Faux Pas...'fess up!

[DeputyChiefGonzo]

Have you or your personnel ever made an embarassing mistake? I was reminded of one today while I was out walking the dogs. I passed this house in an executive (read big $$$) neighborhood. We had gone to a carbon monoxide detector activation there a little over a year ago. When we arrived, we were met by a very attractive woman in her mid forties. We went into the house with our CO meter and got a slightly elevated reading in the basement, where the detector had activated. I was telling her of the readings we got when the garage door opened. She said that "Frankie" was home from work and I should speak to her. I got the hint...this home was occupied by a lesbian couple. "Frankie" was what one would call "soft butch"..wearing a pantsuit and matching jacket She was not overly masculine, yet she was not quite feminine....

One of the jakes in my crew had broken his glasses and was waiting for his girlfriend to bring him his spare pair when we went out to the call. He's extremely nearsighted and doesn't see that well without them.

He saw "Frankie" come in from the garage and said "no need to worry sir...everything is all right...the LT is talking to your wife..."

Imagine his surprise when she answered "thank you"!

Anybody else have an embarrassing experience?

[ 06-29-2001: Message edited by: Captain Gonzo ]

[Resq14]

hehe

[Michelle Latham]

I have had some embarassing calls involving my patient's pets. At one call while everyone worked on an old man who wasn't breathing I noticed that his wee little puppy had snuck outside into the cold. It must have been at least twenty below zero and I thought, "How awful it would be for this poor man to go through all this and then find his puppy frozen solid in his yard!" so I scooped the puppy up. However, everyone kept calling for this or that and I couldn't do anything with a pup in my arms and so I looked around and spied the empty airway bag and had this great idea - I'd stick the pup in the bag, zip it up with just enough space for him to poke his nose out, and quickly fetch the supplies everyone was asking for. (I'm a probie...what do you expect?) As I was stuffing the puppy into the airway bag a few of my superiors saw me and gave me The Look and I quickly came up with another plan!
At another call we had serious problems with the patient and everyone was working hard to save her. In the middle of everything their short-hair dog managed to slip outside into the cold. After the call while all of the remaining medics, the state troopers, and the family were standing outside I noticed the dog by our other ambulance. It was another one of those cold Alaskan nights and I didn't want the dog to freeze so I reached down and went to grasp his collar so I could lead him back to his house. Well that dog let out a blood-curdling scream and ran all the way back to his house going "Yipe! Yipe! Yipe!" at the top of his lungs while everyone turned and stared at me like I had just beaten the dog or something!
At another call I managed to trip over the patient's cat and one time I had to extricate a victim's cat from a sofa!
I love animals but it seems like I'm cursed when I go on a call!

[Firekatz04]

As far as pets go, we have one guy that was DC a few years back, on a dwelling fire. He was doing his 360 around the house, opened the stockade fence gate and walked in... he RAN out being chased by a BIIIGGGG dog. We've also had working fire calls at places whose owners had some "exotic pets", a house full of snakes, spiders, etc. We started doing an interior attack on this one job, crawling through, and I was met by a Cobra... ready to strike, oh, just about mask high... I "just reacted"... I opened the line and "hit it"... and knocked over the 2 ft tall snake "statue"!

[sloepoke1]

Don't feel like the Lone Ranger on that one FireKatz04. I dropped the damn nozzle when I found that same cobra ready to fill my eyes with spit!

[FFShooty]

Saw an Assistant Chief one snowy cold night performing his walkaround at a house fire...got to the rear of the house....and fell into the homeowners gold fish pond. Went in waist deep in freezing water. Funniest thing I ever saw. He handled it well though....after we pulled him out, he reached in his shirt pocket for a Marlboro, lit it up, and continued on around the other side of the house as if nothing happened. Way to proud to admit he was freezing to death.

[Michelle Latham]

Oh my GOD! I'm laughing so hard that everyone in the fire station must think I'm nuts!
A goldfish pond??? That is classic!!!

Chris, who was my Assistant Chief in Delta, was trying to help me de-fog my face mask and he started to fiddle with my purge valve and scared the bejeebers out of me. After jumping ten feet in the air I batted his hands away and said, "I can see JUST FINE. You don't have to mess with my mask anymore!" and then I marched away and promptly tripped over a log and hit the ground so hard my teeth clacked. I slid a few feet on the wet grass before coming to a halt. A second later I saw boots come into view and I looked up and found a pair of very amused eyes staring down at me. It was, of course, my Assistant Chief! My face must have turned bright red but I picked myself off the ground and howled with laughter!! He joined me after making sure I wasn't hurt. The other firefighters stared at me in shock because I had been so rude! But Chris understood - he was used to terrified probies.
(I usually don't snap at folks or march off unless I get scared out of my wits hahaha.)

[cherryvale1]

In 1969 we responded to a brush pile near a new home that was burning good. It was Dec. in Ohio and it was COLD 9:30 pm. We decided to just pass the hose along the 20' so we would not have to clean up afterwords since we only were going to use a couple hundred gallons of water. I am standing there passing the hose alone when I noticed pressure on my boots, the old hip boots. Thought I was in a little mud so no big problem.

After about 8 minutes we passed the line back to the truck and got ready to leave. Only one problem, I AM STUCK! It seems I had stepped in a small area of quick sand. The chief and other firefighters thought I was joking until they tried to pull me out.

What started out as a 20 min call total ended up taking two and a half hours.

After trying some things that did not work, I had sunk to chest deep we came up with the following!

They finally put two 1 1/2 inch lines down the sides of my boots and put the pump pressure at 180 lbs, having hooked a rope around me, around a ladder being lifted by 8 firefighters! If you have ever felt COLD WATER going down you pants at that pressure you know what I felt like.

The blood and feeling came back to my legs and feet after about 30 minutes. You should have seen the look on my girl friends family's face when I walked in the door.

[Break-N-Entry]

Responded to "smoke in basement" and found small clothes dryer fire. Sut power and gas, extinguished with water can, checked for extension, opened windows, let homeowner down to see, and then heard a big commotion outside.

Engineer comes to window and says, "Hey LT, Tommy just got bit by some big fat girl's dog."

Yeah, you're right.

[XXLdogg]

During floods a few years back we evac'ed a family into our boat, and then got our prop caught on their tennis court net.

[firefighter26]

A few years ago, when I was a probie, we where called to an MVA. Since I was new, the chief (also my father) figured I could do no harm if I stood around and manned a hose line. Once everything was all said and done, the tow truck was lifting the car up onto its flatbed when some fuel leaked out. I was called in to wash down the area. We use a fog nozzle and in in my excitment of actually getting to do something, I pulled the hammer back so I could change the settings! As soon as I figured what I had done, I looked up to see my father (also the chief) soaked from head to toe.... Needless to say, I did a lot of traffic after that.

[BLACKSHEEP1]

Just last shift my rescue was working a code with the engine assisting. Apparently the patient's hand was touching the birdcage because when we shocked the patient we defibbed the parrot also. That was pretty entertaining.

[FF24]

Just after I finished my fire fighting class we were called out to a barn fire.It was a rather small fire that was started by an old man (80's) who had burning some leaves and it got too close. we had pretty much has the fire out then one of the guys let me be on the nozzle to finish up and i had seen the old man with a bucket of water trying to put out his leaf fire so i thought i would go over and help him by spraying a little water on it, well i totally forgot to look at the stream setting and opened it wide up, and out come this wide fog water stream, before i even knew what happened i had totally soaked the old guy, i couldnt even see him through the water. i hurried up and shut it down and of course there came my chief behind me with a sarcastic grin and said would ya like to bring the hose over to the actual fire..i felt so bad for the guy but all i could do was laugh..i did appologize though and he was very good about it...

[TCFire]

House fire a couple years ago......going pretty good on the second floor in 2 rooms. Got it knocked down, everyone reported to be out of the house, but some pets reported to still be inside. Crews are searching the second floor for the animals, all of a sudden one of the guys hollers "I got one and it's still alive!". We turn around and he's pulling a turtle out of an aquarium, runs over to the window and throws the turtle out the window!
Fortunately the turtle survived his first experience at flying!

Blacksheep.....still chuckling over the defibbed parrot! How did you explain that one?

[BG204]

Back around 1990 my department responded to a mobile home fire with a neighboring department. It was a real hot and humid night and the smoke just stuck to the ground. The trailer was burning pretty good so we were staying outside. I was told by the neighboring chief to take a line to one end of the trailer and finishing puting out the fire there. Smoke was so thick that I could not see much. When I opened the nozzle up it was on straight stream, yeah, I forget to check it. After I knocked the fire down a firefighter came up and told me the chief said not to use a straight stream. I thought it was a little strange since he couldn't see me, but I didn't think any more about it. When we got back to the station, my Captain saitd he was standing in the front yard and a stream of water came out of the smoke and hit the neighboring chief right in the personals and doubled him over. That's went it dawned on me why he had told me not to use a straight stream. I thought it was a good shot.