Well, 2021 has started off like so many other days of my life, 911 calls and coffee. Thankfully due to the rain storm that came rolling through my slice of paradise on New Year's Eve work hasn't been too bad thus far. Seventy-two hour shift with twenty-six hours and twenty-two minutes left to go, so we will see.
I love what I do but I hate how dependent, and dare I say defined, we are on our jobs. Sure, you have to work to be able to travel if you're like me and 99.9923% of the world, but why does it have to define us so? Why do we become so involved in the dynamics of what we do for a living? Sure we spend a lot of time "working" and have developed relationships, friendships, etc., but why does it remain present in our brains when we are off? Perhaps it is simply the retirement itch coming to the surface as that chapter of my life is soon to open that has me opining over the absurdity of it all. It is more likely the nearly 4000 clock hours I put in yearly coupled with being an eBoard member for our Local and my absolute hatred of politicians and politics that have just beaten me into a pulsatile shadow of my former self. If there is one thing I am sure of at this moment it is that I NEED a vacation!😉
Sure I took over six months last year, but four of that was post shoulder reconstruction and not my idea, (and still worked 3500 hours so hush) but I absolutely lost it yesterday over the weight of a thousand little issues so I said fuck it and extended my next break to 40 days 😀. I am now off from January 13th, my mother's birthday oddly enough, to February 22nd. Granted I was originally off longer and scheduled to be on the other side of the world, but I will have to make do.
Since a good portion of this time will be spend on the aforementioned house remodel projects I have managed to find a week in late January for the pack to run up to Roan Mountain on the TN/NC border (this will be third attempt to make it there, so fingers crossed) to hang out in a farmhouse built in 1891 on 120 acres outside of Roan Mountain State Park and play in the snow 🥶. Plus, I have a surprise trip planned for just after my birthday in the middle of February for just Terri and I.
Within moments of writing that last little bit the power in the firehouse fluctuated a few times and I thought that someone had wrecked into a nearby transformer on the wet roads. Seconds later we were toned out to an MVA with downed power lines just north of the firehouse. As we arrived I see a truck absolutely destroyed against a transmission pole, one of the really beefy power poles, with the transformer lying on the hood, and a women stuck in the driver's seat with her side of truck absolutely crushed around the pole. A bystander greeted me as I exited the apparatus and told me the lines and transformer were still arcing. Did I mention it was raining? Did I mentioned there was a shallow ditch of standing water that all of the chaos was sitting in? Did I happen to mention that thanks to some local politicians and their "involvement" in the fire service we are all running with minimum staffing? Who needs coffee to stay awake now 😳
This poor woman was own her way to the infusion center for treatment when she finds herself in a life threatening situation. She is pinned in her vehicle with live electrical, like 12,000 volt, equipment on her hood. I upgraded the call to extrication and requested the local power company to expedite their response. Dispatch comes back and tells me that the power company has a 15 minute response. This woman's start to 2021 is just a bloody continuation of 2020 I say. Dumpster fire all over again.
As we begin to stage equipment I requested that the grid be shut down, but as I can't provide a pole number, duh, they are unable to confirm that the power is actually off 😳. I do not like electricity in these situations. We are talking human vaporizing levels of juice here and a group of guys that are used to taking action to fix the problems of others, not stand around, in the rain mind you, and wait. Years ago we got 38" of rain in 36 hours and were in the beginning stages of evacuating 278 people from a downstream neighborhood by boat and chainsaw when we were tingled, if you will, by the electrical grid and all of that water. Not an experience I would like to repeat.
I was able to talk to the woman from a safe distance and confirmed some fractured bones and pain but at least she was conscious and understanding of the situation she found herself in. Soon after the next closest company and battalion chief arrived as well as EMS and the power company. As soon as we were given the green light we went to work. Twenty minutes of cutting and dismantling the car around the driver and she was off to the hospital for treatment.
In the last week there have been a handful of traffic fatalities around here, a retired firefighter I've known for decades was murdered, and a few people lost their homes to fires. Every single day we wake up we are one day closer to death. Every single day we don't stop and realize that we are alive, we lose a day of being alive. Death awaits us all and there isn't a single bloody thing we can do about it, except to live.
Live While You're Alive.
Don't take today for granted. Today is one less day that you have. Hug someone important to you. Talk to a friend. Rub a dog's belly. Forgive. Plan that trip you've always wanted to take. Put it on the calendar. Go somewhere. Work is not life.
コメント