Thursday, February 24, 2011  When starting my tour of duty on 02/24/2011 I as an engineer noticed my tank fill lights were out on my apparatus, I looked to visually inspect the tank to find that it had no water in it. The apparatus had returned to service the previous day after a brief maintenance issue, and responded to two fire alarms with no water in the apparatus. Luckily i found this fifteen minutes into my tour of duty and it was immediately filled.
Always do a detailed inspection of your apparatus before and after it returns from maintenance. Always do your truck checks very thoroughly at the start of your tour of duty.
 

Monday, February 21, 2011  Proper fire attack and apparatus positioning led to no injuries when this strut let go at a recent car fire.

Sunday, February 13, 2011  While returning from an early morning alarm, our 1984 Emergency One Hurricane pumper (which is our only pumper) was approaching a lighted controlled intersection when the brakes failed completely. The rig has no auxiliary braking system and no emergency air application system either. The vehicle was going less than 45 mph in a posted 45 zone and the roads were clear but the outside temp was near 9 degrees. The driver tried gearing down the automatic transmission but it wasn't working. The road was clear and you can see a good ways from all 4 sides of the intersection but there were 2 cars waiting on the other side of the light. The driver moved as far to the left as possible and as we approached the intersection made a wide right turn onto a 2 lane road then coming to a stop in the empty parking lot of a shopping center. The vehicle was removed from service at that point and replaced with a reserve engine. The driver has over 24 years experience operating emergency vehicles as well as commercial trucks and certainly that played a big part in avoiding something much worse. Problem is: our engine is an older 3/4 style cab and the "reserve" engine is a fully enclosed cab, that our department refuses to accept even though the county has offered it many times over. WTF?? Plus the firefighters who took it out of service are being chastised for "picking on" the older truck as it goes out of service often for various mechanical issues.

LESSONS LEARNED:
Even small departments not running a lot of calls HAVE to maintain and update their apparatus. Having a strict and rigorous driving program as our department does is a must for all departments. Tragedy avoided this time. But what about the "next" time?
 

Tuesday, February 8, 2011  Our department responded to a motor vehicle accident during the early morning hours of February 7, 2011. A dense fog created slick road conditions. Our engine, “Engine 91”, was stationed in the roadway to block any oncoming traffic. Once it was determined there were no life threatening injuries, Engine 91 was released and preceded around the accident scene. As the engine crossed in front of the parked ambulance and began pulling into the proper lane, a semi whose trailer was sliding out of control, struck the side of Engine 91, forcing it into the ditch. Fortunately, no one was injured. Had the engine not passed around the accident scene at that precise moment, the semi would have struck the ambulance head on, possible causing severe injuries to the Paramedics and the patient. I thought this incident was important enough to share. It is a reminder of the dangers Fire Departments are faced with when managing emergencies on our roadways.

Note: All safety measures were in place and the semi was only traveling about 15 mph, but was loaded with books and magazines. My members did a great job managing the incident.

Saturday, February 5, 2011  An Alabama volunteer fire chief remained hospitalized today after his vehicle was struck by a dump truck near an icy overpass.

Patrick Lynn was airlifted to an Atlanta hospital after icy road conditions caused a string of accidents on Interstate 85 at Hamilton Road on Thursday.

A red Peterbilt dump truck southbound on I-85 just before 8:30 a.m. struck a patch of ice, crossed the median and hit Lynn’s white Ford Explorer, which had pulled onto the northbound shoulder. The Explorer was dragged down the embankment.

Lynn, fire chief for the Cusseta Fire Department, was returning from another job at Riverdale Fire Services to Cusseta when the accident occurred, according to family friend Jenny Weldon.

Lynn, who lives in Valley, Ala., had surgery at Grady Hospital in Atlanta on Thursday night for internal injuries and was in critical condition afterward, she said. An update on his condition was not available this morning.

Before hitting the Explorer, the dump truck had struck a dark green Chevy Colorado pickup. The green truck also had hit an icy patch in the southbound lane and flipped four times before coming to rest in the northbound lane, according to witness Joshua Sanders of LaGrange.

The green pickup’s driver was standing outside his vehicle speaking with Georgia state troopers when the dump truck struck it, according to responders at the scene. His vehicle also had an Alabama license plate.

Sanders had been southbound in an Isuzu truck with passenger Gage Rife when a Georgia Power vehicle hit an icy patch in the northbound lane and slid into the median, slinging dirt and rocks onto Sanders’ truck, shattering the windshield.

Sanders said he turned his truck around to check on the driver of the Georgia Power vehicle and called 911. While waiting for emergency personnel, he saw the green truck as it flipped across the median, and then saw the dump truck hit the green truck and the Explorer.

Sanders saw the driver of the green truck sitting on the side of the northbound exit ramp waiting for responders to arrive, and another female was standing near him. Sanders said the driver appeared to be injured.

Sanders then went to check on the driver of the Explorer.

“I was trying to talk to him and tell him not to move, but he was unconscious the whole time,” Sanders said. “We saw four other trucks slide while we were waiting.”

Read more: La Grange News - Icy bridges send vehicles out of control Alabama fire chief injured

Thursday, February 3, 2011  A Jersey City fire truck got stuck in a sinkhole Thursday afternoon, authorities said.

Video from SkyFoxHD showed a truck from Ladder 8 with its left rear tires fallen into a sinkhole at the intersection of Garfield Avenue and Linden Avenue.

Crews taped off the intersection until the truck could be freed.

It was not immediately known if the truck was on an emergency call when it got stuck.

Something very similar happened about two years ago: on February 1, 2009, a Jersey City fire truck got stuck in a much larger sinkhole on Linden Avenue.

Sunday, January 30, 2011  The weather and the economy were both against Shohola firefighters as they responded to two alarms Monday morning in the Walker Lake area, Chief Don Wall said. A pumper truck was en route southbound on Twin Lakes Road to a false, 9:21 a.m. automatic fire alarm call in Parkers Glen, when they were recalled to assist with 9:42 a.m. medical emergency on Grace Road, which they had already passed.

When they attempted to turn the 30-ton pumper around on No Name Boulevard, Wall said the rear of truck slid on the icy development access road and dropped the right-rear tires into the deep ditch. No one was injured and other volunteers took care of the medical emergency.

Looking up at some of the dozen homes along the steep and icy section of No Name Boulevard, Wall complained that the economy has prompted much reduced winter treatment of private community roads. While fire trucks like the damaged pumper are equipped with automatic chain devices, he said they can’t deal with ice on steep grades. “If there was a house fire up there today,” he said looking up the road, “we wouldn’t have been able to get to it.”

Firefighters waited more than three hours for a crane to remove the truck. Wall could not estimate the damage to the pumper, but was happy that the department had recently purchased a second pumper, despite some public opposition. “If we hadn’t, we’d have no pumper now,” he said.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011  Our engine crew of four was operating at a two vehicle MVA. Injuries were minor and the vehicles ended up in the median just past the intersection where the incident occured. Our engine was spotted behind the incident and angled towards the shoulder. As we were working with the medics to extract one of the patients to a long board I looked up and noticed a vehicle coming our way. Our engineer had put cones out in a line extending out from the front bumper running parallel to the incident. The vehicle barely missed the front of the engine, and then proceeded to run right over the closest cone to our position. All of this happened without the driver even tapping the brakes. The driver just continued on his way.

LESSONS LEARNED:
If the driver had been a few feet over he would have struck the vehicle we were working on. There was still a patient in the vehicle and 3 of us working outside the vehicle. Even with the engine (lights on) and cones blocking the incident this driver was able to sneak through. Another apparatus possibly could have deterred this driver. Even more important is use of traffic vests and especially keeping your head on a swivel. Have those not working on the patient keeping a close eye on traffic. Stay alert and communicate.
 

Monday, January 17, 2011  A couple of days ago, while driving Code 3 to a medical call, I heard a siren which was not coming from my vehicle. I assumed that it was a supervisor, especially as it seemed to be coming from behind me. I came to a complete stop at an intersection, just as my light turned green, in an attempt to be especially cautious in light of being followed, then proceeded through the light, narrowly missing a squad car which was travelling Code 3 on the intersecting road. Were it not for both my and the officer's quick thinking, this could have been one of those nasty wrecks that gets YouTube fame for Code 3 collisions.
 

Stop at all red lights. If you hear a siren that isn't your own, identify where it's coming from before assuming, if at all possible.