Today I stopped by my old station to say hi, as we were all sitting around the table BS'ing, they reminded me of a night that I'd hoped no one would ever remember, especially me....
As I slept, at around 03:00hrs. the tones went off, the station floor light lit up, I awoke, headed to the Engine, I turned the Cole Hersee, put on my shirt and bunker pants, then flipped the power toggles, waited for the four clicks, so I could start the rig, as I did for every call. Hmm, where's the other guys, they must've missed the tones, so I headed into the sleeping quarters, woke up the Lt. the Medic and the other FF heard the commotion and were already headed to the truck. To save face, the Lt. coded en route right away, asking dispatch to repeat the address, There was a brief silence, so he tried it again, the dispatcher, responded in a confused voice, asked us where we were going, as she hadn't dispatched us to anything in four hours... Needless to say, I spent the next half hour in the Lt.'s office, had a conference call from the Captain, lol... I swore I heard a call come in, Yuppers, I dreamt a call... I'm pretty sure, I caught hell from the whole dept. on that one.... lol