Cut them clothes off 2

Far side was always a pretty cool EMT on scene. The guys all respected her knowledge and felt better when she was on the scene. She could get by with things the rest of us couldn’t. Like backing up into the fire hall. She wouldn’t do it. Someone else always had to for her and break off the side mirrors.

I remember a call that initially came out as a suicide. Far Side, I and one other were in the back of the rig on the way to the scene and this other guy and I got to thinking about what we were going into and I admitted I didn’t think I was ready for this one. Far side was the cheer leader and calmed us down by reminding us we all have shot deer and this wouldn’t be to different. Before we got to the scene dispatch called and told us the guy hadn’t done it yet and we should hold short . We pulled over next to the church right by it’s cemetery and waited. This other guy and I started to get a little chicken chit again and Far Side gave us her good old pep talk. As we waited Far Side kept talking to us in calm soothing manner until dispatch called again and told us the guy was on his way to the cemetery to kill himself. Far Side in her calm manner just looked at the driver and yelled “get us the **** out of here.”

Another call was for a guy way out in the woods who had gotten himself into a bees nest. Turns out the guy had a bee allergy. We got there and Far Side did her thing with the clothes except for the poor guys shorts. She told one of us to check in his shorts to see if he had any beestings there and we all went “ah ah not me.” So she did it. Boy she was mad about that one. When we got home from that call I told the girls I had caught there mother with her hand in another mans pants.

Last but not least for now is the papoose board. It was really a short back board but we had been trained to call it a papoose board. We were also warned not to refer to as a papoose board around the Native Americans. Eventually the day came when we got a call for small American Native child. Right there in front of God and all the Native American people in the room Far Side just had to ask for the Papoose board. It did get rather quite until I said “You mean the short board? White Woman?”
 

Posted by: Far Guy on 11/19/2008 at 11:29 PM | Comments (1) | Permalink

Cut that clothing off

Far Sides blog about her cutting off clothing reminded me of a story. We received a page early one evening of someone having been hit by a car. We had friends visiting us at the time but Far side and I both responded to the call. Far Side, myself, and two others arrived at the hall at the same time. We all jumped into the rescue rig and headed for the scene. Upon arriving at the reported location we couldn’t find a body. Nothing. After cruising around for about 15 minuets we finally spotted a body laying in a ditch face down.

Far side did her thing. In less than 60 seconds we had a nude body laying face down. The assessment of that side of the body did not show any injuries consistent of having been hit by a vehicle so we decided to log roll the body onto a backboard. Oh my! We had a lady there and one that we recognized . I’ll call her MJ. MJ came to fame a couple of years ago when she shot her neighbors dog. …. while the dog was in her neighbors lap. So here we had this naked lady with no visible reason why she should be unconscious, covered with a couple thousand mosquitoes, and nobody wanted her to regain consciousness.

The ambulance arrived from town and we did a load and go. Nothing more could be done for MJ in the ditch. Just load her in the ambulance and get her to the emergency room. The two paramedics who came from town recognized our victim also and insisted one of us ride to town with them. None of our crew said anything but me. There’s old Farguy. “Me, me take me.” “I’ll go.” “me me”.

The ride to town was rather interesting in that MJ never moved, moaned, or gave any indication of pain even when the paramedic tried multiple times to get an IV in. He finally gave me the needle and said “you try.” I did. Stuck it right in back of the hand. Probably didn’t hit the vein but hey, it was in her hand. As we pulled up to the emergency room entrance I caught MJ’s eyelid flicker and said “MJ, Can your hear me?” In which she answered “ Of course I can hear you, you dumb &%%$$.” Far side says that’s a good indication of an unobstructed airway.

I left the paramedics there to handle the rest, found a phone to arrange a ride home, get a cup of coffee, and retrieve our backboard. The guests we had visiting us that night said they would come and get me. I told them to meet me at the emergency room entrance. I would be the guy with the backboard. After waiting some time I went to the emergency room entrance to wait and met MJ leaving with a blanket around herself. She didn’t look to happy. The paramedics came out shortly after and the tall skinny one told me he had tried to stop her but she got a hold of him and the next thing he knew he could see his own rectum.

My ride finally arrived. On our way back to the fire hall my pager went off again “We have a report of gun shots being fired into the hall.” My ride slowed to a crawl and asked which hall that might be. I told him that would be the one we are headed for but it would be quite likely they would be out of bullets by the time we got there.

MJ went to jail for awhile. When she got out she came back to the area and set her house on fire. We went and put it out so MJ set it on fire again. The third time she set it on fire she let us know there were evil spirits inside so we just let it burn.

Posted by: Far Guy on 11/17/2008 at 1:36 PM | Comments (4) | Permalink

Just thinking

Why doesn’t the oil industry bailout the Automobile industry?

Is it possible for Obama to be totally partial?

The presidential campaign is over. Why did someone have to win?

How did Adult Attention Deficient Disorder get renamed “gaffes”?

Insanity is my only form or relaxation
 

Posted by: Far Guy on 11/16/2008 at 1:20 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Pickled radishes

I once knew a guy who would pickle anything. You have heard of pickled eggs I’m sure. That sort of thing was old hat to him. He pickled things like bananas and radishes. The guy was the base fire chief and he and I spent a lot of time experimenting with foods to pickle. Pickled fish was rather boring, pickled celery left a lot to be desired and pickled left over Thanksgiving turkey was god awful. His claim to fame were the pickled radishes. It was his invention. I just promoted it.

I suppose God never meant for radishes to be pickled. They give off an odor that Far Side describes as a dead body floating in a vat of cabbage. That is exactly what made them so unique. One jar would last you a life time. Most people had a bowl of candy or something on their desk. I had a jar of pickled radishes. I would offer anyone coming into my office one and as soon as I took the lid off the jar I would get a polite “no thank you.” There was this one guy who would curse at me and threaten to leave if I didn’t put that lid back on the jar. Ding ding ding. I bet his mother was blonde. I snuck in his office one day and hid the uncapped jar in his office. That was the same day they evacuated the credit union. I didn’t know his office shared a vent with the credit union. The fire dept got called, they searched the room with air packs on, and didn’t find anything. The fire chief finally went in. I got a call shortly there after to get those radishes to hell off the base.

I took them home and introduced them to the family. The first time I opened the jar, Far Side and her four dogs left the house, both of our kids left the house, two cats left the house, and it was winter. Eventually the girls learned the trick of holding your breath and began to get into the game. Then one day my youngest had a friend over and offered her one. I was there. I saw this with my own eyes. Her friend took one of the pickled radishes and ate it! Then she ate another one! It was over. The mighty pickled radish order had been defeated.

I don’t know what we did with them after that. We couldn’t just pour them out and try to save the jar. That would have caused an evacuation of the neighborhood. I suppose they went to some landfill that is considered toxic now.
 

Posted by: Far Guy on 11/14/2008 at 11:57 PM | Comments (2) | Permalink

Mountain railroad

I got one of those inspirational e-mails yesterday. It was about life’s mountain railroad. How some of us stay in the caboose looking back on our lives and others are in the engine looking forward. A Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson songs goes with it called Mountain Railroad. All quite moving.

My mind has been on that e-mail most of the day. I can’t buy into it. Maybe it’s my age or maybe it’s just my luck. I don’t want to be in the engine. I have no control over where those tracks take me, those tracks were laid by someone else. I can keep my hand on the throttle as Willie says in the song and I did at one time It was full steam ahead and nobody said there was a break. I have no idea if that light at the end of the tunnel is sunlight or another train. I don’t want to know.

From my view in the caboose I can see some real awesome things. I have seen the stars at 35,000 feet with less than ½ inch of plastic between them and me. I’ve done some pretty awesome things. I never became the President but I have a letter from one saying thank you. I have met characters no fiction writer could invent. I sat on the tracks with a hobo, smoked his cigarette, talked about life, and then give him what change I had in my pocket. On the train to Oregon I talked to the guy who admitted he thinks he killed a hobo. I know a guy who can take 10 bucks from a person who only has five and I’ve seen a mentally handicapped person win a teddy bear at a game he wasn’t even playing.

My view from the caboose isn’t that bad. Sure if I think hard enough I can come up with some views I don’t want to see. I can see the four lifeless bodies laying in the field after they were ejected out of the windshield of the pickup. I can still see the look on the families face when CPR failed. On the other hand I can see the look on my coworkers face when I filled his gloves with shaving cream.

I’ll just let the tracks lead me and God willing I’ll get a few more chapters to my story to look back on.
 

Posted by: Far Guy on 11/13/2008 at 4:12 PM | Comments (1) | Permalink