I know we’re not supposed to be superstitious. I also know many of us are.
I’ve just noticed that New Year’s Eve is not only a full moon, but a blue moon.
Good luck, and stay safe. Personally, I’m glad I’ll be home with my family.
ATTENTION ALL UNITS, ON THE AIR AND IN QUARTERS, A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT.
Don’t ever leave your GPS visible in a parked car. Ever. Not even for a minute.
I know this and know why, and yet. . .
Here’s something else to consider: don’t program the ‘Home’ button on your GPS. Instead, program the button for your local police station. It will get you close enough to home when you need it, and it might give any unwanted visitors a nice surprise.
THAT IS ALL.
Well, in case you somehow missed it, I think the move to the new server is mostly complete and functional. I’m really enjoying the control given by using WordPress and my own hosting. The new URL is notesfrommosquitohill.com, although you can forward from the old Blogspot address.
The new look has rotating header graphics, a better random post feature, better Twitter and Facebook integration, and a tag cloud. It has a custom template for iPhone/Blackberry/mobile browsers. It also has better static page support for the About, Mosquito Hill?, and Contact pages. If you were a subscriber to the old blog either via RSS or email, you will need to resubscribe using the links in the right sidebar.
I tried to register NfMH.com for an easy, short URL, but some squatter thinks it’s worth a ton of money. That’s not happening. Instead, you can use mack505.com for easy-to-remember access in addition to notesfrommosquitohill.com.
And don’t worry, I’ll turn the snow off in a few days.
If you find any problems, please drop me a line via the Contact page above.
Christmas Eve at work.
Last year RP and I were newly assigned together, on a post that was new to the company. We’d been in the city less than a month. Right around dinner time, we were dispatched for a suicide attempt.
He succeeded.
I’ve never pretended to understand the state of mind that leads to taking one’s own life, especially at a time and in a manner calculated to hurt the survivors.
Thankfully I digress.
Afterward, I realized I’d forgotten something vitally important. We double parked in front of CVS while I ran inside. I was able to purchase the last two sleigh bells in the store.
Back at quarters, I was able to call home in time for bedtime. Beth was understandably excited, but I had something more in store. After a minute or two of casual conversation, I began to slowly shake the bells.
“Hey, do you hear that?” I asked.
I never knew it was possible to see a child’s face light up over the phone. I shook the bells a bit more, and more loudly. RP joined in with a “HO, HO, HO!” from the other side of the garage.
And she giggled.
I don’t know how I would do this job without my family. Merry Christmas, and remember the important things.
They say you never forget your first.
Mine was a few years older than I. Eight years, to be exact. She had an elegance you just don’t see these days, and she had gorgeous curves. She taught me a lot.
It took a while to learn all of her quirks. She could be cold and moody in the morning, but once warmed up she would just purr wonderfully. If you pushed her too hard, she would refuse to play. But if you treated her right, she’d take great care of you. I wasn’t her first, or even her only, but I didn’t care. She was incredibly rewarding in a way I’ve never found since.
And she left when I was 22. I’ve never seen her again, and I don’t even know where she is now.
She was a 1963 International/Howe fire engine. (Get your mind out of the gutter!)
Edit 12/7/11: She’s on her way home.
It’s a beautiful, sunny fall morning as RP and I roll into the local franchise of Large National Coffee and Doughnut Emporium. The police may have their cliches about doughnut shops, but we all know that paramedics really run on caffeine. The first stop every morning is LNCDE, or sometimes Expensive Yuppie Coffe Place up the street.
We both take our caffeine cold: coffee for RP and tea for me. (And don’t wreck it with sugar. But I digress. . .)
“Boy, am I glad to see you guys,” says the gentleman behind the counter. Wait, that’s supposed to be my line!
“I’ve been having this pain in my chest all morning.” It looks like today is going to start early. I spin on my heel and head back to the rig for the equipment, as RP talks him out from behind the counter.
Our coffee man doesn’t look extremely sick, but he tells the textbook story of a heart attack. He’s been having crushing pain, radiating to one arm. He has risk factors; he’s getting along in years, slightly overweight, a former smoker, and male. He even has the denial, saying his pain has been going on for about an hour.
And he only decided to ask for help when he saw us walk in.
Our cardiac monitor won’t detect all heart attacks in the field, but today we have no question. Coffee Man meets all of our diagnostic criteria. This is what we are trained and equipped for: the rapid diagnosis, treatment, and transportation of cardiac problems. A quick ride to Local Suburban Hospital is in order, along with a radio pre-alert for the cardiac catheterization lab.
We stop only briefly in the ER. The doctor glances at our EKG, nods, and waves us on our way. Definitive treatment for our patient is upstairs in the cath lab, and time is of the essence.
Upstairs, the cardiology team begins work on Coffee Man before our wheels have stopped turning. RP gives a report to the doctor while the nurses and I transfer our patient to the procedure table. On the ride up the elevator, we’ve already warned him that the suite will be a whirlwind of activity and tried to explain what will happen and why.
Our empty stretcher is shoved back out into the hallway, and we are ushered into a corner of the control room. It’s not meant to be rude. On an emergency scene when a life is on the line, we may be seen as brusque in dealing with bystanders. Here in the cath lab, our job is done, and now we are the bystanders.
From our small corner of the control room, we can see the TV monitors. The cardiology team finds the source of our patient’s heart attack and fixes it, before we can finish writing our report.
And all before we’ve had our morning coffee.
It’s been raining all day. It’s December, and we’re supposed to have a snow storm, but the Eastern Front receives only rain and wind. Horizontal rain, but still rain. I hear it’s been snowing out in West, but here at Medic 9 it’s just cold and wet.
Just after dusk, the rain stops briefly and the temperature rises. We clear Local Suburban Hospital in shirt sleeves and return to our district through a light fog. Seemingly all at once the street lights awake. The wet pavement reflects their sodium orange light into vectors which point the way home.
RP finds an unmarked CD someone left in the console and pops it into the player. We are treated to the mellow sounds of Pink Floyd’s Division Bell.
The night erupts in blue-white as lightning silhouettes the city, and we head east into surreality.
The phone rang as we walked into the kitchen. “Isn’t it awful what happenned to those poor Worcester firemen?” my wife’s grandmother asked.
We had been away all weekend, and in the days before smartphones, Facebook, and Twitter, we hadn’t heard. The TV was no use on a Sunday evening, so we were sent running to the internet connection. Firehouse.com and NECN were telling a story almost too horrific to believe.
At 18:13 hours on Friday, December 3, 1999, Worcester Fire Alarm struck box 1438 for the Worcester Cold Storage building at 266 Franklin Street. Before the night was over, six firefighters would perish inside the hulking, windowless six-story maze of a building. Two would lose their way while searching for possible occupants; four more would die attempting to rescue them. And a district chief would be forced to stand in a doorway, face his men, and tell them, “No more.”
There is a famous photo of that night, showing fire towering into the sky in the shape of a silhouetted firefighter.
Memories of the week come in snippets for me. We checked the internet regularly; news seemed to break minute by minute, all of it grim. It took eight days to recover all six bodies.
The memorial service was held six days after the fire. They say 30,000 of us attended. President Clinton and Senator Kennedy gave speeches. I don’t remember a word of what the President said. Senator Kennedy gave a moving address featuring the poem, “Brother, when you weep for me. . .”
It seemed like the whole city turned out in mourning. People lined the entire route of the procession. We marched about a mile from the assembly point to the Worcester Centrum (now DCU Center) for the service. The city remained silent except for one lone church bell, tolling over and over as we walked.
Firemen don’t march in lock-step like an army. Thousands of feet in patent-leather shoes walked independently, creating a rippling wave of sound as we crossed the city. Silence, church bells, and thousands of footfalls. Nothing else.
One visual image remains strong: the power company linemen. They had lined up their trucks in a vacant lot, booms extended. They stood at attention in front of them, holding their hardhats over their hearts as we passed.
Our group was among the last to enter the arena; we were literally in the furthest back row. Bagpipes played; a choir sang ‘Amazing Grace.’ I don’t remember a lot of the details, only the raw emotions.
After the ceremony, many went down to visit the fire site. It was within walking distance of the arena, and recovery efforts were still ongoing. Our group stayed away, letting the recovery go on in peace.
District Chief McNamee has retired in the intervening years. The city has built a fire station on the site, and later today they will dedicate a memorial there. We all still carry the ‘W6′ decals on our helmets and the memories in our hearts.
Rest in peace, gentlemen.
FF Paul Brotherton, Rescue 1
FF Jeremiah Lucey, Rescue 1
Lt Thomas Spencer, Ladder 2
Lt Timothy Jackson, Ladder 2
FF James Lyons, Engine 3
FF Joseph McGuirk, Engine 3