Hello 2011...

So I didn't really feel it was a "new year" at work until we got that first big call of the year.


All shift we sit...few small calls...nothing major...I am forced to realize that either that "A-shift Station 6 Big Call of the New Year" is either going to come right after I fall asleep...or not at all...

**Tones drop** Engine 6 respond to a car fire caller states person is trapped inside

Entire way to the call, I am imagining a car burning..looking for the flames and trying to determine our course of action...

**Tones drop again** Engine 2 respond with Engine 6

SOPs state that car fires require one engine where as entrapment (wreck and so forth) requires two engines

Pull up on scene not to discover any flames at all, but a mid-size car on its side (driver side on the ground), top wrapped around a tree, light pole laying to the side.

There is nothing we can do. EMS, APD, and us AFD just standing around waiting. Someone thinks they see movement inside the car so we try....but no luck...we still have to wait. This car has been embedded into this tree and there is no way we can get it off. Even with EVERYONE pushing, Hurst equipment prying, nothing.

Wrecker eight minutes out.

"Do they know they will not get a ticket??"

Five minutes out.

Waiting.

Once on scene we can finally see what we have. So we thought. Once the car has been flipped back the way a car is supposed to sit, it looks like a horseshoe sitting upright. Roof crushing anything that could have possibly been inside.

More waiting. Nothing can be done until APD turns over the scene.

Finally after standing around waiting for 2 hours we get the ball rolling. This wreck is so bad that we move the scene to the county shop to remove the victims.

Two. My age.

Finally shortly before 0500 we are finally able to say it is a new year.

We were out until after our shift was over about 0830.

Not exactly the call I want to get. Not how I want to be woken up but that comes with the job. We are here to help people and it is calls like this...the ones that you NEVER forget...that I dread. Going to fast, loosing control. When will anyone learn. Is it odd having dreams about it? Do loosing Sara in a tragic wreck in high school have anything to do with it? Does that make me any less or any different than anyone else that was there?

How are you supposed to talk about calls like this so they don't get "all bottled up" Yes we had two killed this morning can you please pass the beans??

I love my job but it's calls like this that I wish I didn't have to deal with :(

Does that make me a bad person??