Slow year? Not anymore!

Things have been busy lately! I made the mistake of making the remark that "the fire department has had a slow year" earlier this month:

1. At 4:30am, December 7th, we were called out to investigate a sign that fell into route 309. Turns out the driver of a 18-wheel truck suffered a heart attack and slammed into a old stone building at approx. 60 miles an hour. It was my first DOA call but there was no celebration or "yay" moments. You know that this is someone's father, brother, and son.

However, it was a 5 hour operation to wait for the coroner to pronounce him, tow trucks to remove the truck from the building, extrication to remove the victim, then cleaning up the fuel from the roadway.

2. Last Wednesday at 6pm, we were called out to a fire two townships north on 309 to serve as a rescue team and additional manpower. It was my first fully-involved house fire and learned a lot watching the operations on the ground. By the time we arrived, the bulk of fire was out and we assisted with overhaul (making sure no hot spots remained).

3. Sunday morning, we were called out to cover calls for Horsham (make a right onto Horsham Road, it's the next town over) while they dealt with a fatal fire where a woman smoking a cigarette fell asleep on a couch. We didn't go to the fire scene, but stayed at their fire station ready for any fire calls they may get while they were dealing with their fire.

4. A few hours later, we were called again as a rescue team/manpower assistance for another fire in Ambler. This one had a lot of adrenaline because the initial dispatch said that two kids were trapped but it turned out they were OK (panicked but once they calmed down, they were able to escape without injury) Heavy damage to the home though.

5. On Monday, before we were about to dig in for the station's annual xmas party, the tones dropped for a building fire down the street from Target. We arrived found a garage fire extending into a home through a shared attic. I stayed outside helping cover the men working on the roof with a hoseline to ensure any fire that broke through wouldn't come near them. Heavy damage to the garage, moderate damage to the home.

6: This morning at 2:30am, we were called out to set up a medevac chopper zone for an accident victim. One of the other engines beat us to it so the police asked us to proceed to the accident scene. Turned out that the victim was DUI and she kept saying that someone else was driving the car and that person "ran away". We used a thermal imaging camera to detect heat in the car and saw that only one seat had residual heat on it = one driver. Just to be sure, we did a search anyway but nothing found.