Lather, Rinse, Repeat.....

We had drill this week that I knew was coming down the pike from our disgruntled Chief (if someone's disgruntled, then why isn't "gruntled" a word too?) .

We had a drill two weeks ago with an outdoor live burn that didn't go as hoped. The hydrant tapping process was, for lack of a better word, complete and utter chaos. As our chief stated at the end of the training drill..."If this had been an actual fire, we'd be doing nothing but raking up ashes, and I'd be turning in my white helmet out of sheer embarrassment." Yowch. The truth hurts sometimes.

We had complete communication breakdown, newbies running around with their heads up their asses (yours truly included in that mix) and line officers throwing their hands up in the air out of sheer frustration. Not the most effective night of training, but I didn't complain because I got to play with the hose and don my air pack, which I don't get to do much of as a probie.

I walked into the station house expecting the usual 15 minutes of jovial milling around before we got down to business.Uh-uh. Not this time.Chief glanced at me as I walked in and said "Get your gear on, we don't have time for social niceties tonight. You're on 3511 with Ron, Carl and Randy(all the other probies except Ron's wife Amy, who's recovering from surgery). Dick's driving (Dick is the President), Bill (Captain 1) is running ops off-rig, and Chris (Captain 2) is riding shotgun. We have a lot to do tonight so step on it"Yikes. I didn't dare ask him what we were doing, but I had a sneaking suspicion that it might have something to do with drilling on hydrants.

I geared up (it was noticeably quiet in the apparatus bay) and got on the Pierce (thanks to Jim Brunelle for explaining not only what I was riding on, but the differences between that one and the other equipment we have---hoo-boy do I have a lot to learn about apparatus) in my assigned Probie jump seat.Dick announced the drill; we have a huge circular driveway in and out of our house, with two hydrants in the back separated by about 300 feet. We were going to have our first and second due engines out, and we were going to practice tapping hydrants and pulling and throwing ladders until we had it down.We had one "run-through" with everyone off the truck while the procedure was demonstrated and explained, and then it was go time.

Evolution number 1 had me and Chris working in tandem on the hydrant, with Ron hooking the hose to the engine, and Carl and Randy throwing the ladder up on the shed and practicing hauling the K-12 saw up with a rope. The engine stopped and in my adrenaline fueled haste I almost did a face plant getting out, but managed to pull it back in time before I hit the pavement face-first. Bill, who was standing outside waiting for us, looked at me, did an almost imperceptable eye roll, and then barked out "Move it...time IS a factor"....I jumped up on the back (thankfully having remembered to grab the bag of hydrant tools) grabbed the nozzle and hauled ass back to the hydrant with Chris on my heels. Screw up number one was almost forgetting to wrap the hose. Screw up number two was making plans to tap the WRONG side of the hydrant first, but Chris was talking quietly at me the entire time giving me verbal cues to forestall any more eff-ups. Meanwhile Bill is borderline screeching at me to "move it!!"

I got the hydrant tapped and looked at Dick for the signal to start the flow, but that night was a dry drill, we weren't going to charge the lines.Bill then yelled out "Too slow, everyone was WAY too slow, we're doing it again. Repack the hose and let's go."We repack the hose bed and jump back on the engine. NO ONE is talking at this point, except to discuss who was going to be doing what on the next round.Six rounds later and I'm sweating rivers. My arms are tired from hauling hose and repacking, and we're not even halfway done.

Bill is a little less aggravated, but not by much.7th round switches things up.....now it's no more team drilling. One off to run the hose to the hydrant, same person then has to run back to the engine and hook up the hose to the truck, then run back to the hydrant to await the signal from Dick. (I never thought I'd be this grateful to see someone's arm go up in a circle over their head)--meanwhile the rest are working on ladder and saw-hauling.So guess who's up on deck first? Yup....moi. I'm breathing like I just ran a 10K, and the entire time I'm bargaining with both God and the Devil in my head to get me through it and not screw it up. What it SOUNDED like in my head was "pant, pant, pant....gottagetthisright...gottagetitdonefast......pleasedon'tletmescrewup.....pant, pant, pant"Off the engine, grab the hose, REMEMBER TO WRAP IT (yay for me!!), give Dick the signal to drive on....remember to unwrap the hose (double yay for me!!) --get the couplers off, hook up the hose on the right side (yay for me count now at three ) and run like I'm being chased by grizzly bears back to get the hose hooked up to the truck.

Did I mention that Bill was about one foot behind me the entire time not saying a word, just watching me intently waiting for me to make a mistake? No? Well, he was and it was intimidating as hell. I'm now breathing like I've climbed Everest and set a world record reaching the summit, and "sweaty" doesn't even touch how profusely I was perspiring. BUT......I got it done right and I got it done fast.Three more evolutions later and on the last one, Bill has us pull every inch of line off the engine and then turn around and repack it. He's still not saying much to any of us other than directives.

We ride back into the station, get off and as a group, head outside (it was in the high 40's temp wise at that point) and start stripping off bunker gear. I literally saw steam coming off of me. Every article of clothing I had on looked like I had taken it out of the washing machine in mid-cycle (but I suspect it didn't smell that way) and I was shaking from head to toe I was so tired.We did the engine inspection form and headed back in to get our recap. Bill is standing there looking deadly serious...and I'm thinking "uh oh" ....and then he started a slow smile....which morphed into a grin....which turned into a high-five and a back-slap for each of us. We had done ok, better than ok, and we "had it down".Tough love? Yup, but I'm pretty sure I can tap a hydrant in my sleep now, and when every second counts in a real emergency, that's the kind of training that you can't take shortcuts on.

Now if I could just get the hang of that hose-packing thing--for some reason I can't quite get the hang of where to fold and where to put the couplers, even after ten evolutions.I suspect I'll get my fill of that during FF1.

Stay safe, and in the meantime, I'll be counting all my bruises.

The Continuing Chronicles of the FNG(irl): The Fit Test and Physical

First things first....I passed. (a barely stifled YIPPEEE!!)

Received my Class A certification card which will accompany me to my swearing-in.
There were some aspects to the physical and fit test that I found.....disconcerting:

1.) The eye test: after a rather frustrating several minutes with my face jammed up against what appeared to be a Fisher-Price Movie Viewer, and telling the examiner that I couldn't SEE "A-1" because it was missing....turns out that there was a big black dot of ink or something on the viewer (mascara?, not mine)that was obscuring the upper left corner of the screen. Calamity averted. Test passed.

2.) The Hearing Test: After holding my breath in that sound-proof booth for almost three minutes because I couldn't tell if I had actually heard a tone or just imagined it, and the sound of my exhalations was becoming a distraction...I started to feel like I was on "Win Ben Stein's Money".

3.) The Breath Test: Oh Yessss....THIS is just a barrel of laughs. I take my big deep "from the diaphragm" breath....whoosh it all out as instructed until I'm of the conviction that there is NO AIR left in my lungs or anywhere else in my body, and the examiner pats me on the back encouragingly and says...."c'mon....just a little bit more....keep going, keep going, keep going..." I'm looking at her and thinking....Lady...what is it that you want me to accomplish here? Aspirate my eyeballs? Then I finally get the beep and she says perkily...."Great!! Now you only have to do two more just like that" ...TWO MORE?? My lungs are on the FLOOR....wtf???

4.) The mask fit: Ok, this WAS fun...although the whole thing had a kind of Monty Python quality to it. I got a good seal on the first mask (small---thanks for the tip Kenzie)--then we started up with the silliness....nodding up and down....turning my head side to side....bending over again and again....then we got to the "try to dislodge the mask by making faces" ...and I got the giggles. Perky test examiner wasn't anywhere near as amused as I was at the "demonstration" grimacing she was doing....Me? I was almost on the floor. Our rapport kind of went downhill after that.

5.) The physical: I've had extensive physicals before, and this wasn't one of em. 15 minutes to hook me up to the EKG monitor to run five seconds of tape. We're done? Really? Alrighty then....
Next up: The Swearing In and Gear!!

The Continuing Chronicles of the FNG(irl): Unofficially Official

Well, props to my chief, he didn't want me to have to wait another week or so to get the arson check back and then have to wait for the letter from the department, so.....drumroll.........
I'm unofficially officially IN !!!

I'll be getting sworn in at the next department business meeting (first Tuesday in February), that is, of course, as long as my arson background check comes back clean.

They can't count that time my sisters and I set the garage on fire when I was eight years old...can they? I think that requires a short explanation: The backyard was knee deep in those fluffy powderpuff things from all of the trees in our yard...and somehow my sister Cathy figured out that they went up like a Roman candle and then blazed out just as quickly if you lit them with a match. It was a boring afternoon, all five of us were home and in dire need of a diversion before we started picking on each other, and next thing I knew....WHAM!!!!!!!! Those fluffy things practically blew up, and then they set fire to the dried out creeper vine that was growing all over the garage. If Mr. Paul next door hadn't sprinted out with a fire extinguisher, I think my parents might have packed us off to that girls school in the Canadian Rockies they kept threatening us with.

Right, where was I?

So once I get my letter, I'll go get my physical, bring back the proof, attend the business meeting, get sworn in and geared up, outfitted with a pager, and then it's off to FF1 for about 15 weeks. In the meantime, I can respond to calls and develop my traffic safety skills. :) This is, hands DOWN, the single most exciting thing I've ever done in my life, and I have NOT had a boring life.
Stay tuned...I'll post pics of the swearing in and me attired in my fetching turnout gear when I get them

The Chronicles of the FNG(irl): Intro

My name is Mary Ellen. Those that know me fairly well call me Mel. The short story behind my nickname is that I used to cook professionally at one point in my life (among other occupations) and had a nasty habit of burning the bacon I was charged with cooking off on a weekly basis. As this was becoming an expensive habit, the chef in charge of the kitchen decided he needed to shorten my name; the thought process was that he had at least a shot at saving a couple of trays of porcine fatback if he used a shortened version of my name to screech at me that the convection oven was on fire....again.

I'm the state-wide training coordinator for the Firemen's Association of the State of New York (FASNY) and I spend approximately 50% of my time criss-crossing NYS running firefighter and EMS training seminars in hundreds of fire departments in every county. The other 50% of my professional time is spent setting up the logistics and ancillary details surrounding the seminars, and then reconciling the classes in terms of the financials and certification. I like my job, I LOVE being out on the road with the classes, meeting FASNY members and listening to the "war stories" and talking about issues facing the volunteer fire service.

I decided not too long ago that instead of talking about firefighter safety all the time, I'd practice firefighter safety and finally get off my rear and join.

So I walked the quarter mile down the road to my local fire department, talked to the chief, filed an application, and next up? (cue the Phantom of the Opera music)..."The Interview". As in tomorrow night, as in I'm sweating bullets, as in my type-A personality brain is actively attempting to second guess how the process is going to go. In general, when I obsess about something, the reality tends to be one million times better than my overactive imagination has portrayed. Take a peek inside my cranium...'What if they don't like me?" "What if they ask me something that I don't know, but should?" "What if they think I'm some weak girl and can't do the job?" ---the list of questions racing around my medulla oblongata is ENDLESS.

I know the following: I want this, I'm ready for this, and I'm physically and mentally prepared for this. I haven't been this excited about ANYTHING in a long, long time. I can't wait to start training, and my most fervent hope is that a.) I don't do TOO many stupid things and that b.) I don't do something so stupid that someone else gets hurt as a result.

My game plan? thanks to some sage advice from a friend...Shut up, listen,don't take any crap, train hard, stay safe, and try not to make too big a fool of myself (I'm a little klutzy).
Stay tuned...I'll be back with the results of my interview.