Merry Christmas

I worked Christmas Eve. The firefighter relieving me came in a little early (thanks) allowing me to get home to the family for present opening.

Last night I was hoping for a shutout but we had a couple of calls. One guy couldn't breathe too well (fine, call us for something life threatening) and another was altered. I felt like telling them that I was out of it too at 4 in the morning. Oh well. At least they were legit calls.

Now, I think I hear a pillow calling my name.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

`Tis The Season

We were dispatched for a slip and fall. Nice and generic. I've been on "slip and fall" calls ranging from a person needing a hand to get up to a person on the third story roof that had a stroke and fell, and a lot of stuff in between.

This time we pulled up to find a waver. Someone, usually a family member, that is panicked and is out in the middle of the street to wave us in. Potentially a bad sign. In front of the one story house there was a ladder. Someone had been hanging Christmas lights. My patient, a man in his early 70's, lost his balance and took the fast way to the ground.

From 5 feet up he landed on the cement driveway but not before his head came into contact with the brick wall on the side of the driveway. He was alert and oriented and had some minor bleeding from the back of his head. His family, in a near state hysteria, explained that their father had been knocked unconscious when he fell.

We grabbed c-spine and applied a neck collar. We also placed some 4x4's over the wounds on the back of his head. The trauma assessment revealed that he had a couple of skin tears on his arm as well. Other than that and his head lacerations he appeared to be in stable condition.

The guys at AMR helped up package the patient onto a backboard. The last thing I remember after loading the old man into the ambulance was one of the sons complaining that he had told his dad to let him hang the lights.

Not That Festive

Christmas came a couple days early to my house. This is because I picked up some overtime and worked Christmas Eve. I worked at station 42 which has an engine and truck company and a BC.

No. We were not this festive.

The morning was low key. We were on mandated holiday mode (yes, the fire chief actually put out an email saying that the crews were not to be doing projects or inspections or training....we were to be relaxing and enjoying the holiday). We ran a few calls and made a last minute trip to the grocery store. Thankfully the truck went and braved the crowds.

Early in the afternoon we started cooking. We were having a ton of food. Turkey and roast, potatoes (we peeled an entire 10 lb bag) and almost anything else you can think of for a holiday dinner. At 1500 hours family members started to show up. They would be trickling in over the next two hours. My wife and kids showed up just in time to see us tearing out of the station on a call.

We had 8 kids under the age of 7 running around the station. Luckily our station has a circular hallway and the kids were able to chase each other around and around. They also got to crawl all around, over and through the engine and the truck. My kids even got a ride with lights and sirens around the station (out the apparatus bay and then to the back of the station). That may not seem like much but to little kids it was awesome!

After dinner and cleaning up we grabbed some presents that had been bought by the regular crew there at the station. They had "adopted" a couple of low income families that didn't have much to give their kids for Christmas. We headed out and made a couple of deliveries hopefully brightening Christmas for a few kids and their parents.

To top it all off we slept through most of the night.

It was a good day to be a firefighter.


Merry (belated) Christmas.

Be Careful With Your Christmas Tree

Make sure your tree stays moist. Give it lots of water and use LED lights. If it gets dry, toss it.