What is That One Call

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Permalink Reply by Michael Simpson on April 10, 2009 at 4:56pm

we rolled up on I40 at the 137 mile marker to a 3 vehicle wreck. it was 105 degrees in shade, in mid July. first truck to arrive on scene. it had a dodge intrepid that was tore in half with the engine compartment in the median and the rest of the vehicle in opposite lane of traffic with two deceased still in car. people everywhere with bystanders already working on 6 month old baby boy that was in vehicle 2(Nissan minivan) doing CPR. the other vehicle was not hurt. but i think of this child often because mine was 10 months at time and it was the only one in the minivan not buckled in. they were in a hurry and mom was breast feeding baby in the passenger seat when the intrepid landed on the windshield of minivan. i guess it will haunt me till i am gone. lost one of my best firefighters that day also due to this incident.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Calahan on April 10, 2009 at 5:53pm

The call was a rather sad one. I was chief at the time and we were dispatched to a two vehicle crash. I was resopnding direct from workand was first on scene to find an elderly couple had been hit inthe A post by aneighteen wheeler. The truck was parked away from the scene as he made contact with the car and kept on going around the curve. The unexpected elderly gentleman driving the car was slipping away fast. After a rather short and organized extrication we loaded him into the chopper and he died in flight, as his wife sat on scene un injured. A fter investigation it was proven that the elderly gentleman and the truck driver were both in the clear as far as fault is concerned, the trucker never drove agian.

Come to find out the road was at fault. Earlier that summer the road had been resurfaced and it was a hot summer. As the truck started into the curve at the suggested speed he realized he was turning but the truck was going straight as it was sliding on the tar that was oozing up from the road because the contractor did not put enough stone on the surface and the truck slammed into the elderly couples car that had just left there home. Even though the wife one many law suits it still sticks in my mind that an inicent person lst there life because someone did a crappy job on a road project and that I told his wife things would be ok.

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Permalink Reply by Rich Guinther on April 10, 2009 at 6:17pm

The call I'll never forget happened March 1993...I just became a "blackhat" in December of 1992 and the biggest thing I saw prior was a dumpster fire. Well, one March day a plane crashed in my hometown. I got to the scene expecting to see some people with bumps and bruises and that's it. After a half hour of standing around by the engine, the captain took me over to the crash site and there I saw the plane (which looked like a volkswagen beetle with wings)all crumpled up from impact, and inside the plane were 6 dead bodies.Reality had set in . Things like this DO happen. In the 17 years I've been on, nothing like this has happened since...And I hope it never does

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Permalink Reply by David R Czapla; (CHOPPY) on April 10, 2009 at 6:17pm

Had less than a year on the Dept. at the time; tones from my radio had awaken me, ( SOUTH HAVEN FIRE RESPOND TO GOVERNOR RD,HAVE RECIEVED SEVERAL CALLS FOR A VEHICLE VS. PEDESTRIANS 2 CHILDREN APROXIMATELLY 4YRS OLD) OH MY GOD!!! as I was leaving the house dispatch came across with: ( ALL RESPONDING SOUTH HAVEN UNITS CALLERS ARE ADVISING CHILDREN ARE TRAPPED UNDER THE VEHICLES WHEELS) when we got on scene a neighbor had just gotten a car jack out of his garage to lift the car in order to free the kids, who at this point were still alive . The little girl had the driver side front tire sitting on her chest,and the little boy had the rear passenger tire sitting on his chest. Obviously both kids died . We got them to the local hospital from there they were flown to chicago . As it turned out they were playing on a skateboard, both kids sat on the skateboard and would roll down the driveway into the street, along comes a lady late for work,and because dad had his dodge ram 3500 series work truck parked in the street it blocked the view of the driveway for passing motorists. I was fine till me and another rookie at the time had to go back and wash the blood off the street, thats when it hit me , the little girls tiny shoe laying in a pool of blood , and finding several of the little boys teeth in the street. But thats it thats the one ill always remember. I still know the kids names to this day .... Even though i cant see their faces. D.CZAPLA 2808 SOUTH HAVEN FIRE

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Permalink Reply by Doug on April 10, 2009 at 6:19pm

Mine was a structure fire, fatality mother, baby and two children. removed the baby before house flashed over on us. two firefighters left through windows and two of us left through the door. the mother and the two children were recovery after the bulk of the fire was knocked down. worked on baby but could not revive her. the recovery was worse having to go back in after the fire.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Compton on April 10, 2009 at 7:07pm

I have been in this business for a long tome and have several. One that sticks out had a 16 year old girl killed in an MVA. We worked her but was pronounce in the ED. while writing my report her parent showed up did not know she had passed panic in their voice's as they asked what room she was in at the reception window. I knew what they did not. First time I cried following a call. I had a great friend get shot in the throat could not save him. I had to call his mom who I had know for years to come to the Hospital. on a liter note Funny was the man who had a burnning groin he was having sex for the first time he kept saying that B**** did somthing to me I am on fire, he hopped in the ambulance yanked his pants off my partner started to pour NS on it. Turns out he was allergic to latex first time he had a condom on.

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Permalink Reply by Tyler Jett on April 10, 2009 at 7:56pm

One call that I will never forget is, One day me and my dad were getting off of the amma exit and the traffic was backed up a mile from Wallback to the amma exit. We were getting off the interstate when the tones went off and we knew where we were going. so we got on scene and there was one car totally split in half. The driver had a allaceration to the head and there was three other vehicles in volved. We ended up landing health net for him.

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Permalink Reply by Harvey Harper on April 10, 2009 at 8:12pm

A lot of bad memories in 30 years but here is one that has to be rare. We responded to a grass fire in a vacant field near a housing addition. The odd thing was there was a thunderstorm in the area and it was raining cats and dogs. How can you have a grass fire in the middle of a torrential downpour? Anyway when we arrived on scene sure enough there was a fire in the middle of the field, but there was thick black smoke coming from it. That just didn't look right for a grass fire. So we took our brush pumper out and sprayed water on it. Bad idea, we almost lost the brush pumper, the water made the fire much worse. After extinguishing the fire with about seven or eight dry chem extinguishers used all at once we found out what was going on. Lightning had struck a utility pole in the field and traveled down a ground wire that was attached to a pipeline running under the ground. The force of the srike broke open the pipeline and set the material in it on fire, crude oil. This has to be one of a kind, or is it? Has something similiar ever happened to someone else?

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Permalink Reply by Matt on April 10, 2009 at 9:09pm

Worst Call:
Paged out to a 55 year old man, unresponsive. I drove straight to the scene in my POV (address was really close to my house) as me and my two best friends (who also are in the same dept) got close to the scene my uncle, also in the dept radioed 911 asking how far out the ambulance was. I could tell by his tone it wasn't good, we pulled up and the man had a massive heart attack while leaving his car, he was standing up, leaning against the car when his parent's called 911. By the time we pulled up on scene he had fallen to his knees and as we approached the man he fell all the way over. He died before any of us could even begin CPR, which we did but it failed to bring him back. The absolute worst part was to see his parents, both elderly, watch us do CPR. We stayed positive and did all we could...the worse part for me was when they realized that he had died, just to hear his mother weeping uncontrollably was what broke my heart because I knew there wasn't anything I could do to make it better. I knew the couple very well, all I could do was hug her neck and say I was sorry.

Funniest Call:
Paged out late at night on a bitterly cold and windy night to a "MVA w/unknown road blockage and possible entrapment". Got on scene to find a chicken truck had a blowout, the only "victims" were the poor chickens who had such a traumatic awakening, they were squawking and flapping their wings, throwing feathers and s*** everywhere. There was chicken crap in the road, on mailboxes, feathers were blowing across the road, sticking to the mailboxes. You couldn't even hear yourself think.

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Permalink Reply by BRAD ANKERS on April 10, 2009 at 11:51pm

I have been a volunteer fireman for alomost six yrs. we all have the good, the bad and the ugly calls. On the lighter side of things, this one was gd. Thanksgiving sunday 2007 around supper time, we got toned out to a portapotty(johnny on the spot) on fire at our local park.When we arrived all that was left was the skid underneath the outhouse!!!. On the sad side of things, was my first fatal mva. We got the call to a sinlge vehicle mva, in a small community in our area. This communty isn't very big so my first reaction was, how bad can it be, maybe just a wash down of the road, with a little clean up, WRONG!! When I arrived on scene there were parts scattered every where. Long story short, air ambluace, occupant died 3 days later, come to find out, i had known the guy for almost 10 yrs. Still think about it to this very day and every day.

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Permalink Reply by D.C. Sterbenz on April 10, 2009 at 11:58pm

Well I have a few... They all include kids, they all stick with me from peds deaths to peds in fire deaths, to peds standing outside watching there home burn down. I have forgot the ones I save but I always remember the ones I didn't.

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Permalink Reply by Jacob Fouts on April 11, 2009 at 12:00am

I have two.....

The first call was a pretty tragic accident on WA SR18 in November 2000, about 1900 hours, we were sitting at the station which was right off of the freeway. We had just finished chores and were getting ready to play a game of cribbage when we heard a loud boom from outside. We all kinda looked at each other, and went back to what we were doing when we heard the doorbell ring. We went up front and all we heard out of the mouth of the citizen was trucks...highway...fire... right at that moment we heard the house tones go off for a two semi accident on the highway.

As we pulled out of the station we turned to look at the overpass over the highway, and all we could see were flames coming up from under the overpass. We pulled down onto the highway and uturned to see a wall of fire covering the entire highway and all you could see was a tail end of a semi trailer sticking out. We only had 750 gallons, and that was gone almost instantly. We had only 2 engines and 1 aid on the initial dispatch. We called for a commercial response to get us more water and were able to establish a supply about 10 minutes into the call. It was unclear if there were any vehicles other than the semis involved, however we understood that there was no chance of survival for anybody in the middle of the fireground. We battled the fire for about an hour and a half and finally got it under control with foam from a crash truck from a local aerospace company.....

We were able to determine it only involved two semis head on. From eyewitness accounts it sounded like both semis were doing between 60 and 65. Neither of them hit their brakes or even saw it coming. Combined impact of approximately 120 mph, both semis fully loaded...one hauling giant rolls of paper and one hauling a full load of Pillsbury pastries. The motor of one of the trucks was ripped clean of the truck and thrown about 100 feet. The driver of that truck was thrown clear through the windshield and into the trailer of the second truck. He was almost unrecognizable. The occupants of the second truck (male driver female passenger) were both found inside their truck pretty much in the same spots they were riding in. I hope that they were killed instantly and there was no suffering. The highway was closed for almost 2 days while they cleaned up. To this day there are still scars on that roadway where the fire melted the asphalt. This call will stick in my mind forever. I'll save the second one for later.

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