to a roll over accident in the cowskin (see below), to a code blue that evening.

The only highlight of the day was the 50″ plasma TV that the station bought. Runyan stood in line at the Walmart at 3:30 in the morning to buy it. Nice picture, even though we didn’t get to watch it too much.

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A very good Thanksgiving this year. The whole family was there. Mom did her usual fantastic job (with Lilly’s help). I meant to take a picture of the food, but I got sidetracked and forgot until it was too late.

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It started out early in the day with a code blue (subject not breathing). We ended up doing CPR for about 40 minutes and EMS shocked him 4 times. I don’t think he made it.

After many more calls we made a man choking. I only took this picture because I remembered I had the iPhone.

Then, about an hour later, we made a small apartment fire at the Cimmaron Apartments in the 700 block of North Ridge Road. We were the third unit in, so we got to stay and help. No real fire, just some smoldering wood.

This is just a shot of the room we store our bunker gear when we are off shift. Usually there are at least 14 sets of gear here any given day.

I got the pleasure of replacing the starter on my pickup today. I was really apprehensive about it, but like most things, the hardest part is starting. Once I got going, it was really pretty easy. All except the part where I fork over $200 for the new one.

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Today I went out to my dad’s to cut some wood. He had a couple of hedge trees that he had cut down last year.

So we spent the day with chain saws and log splitters. I’ve got a big pile of hedge split and just waiting to help me through the long cold winter.

We also ate some persimmons that grew in town, but I didn’t get a picture of that.

Ran the bleachers at Cessna Stadium Monday morning. Pretty cold and a little windy. The wind was out of the East, so I ran the East set of bleachers so that they would block the wind.

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It’s time once again for our annual hydrant inspections. It’s actually alot of fun, especially when the weather cooperates. In the picture above, our rookie (Steve Runyan) enjoys opening one of the year’s first hydrants.

911

911 Center
Dispatch Center

Working at the 911 Dispatch Center
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Today I worked a shift at the 911 dispatch center.

All fire department personnel have to do a shift down at the center. Since they switched to the new dispatching software, numerous dispatching problems have arisen that haven’t really been the dispatcher’s fault. All parties involved are a little defensive.

For the past several months, all fire stations have been required to monitor a radio all night to be sure they don’t miss any alarms.

Now we staff dispatch 24 hours a day, but the stations no longer have to monitor the radios.

It’s very interesting, seeing things from the other side. They have a very difficult job that no one really pays attention to, unless they do it wrong.