Monday, July 28, 2008

Really? Thanks for letting me know..

I get a call the other day on the 911 line... it went something like this
"Hurry there's a dog chasing and biting people"
"Okay.. where are you and what does the dog look like"
"We are at the corner of xxx/yyy street and it's a big black dog, it has big teeth, a tail and fur"
"....... I have the police on the way"
I hang up and am 10% stupider thanks to this caller, damn.


To the anon caller about the vicious attack dog, I thank you for letting me know that dogs have teeth, tails and fur.. without you I would not know where I stood in life.. I salute you.


Aside from that idiot, we have dealt with a vast range of idiots in the last few nights, I think something got into the water.. damn..


Update on me.. I finally was released out of training and am on my own, woohoo.. It's been a blast, I am liking the shift I chose (the afternoon, busy shift..) and the people I am working with.. plus I am starting to pick up OT which is going to help with the paycheck!

I see I got a comment from one reader, pretty neat! Thanks for letting me know that I at least have one person reading my nonsense! I guess I gotta keep updating this then, huh?!

Monday, July 7, 2008

Don't drink and drive

So.. Last night I was working City Fire.. and my partner working City PD got up so I had her radio up and all of a sudden my Sergeant keyed up "I dont think he is going to stop for me".. we are all like wtf?... a second later "[engine revving] Radio advise CITY TO OUR NORTH that they have a motorcycle going about 120 up YYY street, I am 22ing (disregarding) it's too dangerous"

So, I 10-4 him and my partner gets on the phone with city to the north and lets them know, not even 10 seconds later our cell phone 911 board lights up.. calls about a motorcycle 10-50 (accident) infront of a pizza place just 10 blocks north into city to the north on the YYY street..

As we are taking the 911 calls, the Sergeant keys up and says it looks like he wrecked up there.. we 10-4 that and adv him we are getting multiple 911 calls and he is now going to assist..

My partner gets a 911 caller that walked up the male driver, states he is barley breathing and not responding.. and he walks over to the female passenger on the motorcycle and informs my partner that.. her leg is missing..

4 ambulances are dispatched for 4 transports.. the guy driving the speeding motorcycle hit another motorcycle from behind, lost control and wiped out.. the 2nd motorcycle driver was able to crash down and come away with minor road rash and head scrapes.. the speeding motorcycle continued to flip and fly out of control for the next three blocks before striking a car waiting at a stop light and injuring the driver of that vehicle..

The Sergeant informed me when he came into the comm center later that night that the male driver lost all vitals in the bus on the way to the ER and the female was in very bad shape (anyone who lost a leg would be in my opinion) but at the time we left our shift at 6 am they were still barley hanging onto life in the ER.. the crash happened at 1:15 am..

State Police shut down the three blocks of the major road for 6 hours while reconstructing the accident, and brought in flood lights from a few fire departments around the county.. both the male and females BAC was 3 times the legal limit at about .25 (IL is .08).. I will find out for sure tonight when I go in if they made it or if the coroner was paged for their deaths..


Good thing the Sergeant called off any attempt at chasing the driver, because if he did it would have fallen on him and the department.. I guess the guy went by the officer at about 85 and took a turn and almost spilled.. the Sergeant said he saw no brake lights at all and the guy blew a stop light at least going 100+ mph..


Stupid.. And they looked to be in their 20's.. We hope they both survive and that this guy will have to live with the responsibility of casuing the misery to the lady he was driving that night.. But I highly doubt they survived since the impact was so violent and the fact that neither were wearing helmets..


[update]

After going into work today, I was able to get a little update on their status, as of this morning they were both still alive at our local hospital, I did not get information on the status of the female and her leg, but I doubt it was saved..

[update]

They are both still listed in critical condition, the females leg could not be saved and it was lost, the State Police have a minimum speed estimate at this time of 100 mph at the time of impact, they will have a report done with the final calculations but that is still going to be an estimate since there was no actual skid marks to use as reference.. also, all that was left of the motorcycle was the frame and engine, everything else was torn off and destroyed.. The male is being charged with DUI amongst many other traffic violations

When it rains, it pours..

It was a Saturday night, and pretty quiet for being a Saturday.. Then it hit the fan..

It all started about 8pm, two hours to the end of shift.. I took the frantic 911 call of a guy screaming it's on fire.. it's on fire.. after getting what it was and where he was the fire department was summoned in full force.. it was an acetylene tank which is used for welding, and it was next to an oxygen tank next to a house.. We had the guy get anyone that was in the house out and go down the street since the two are extremely flammable and under pressure.. It was treated as a structure fire and got a full response from City Fire and an auto-aide engine from the city to our north (Which is amazing that they came over the air and responded, usually they take a pass since they are vollys and not always fully staffed)

As city was taking care of this fire, and getting it under control city to the north (which has their own dispatch center) had a report of a structure fire in an apartment complex building, which activated auto-aide for them and send a City Fire engine, and two engines from two other departments.. We are the MABAS center for our county (Mutual Aide Box Alarm System) and that means if city to the north called for a box-alarm on their fire we would take over the fire traffic, page the box and run the show from our center.. So, we prepared and since I am the new guy they were going to have me page it, so I got the card printed and waited.. and they called for a investigation box... whaa?! That threw us off, so we paged out the arson team and went about our own business until the town all the way east had a structure fire!

Town to the east is volly, and do not have auto-aide, so when we got the 911 call about the garage fully engulfed attached to the house I paged the fire dept, printed their box card, went to the printer and was about 2 steps from my console when the chief went over the air and called for box card 123-321, woo! My first Box! I paged it out and spent 1 minute and 40 some seconds over the air giving all of the changes and calls and was done.. I was told that it was better than some of the people that have been there for a long time.. that made me feel good!

As soon as we were done paging the Box, as all of the units start going en route, we start getting 911 cell calls about a MVA on the highway just north of the farthest city to the north.. they were saying 4 vehicles involved, jeeze.. So, we page out fire and have them rolling on the way, I call up state police and ask if they need the farthest city pd to assist and she said no, there were 3 troops on scene and 5 en route (wow, I didn't even know that many worked a shift!) .. she then came back to the phone chuckling, telling me that there was only 1 car involed and 3 stopped to help.. no injuries.. how the callers were getting 4 vehicles involved in an accident we don't know...

So, after an hour it died down, all we had going was the box structure fire going out east and for the next hour we were pretty quiet and relief came and we went home.. so in a span of 1 hour we had three structure fires and a mva, with one fire going box.. when it rains it pours!