Embarrassing Moment for SBCoFD Engine 121

A couple of Fridays ago we got a phone call at the station from one of our explorers. He said that there was a vehicle fire up on the grade. We quickly got dressed and headed that direction. When we informed dispatch of what we were up to they told us that Medic Engine 121 was on scene requesting our assistance. This perked up our interest since the only reasons that we could come up with where they would ask for our help were not good (fire into the brush, a large truck on fire, person trapped in a burning vehicle etc). When we arrived on scene we saw a small SUV with the engine compartment and the front of the passenger compartment involved. We also noticed Medic Ambulance 121 was on scene but that Medic Engine 121 was not. We pulled a line and started putting the fire out. The hood did not want to open even with the irons so I grabbed the rotary saw and opened the engine compartment with a shower of sparks. Turns out that 121 had a structure fire earlier in the day and then got busy with other calls. They never refilled the engine after the first fire so they ran out of water. When we arrived on scene they were off filling their tank. It was nice to put out their fire for them. Then when we were getting ready to clean up when we got dispatched to the report of another fire so we let 121 clean up while we got to go play. It turned out to be two different illegal buns. Not much fun but it beats waiting around for a tow truck.


The captain from 121 and Division Chief 5202 look on at our handy work.


Grant Graffius and I putting the finishing touches on the vehicle fire.

Grant

Me getting some.

This is a costly engine repair.

Me, again.

Our illegal burn. Boring, but better than waiting on a tow truck.

Here Kitty Kitty Kitty.

So Ben is trying to get back into shape...at least better shape. He asked Chris and me if we wanted to go on a night hike. We were both not interested but we offered to wait in the engine while he went for a hike. Ben was grateful for that so we went up to one of our local hiking spits. Before Ben started off on his hike we gave him an extra radio that way he could monitor dispatch and communicate with us on a tactical channel. I climbed up on top of the engine and used my jacket as a pillow. The stars were amazing and I started to count satellites. It was pretty easy for us to keep tabs on his progress since he had two flashlights with him. He made good time to the top. Once he made it to the top we got a funny radio transmission. "Um, guys. There's a bunch of coyotes up here. NO! They're bobcats!!" The last bit of radio transmission was said in a high pitched, panicky voice. Chris and I were laughing pretty hard. We then saw the light from Ben's flashlight move rapidly down the mountain. After about 5 minutes of running we could tell that Ben was looking around him for the cats. He then radioed us and let us know that the largest bobcat was following him. About this time I began to think that if there are bobcats up there, there could be mountain lions up there too. Chris and I both grabbed axes and went up to meet Ben. That night, when we were all in bed, Ben heard a faint mmeeeoooowww. Ben replied with a F*** Y**!! Chris and I busted up laughing. Ben's new nickname is Kitty.

Fall Down the Stairs

We got a call for a fall with injuries. These types of calls are either really good (patient falling from roofs and ladders) or complete BS (fall with a boo boo on the elbow). I told my fireman that it was his turn to do the patient assessment and if he needed help I'd step in. As we arrived on scene my engineer let me know that he had been here once before about a month ago. He told that there was an old lady here that fell down the stairs, and that she was a little off. So we walked inside to find this nice old lady laying on her couch. She told us that she had fallen down the wooden stairs yesterday (despite the new hand rail that was made with three 2x4's) and that she had a lot of pain in her shoulder and hip. She called us because of the pain and the bruising. I was having a lot of fun watching my fireman stumble through his assessment. He does fine in practice but chokes up on calls. When I tried to find out what medications she takes I was informed that her husband locks them up. I'm guessing that there is some type of psych history there. We treated her the best we could and loaded her up into the ambulance.

Abdominal Pain

The other day we had two calls in a row for severe abdominal pain. The first call was for a man that was on morphine for some back pain. The morphine had caused him to be constipated and he had not had a bowel movement in a week. Unfortunately for him there is not much we can do. We started an IV and transported him to the hospital.

The second patient is one of our regulars. She has some major GI problems and gets severe pain and coughs up blood. There isn't much we can do for her either other than give her some fluids. We started an IV on her and sent her on her way.

Abdominal pain calls can be frustrating at times since there isn't a whole lot that we can do in the field.

Um...There's A Brush Fire Down on the Center Divider

Once again we were out in front of our station when several vehicles pulled up to let us know about the fire down the highway. I'm not sure how to get people to realize that there is a simple phone number that they can call to report such things as fires! Anyways, we quickly jumped into our brush gear and tore down the Morongo Grade. Once he got to the bottom we were canceled by Riverside county engine 37. We found out that the fire had been started and extinguished by some CalTrans workers. Oh well. There's your tax dollars at work.