I was working at another station for a tour of duty. To balance the manpower across the department one or two firefighters are designated as the " float ". This time it was my turn.

It was a night shift and the call came in at about 6:00 a.m.. For this type of call, that is just about the perfect time to get it. You can get everything done and still make it back for shift-change at 7:00 a.m.

The call came in as a motor vehicle accident (M.V.A). It was about half a kilometer from the station. When we pulled up we found two cars sitting in the middle of the intersection. Both had damage to the front end. In one car the driver was sitting with his door open holding his head. I never got over to look at him, but I was told that he wasn't hurt badly. In the second car there were four people all still seatbelted in.

We spoke to them briefly through the windows and found that none of them were severely hurt but the woman sitting in the back seat had some pain in her chest. I started patient care on her. Her vital signs were okay. Her pulse was a little high, about 110 bpm. As I did my secondary assessment she complained of some pain in her lower back.

Her chest pain was not severe and I suspected it was mostly bruising from her seatbelt. The pain in her back concerned me but that too could have been from the position she was sitting in. Her butt had slid forward on the seat so she was leaning against the back of the seat and her lower back was unsupported.

We put a cervical collar on her neck and put a K E D. board (Kendricks Extrication Device - it's a flexible board that immobilizes the spine) on her. The first arriving ambulance is responsible for triage. With five potential patients the ambulance attendant really had his hands full. A total of four ambulances came to this call. Fortunately there were no serious injuries because it took a while to sort out who was going in what ambulance and which hospital each ambulance would go to. Once an ambulance was assigned to my patient I gave the crew a report and they did their own quick assessment. Using the K E D we lifted the woman out of the car and on to a backboard. We placed the backboard on the ambulance stretcher and strapped her down.

Once she was out of the way, other Firefighters set to work opening the front door on the passenger side. It was jammed shut so they used the Hurst spreader (aka. Jaws of Life) to pop it open. With the door open we could now do a good assessment of this patient. He complained of some neck pain so we collared him as well. The ambulance crew took over and determined that he was not severely hurt. They actually got him to climb about of the car himself and then sit on their stretcher.

Now that the ambulances had all left, the tow truck vultures could come in and clear the cars away. By this time there was a pretty good traffic jam happening and the cops were getting pretty pissed off at some of the drivers.

The main blockage was in the westbound lanes of a three lane highway. The highway came over a bridge and down a hill to this intersection. The cars were backed up all the way to the top of the bridge and probably farther. As they got to the intersection they had to either turn right or left because our truck and the two cars were blocking all of the through lanes.

What amazed me was that some people had driven over the top of the bridge and down the hill; all the time they could see a firetruck and police cars with lights flashing at this intersection. It must have taken at least ten minutes to drive the one kilometer to the intersection. But in all that time they still had not figured out that they could not drive straight through. So when they arrived at the intersection they were sitting in the middle lane and would then look at the cop who was telling them to turn and act like he was the problem.

But, I suppose, if they didn't give driver's licenses to idiots, I would be out of a job.

The cops kept our truck on location until everything was clear. They were afraid that as soon as we left there would be no way to prevent cars from driving through the accident scene. We got back to the station about ten minutes before shift-change. Perfect timing!

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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
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• 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