John Wilmot
Sometimes we see things that are not all that exciting but they are strange or unusual. In June we had a couple of calls that fit this category.
We got called to a car accident on Steeles Avenue. It was a fairly minor accident with no real injuries. There were two things that made this accident unusual.
The first was that the woman driving one of the cars had just picked it up. We could see the dealership from the accident scene. She might have driven her new car 300m before hitting someone (or getting hit, I don't know which.)
The second thing that was strange was that the airbags did not go off. This was a minor accident and the airbags weren't needed. If they had gone off they might have done more harm than good. But as we examined the car we found quite a bit of damage to the front end. The metal of the bumper had been pushed in so far that it actually started to tear. As we looked at it we could not figure out how you could distort the bumper so much and still not trigger the airbags.
The other unusual call we got was a garbage bin fire. Fires in garbage bins are fairly common. It seems some people don't think about what they're throwing into them. What made this garbage bin fire unusual was that there was a small compactor unit on top of it.
The call came in at about 3 a.m. We had already been out to a couple of medical calls that night so, rather than being fun and exciting, this fire was just more work in the middle of the night.
The bin was behind a strip mall and we had some difficulty getting the truck around to it. This was the first fire that our new driver got to actually pump water at. He did a good job and I suppose it was kind of fun for him. Usually at a garbage bin fire we just fill the garbage bin with water and that put it out. But with this compactor in the way we found it hard to get water into the bin. I think that the crushing part of the compactor should have been able to lift up out of the way but maybe the heat of the fire ruined the controls because they didn't work.
We used our built in foam system to apply Class-A foam to this fire. Class-A foam works by breaking down the surface tension of the water to allow it to penetrate better. The foaming action also helps it to stick to surfaces instead of running off like plain water.
We foamed this bin as best we could and when we thought it was out we packed up. After the hose was back on the truck we could see that the fire was still going and it was starting to flare up again. This time we used a short piece of hose and dumped all of our water on it. Now it was finally out, or so it seemed, we packed up and left.
A couple of weeks later I was looking through the station log book when I noticed that the in afternoon of the day we had this fire the other crew went to a garbage bin fire at the same address. Someone must be throwing some highly flammable materials into that bin.
Choose an Emergency
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;
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;
OTHER Sometimes interesting things happen around the Firehall;