I was the driver of the Pumper when we got a call for a car accident about 2km north of the station. The location was a T-junction of a main road with a road that leads into a residential neighbourhood.

It was a two car crash. One vehicle was sitting in the curb lane of the westbound lanes of the residential road. The other vehicle was about 10m off the road against a garden wall.

I parked the truck and set out pylons to divert the traffic while the crew did patient care. As I was getting out of the truck, a witness came up to me in a panic sayng that one of the victims was bleeding. It turned out one of the drivers was cut by the glass from a broken window.

When this witness discovered that I didn't start panicing too, she moved on to other members of my crew to see if they would join her in her panic. Of course they did not. Part of our job is to be the ones who can look at the situation calmly and make decisions based on facts not emotions.

The injuries at this call were not severe although one of the drivers was taken to the hospital. There wasn't a lot of work to do here. We secured the vehicles so they wouldn't move, checked them for any hazardous leaks or potential problems and took care of the patients until the ambulance arrived.

As the police began their investigation we started discussing what must have happened. We decided that the car against the wall must have been making a left turn when the other car, coming south, hit it (somewhere near where the white police cars are in the picture). The amount of energy to push a car off the road, up an incline and into a wall is pretty significant. That southbound car must have been flying. The cop said she had a witness who said the guy was speeding but that it was the driver making the left turn who would be charged. Speed was a contributing factor but was not the cause of this accident.

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FIRES These are stories about recent fires;

• House Fire
• Tanker Truck to a Garbage Bin Fire
• Tanker Trunk to a Hopper Fire
• Car Fire
• Warehouse Fire
• House Fire
• Apartment Fire
• House Fire

MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENTS These are stories about car and truck accidents;

• Single Car Rollover
• Head-on Crash
• Rush Hour Accident
• Single Car Flip
• Car vs. Garbage Truck
• Van Rollover
• Sport Utility Vehicle Rollover
• 500m from the Dealership
• Left Turn Mistake

RESCUES These are stories about rescues we have made;

• Man Trapped in a Trailer

HAZARDOUS MATERIALS These are stories about emergencies involving Hazardous Materials;

• No Calls

MEDICAL We go to a lot of medical calls, but it is not fair to the people involved for me to describe their medical problems here. I can tell you about one incident and how it effected me;

• Stress

OTHER Sometimes interesting things happen around the Firehall;

• Skunk in the Firehall