Sidelined & Back In Service

Its been a while since my last entry, my appologies.

My last weekend of Search and Rescue went exceptionally well. We were able to finish our planned objectives before lunch. One of our classmates had been out doing something important like fixing submarines, and had missed some classes so the entire class volunteered to stay longer to help him catch up, an extra 4 cylinders and 5 evolutions, not too much work but a good afternoon of helping Dutchboy catch back up. 3rd out of 4 cylinders my partner and i were tasked with a primary search of the 2nd floor with another engine crew, we're to go left hand and engine 407 to go right hand. We get the exterior wall with no rooms so we're buzzed across that floor in no time. I come to a void in the floor, wound up being a "pit" down 2 floors, could have made a mess out of it. Tried to sound the floor and found the staircase down, much better idea to take the stairs than the express elevator down. On the way down my partner hits low air alert (vibra-lert for those with Scott-Air experience) meaning he's got about 900-1000 pounds of air left, enough for about 9 minutes of work at the most. Somehow he gets lost on his way out of the building despite my yelling to him that he's outside and doesnt need to be on air. He's off re-finding side baker of the building. Oh well, i figure the instructor is going to let him just run out of air and panic thinking he's still inside. Blah blah blah, well he's down to about 200 pounds of air when i hear those wordsi don't like so much, BUDDY BREATHE AND GET OUT THE WAY YOU CAME IN. I've still got about 2200 pounds of air left how i had so much left i'll have no idea, i know Ahab (my partner) doesnt smoke or anything but he sucks air like none other.

So we get our buddy breather hoses out and connect up, i'm still oriented to the building despite the blackout masks we're wearing so i know where the landing and the staircase are. I head in all the while telling Ahab to follow me, i'm the one who's got the air and i know 100% where my stairs aere and where my egress is. I head in and up the stairs, thats when i hear Ahab scuttling around on the bottom floor, not where he's supposed to be, one last yell to get up on the stairs and to follow my voice then WHAM!!!!! I'm flying down the stairs and in the process twisting my ankle because my boot got stuck. Well i feel it wrench, feel the pain so i just go down and yell to my instructor that my ankle is for s**t and that i need out. Long story short i come to find out Ahab had lost his way, decided he knew where the stairs were and thought he WAS following me. the buddy breather had gotten taught around the railing because he had passed the stairs, and instead of stopping and trying to figure out what he was "caught on" he turned around and grabbed the EBSS hose and yanked on it, in the process flinging me down the stairs. Big no-no, so now i'm out for an undetermined period of time with a bum ankle.

**SIDE NOTE, LEARN GOOD SPLINTING TECHNIQUE AND KEEP IN PRACTICE!!! the emt's that splinted my ankle did a wonderful job of imobilizing my leg for a tib-fib injury but left my ankle flopping in the wind. oh well!!***

Trip to the hospital, xrays, a trip to the orthopedist and the occupational health center, i'm on crutches for a week with an achilles "strain" not too bad, but enough that the doc wants no weight on it for a week. So here's me looking like a baby giraffe flopping around on crutches. Good stuff!

I miss my first day of ladders, which i'll make up this weekend. But all in all the class learned not to break their partners and to always maintain situational awareness. I guess its ok if they learned something, but man did i want to smash Ahab's head in for a couple days, i thought i was going to get kicked out of class because he didn't know what was going on around him .

Thats pretty much it for the weekend. but I'm now clear for duty and all that jazz so its all good.

Fun times on tuesday as the instructor just plain didn't show up for class, no clue where he was so the class just went to Friday's and "bonded" over wings and dinner.

Tonight we get 2 nights worth of building construction and a good naptime lecture. This weekend is the last weekend of ladders, and we get to do the 14' up a 35' extension ladder. I'll post pictures later but this drill has me pooping my pants.

Next week we have the Aerial Climb and i get to climb a 95' tower ladder and transition the bucket, so we're absolutely messing ourselves over that as a whole in the class. No one seems to be a fan of heights.