Acute Otitis Media and Burn Buildings... Hoohrah!

I had an experience this past weekend at the Fire Academy that I think
everyone can identify with: That feeling of "man, what have I gotten myself into" (because of one's deafness) and coming out of it with a renewed
confidence.

On Friday, the little extra tinnitus I had in my ear for the past week
culminated in a HUGE inner ear infection that had me dizzy and basically
"out of it". This worried me because I knew on Saturday, I was going to
have my first actual burn building experience. I called the doctor and
received antibiotics and a decongestant to help the nasty stuff go away.

Thanks to plenty of sleep, a loving wife who let me off easy in terms of
taking care of the kids, and a good dose of tylenol for the fever, I felt
better and went to class (called FF1). The class itself is broken down
into 4 "platoons." I knew I was in good hands when I realized my platoon had two Lieutenants from a different county (long story) who have plenty of experience.

A note about burn buildings: They're basically solid concrete structures
that have been "mocked up" to resemble the conditions a firefighter would find in an actual fire. For the first few sessions, they're using cold
smoke (same stuff they use in clubs and theater) so if a person runs out of air or panic, they can take their air mask off without worrying about
inhaling fumes. Later sessions, they will burn hay in the building to more
closely resemble the smoky conditions found in typical structure fires.

In all, we did three search and rescue (SAR) scenarios. The first two were
in a two story building using the clean smoke. In both scenarios, I was
"following" the leader by crawling along the walls and tapping his foot
letting him know I was there. A few times, my helmet clinked against the
back of my partner's air cylinder as he sat up to assess the situation from
a higher vantage point. During the second scenario, I clinked my helment
against what I thought was his cylinder and waited for him to move. After
he didn't move for about 30 seconds, I started to feel around the smoke for him and realized what I hit wasn't an oxygen cylinder; it was the smoke
machine sitting on a chair! Needless to say, I continued along leading the
man behind me along the wall until we exited the building.

We realized at that point that the three others were verbally communicating to each other but I was left out of the loop. We decided for the next one,
I would lead the team, yelling out what obstacles or what turns are being
made so they know where we're going. That way, my partner can hear what I'm seeing out front. If there's something wrong behind me, three hard and rapid taps on the leg or butt will tell me to stop. Taps on my boot mean
that they're OK and they're with me.

Boy, the next one was a doozy. The Fire Academy has a trailer that has 2
(or 3?) different mazes built into it. The mazes are about 3 feet wide by 3
feet tall. In some places, there are cinder blocks on the floors. Other
places you'll have pipes and wires on the floor or the ceiling. And even in
others, it narrows to about 2 feet tall. No small task especially if you're
wearing an Airpack.

Oh, and did I mention that they close the door so there is absolutely NO
light whatsoever in the trailer?

As I started, my mind was going nuts. "I have a guy behind me whose life
depends on me getting him out" "this is only training" "but what if it was
real" and so on. Then the door closed and all the light was extinguished.

I took a deep breath. I had to. I only had 1/4 of a bottle of air left.
Started along the corridor and stubbed my finger into a cinder block.
Called out the cinder block and we got past them without incident. After a
minute, I realized, this isn't so hard as long as I take it easy. The maze
had us go up levels, and we had to descend through trapdoors to get back down and at each point, I called out what I was coming up against. "It's
really low here, you'll need to slither on your belly" or "trapdoor here,
It's not hot.. I'm going to open it slowly...It's open, I'm feeling with my
arms to see if there's any dangers... " so on and so forth.

When we were done, I felt like doing my best Howard Dean-in-Iowa
impression. It was inviograting. Sure, I made some mistakes (was too
focused on checking what was on the ground in front of me, not checking
what was above me and needed to stop more often and look back at my
partner). Even still, I felt like this was AWESOME and I *can* do this.

Oh, and did I mention that I couldn't wear my hearing aid because of the
ear infection? I was completely and totally deaf the entire time.