We'll I've decided to share some thoughts on occasion here in "The Blog" which will mostly be related to what we do, get paid for (for some!), and love to do. I think it's cool to share experiences. Something I experience might be helpfully to the brotherhood/sisterhood of the services.

My department is small in a major city on the 3^rd outer ring. We respond to medicals and fire related calls. Our average call volume is about 140 a year. We have 5 EMT’s and the rest are First Responders all FFI and some FFII.

The year started with us having the first call of 2008 in our county. Yeah! We were called to our new local watering hole for a woman with back injuries from being trampled. How could someone be trampled after midnight on New Year’s? Well, apparently the new thing at watering holes is to drop $$$$$ from the ceiling. Of course they make you pay a high cover charge, but they get still get you in the door. We’ll in the rush for the cha-ching, this woman was bruised up a bit. Nothing serious, but as she was being attended to outside, another patron backed their car into another one and took off! Yes, the local Barney chased them down and I’m sure they spent New Year’s Day in orange.

The rest of the week was crazy…even for us. We had 4 calls in one day. Our population is roughly 3,000 so that’s unusual to have 4 calls in one day. But the oddest was the day after.

I was preparing to leave for work (my other job) and watch the school bus arrive at my corner. Then I see this young lady in a full-out sprint to catch it. Next thing, I see her go down. I couldn’t clearly see her since she was directly behind a large tree blocking my site. After a couple of minutes the bus decided to back up to her and that’s when I decided to see if she was ok. I arrived to find a (suspected) compound tib/fib frac. Let’s just say her foot went one way and the knot above her ankle was HUGE! We got her off the cold ice into the steps of the bus and I immobilized the sight with a pillow until the local Roy & Johnny crew arrived. Apparently while running, her foot caught in an ice pit and that’s all she wrote. For the record, she handled it well. She could have been hysterical - like most teens – but was a trooper. That’s a painful injury for sure……

Later! TheOtherJohnGage