The Power of Prayer
UNC beat Duke. There is a God, and He is just.
You see folks- I was praying, and praying hard througout that game. For four freshmen to outscore four seniors, on senior night, in Cameron, when Duke is number one, and are led by the strongest scoring duo they've ever fielded, it was a miracle plain and simple.
Also, Roy Williams should be the National Coach of the Year, I don't care who you are.
Done with basketball now. Mostly.
I was working the campus truck Saturday night, but in our eternal optimism, we'd gone ahead and pre-planned for Franklin St. coverage in the event that we won and the students stormed the street. We watched the game at the station, and incredibly managed to see the entire thing. Only one call went out county-wide while the game was on, and it was a looong way from where I was stationed, and thus officially not my problem.
Side-note: According to the people I work with, I'm incredibly entertaining to watch during a basketball game. I full well admit it too- I'm a little more involved in the game that your average fan. They devised a scoring system, and decided that it would be an Olympic sport at the next summer games. The only real rule we figure out was that everyone- competitors, judges, me, fans- all had to be dressed in Spandex. Reason number 367 you should never call 911.
2 hours of incredible ACC basketball later (and it really was a good game) the Tar Heels have won, and I am hauling ass to Franklin St. so we can get our resources deployed before the crowd becomes unmanageable. I park our truck at CHFD Station 1 while we wait for PD to get barricades up and close the street.
Normally this is a quick, painless process, but after the relative shock of the win last night, it didn't progress quite as smoothly. I took this time to enjoy watching the already large, drunken mass of humanity surge by me towards the main intersection. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: there's no place on Earth with women as beautiful as Chapel Hill's. It's incredible.
Anyway, a short time later, the barricades are up, the street is closed, and we move up to the main intersection. I step out of the truck and breathe in the sweet, sweet scent of victory.
It mostly smells like burning toilet paper and stale beer.
As soon as I step out, I hear the other truck we have covering the street check enroute to UNC with a guy who already has second and third degree burns on his arms and legs. Fucking stupid. I'm all for getting drunk and partying hard, especially to celebrate a win like this, but why the need to jump over a fire? Is it that exhilirating? Is it that cold? I don't think so.
For most of the night I just stood around talking to my various friends who were in the crowd having a fun, drunken time. Each one of them promised to have a drink for me, so I was honorarily drunk too.
EMcNasty actually went to the game in Cameron, and flew back to Chapel Hill to take part in the revelry. I turned to look down the street, and was greeted by a loud squeal, and a woman hanging around my neck, legs wrapped around my waist, smelling of sweet victory. (really, it was actually sweet this time) Obviously I'm a fan of this, but it was still shocking to suddenly have someone attached to me.
She also gets total credit for the win. She claims credit for 3 Shelden Williams FT misses, and wore the lucky shirt that got us a National Championship last year. Additional cool points for wearing a "Dook Girls Are Ugly" T-Shirt to Cameron. What a gal.
Unfortunately my McNasty time was cut short by a frat-tastic dumbass from Granville who managed to fall in the fire and burn his hands. There's an easy way to avoid these burns from bonfires.
STOP FUCKING JUMPING THROUGH THEM!
He got a ride to the hospital, but only because all of his similarly frat-tastic "friends" deserted his Sperry wearing ass when they figured out what a total tool he was. On the way in to the hospital he asked if his parents would get a bill, and went pale as hell when I told him yes. There are perks to every job...
By the time we made it back up to Franklin St. McNasty was gone, and with her most of the crowd. It died down fairly quickly last night. Partially because it was cold, and partially because people still haven't recovered from last April's celebration. The story of that night will have to be told someday.
After they cleared the streets, Pepper and a friend of hers met up with me at the corner of Franklin and N. Columbia, and I got to talk to her for a while. Her friend was shitfaced, and kept falling over. Everytime I'd catch her she'd look at me and go "I'm cool. I'm cool." I always agreed, but caught her nonetheless. I save myself paperwork if I can keep people's heads from bouncing off the curb right in front of me.
We cleared up a little while later, and went back to Station 2 to drop people and equipment off before SweetCheeks, our cadet, and I went back to the campus apartment to sleep through the rest of our shift. Rather than monitor radio traffic to figure out if we were the closest unit to any given call, which I'm usually an advocate of, we decided to turn the radios off, and let communications dispatch us with the pagers knowing that it would never happen.
We slept through the night.
Up at 6 this morning, we drove the ambulance back to the station, and I jumped in my truck to head to my next 12 hour shift. Cary is usually a busy place to work, but I'd drawn duty at the "vacation station" in Morrisville. My partner today was awesome, and I love working with her, so I didn't even mind that I was there at 7am after barely 3 hours of sleep.
We got the truck checked off and the morning duties done, and then the firefighters cooked us breakfast. Let me tell you something: if you want to learn to cook good food, quickly, and for a lot of people, go spend time in a firehouse. French toast, eggs and sausage, and OJ for $2.50. Kiss my ass McDonald's.
The morning started off great with the other 2 trucks running a couple of calls a piece, while we took a nice morning nap. That can't last.
At about 11 o'clock we were paged out to an apartment fire.
I pulled out behind the ladder truck, deciding that following the big red thing that was going to the same call we were would be easier than looking up the call in the map book. Driving down the road, I'm beginning to wonder if they even know where they're going when we come upon an apartment complex with black smoke rolling off one of the buildings.
Found it!
It's always kinda cool to arrive on the scene of a working fire. Fires take an incredible number of people to put out, and the sheer amount of manpower and equipment that goes into fighting one is impressive. EMS however, is pretty much there in case someone dies, and to make sure the firefighters are healthy when they come out of the fire. Catch me one day when I'm not tired, and I'll explain more, but for right now, that's it. Fires are cool.
An hour later we cleared up, ate lunch at Taco Hell, and went back to the station for nap-time, round 2.
I slept for 3 glorious hours, and then decided I was being a true bum, and got up to do something productive. This too was apparently viewed unfavorably by the EMS gods, as we were immediately rewarded with a call at the airport for an unconscious person.
Now I have to admit I like responding to the airport. It's a badass feeling to be driving with lights and siren through planes out on the tarmac. No shit, we really do. Our ambulance parked between two 727s at the gate. It looked better than both the planes... way more flashing lights.
Anyway, inside waiting on us is a 34 year old female, drunk as shit, beligerently arguing with RDU FD. She's had enough to drink that I can smell the rum on her breath from across the concourse, and she's passed out a few times. Now the airline is refusing to allow her to fly, for obvious reasons.
She's alert, and oriented though, and after some coaxing agrees to let us check her blood pressure, blood sugar, and a few other things. I think her biggest problem is that she's a bitch from New Jersey who also happens to be a Duke Alum. I'm telling you, they're all bad people.
She spends a little bit of time cursing at me before I tell her that if she keeps up that way I'll have the nice officer put her in cuffs and take her to a cell to sober up. She's remarkably nice after that.
She eventually refuses to go to the hospital, and we decide she's sober enough to sit around with PD and sober up. She signs the refusal form, and I go back to tear-assing around on the runways...
Well not really, but I was still driving where the planes drive!
That's it. I'm tired, and my day from that point is uninteresting. This thing is probably full of typos and grammatical errors, but I couldn't care less. I'll work on something better for next time.
You see folks- I was praying, and praying hard througout that game. For four freshmen to outscore four seniors, on senior night, in Cameron, when Duke is number one, and are led by the strongest scoring duo they've ever fielded, it was a miracle plain and simple.
Also, Roy Williams should be the National Coach of the Year, I don't care who you are.
Done with basketball now. Mostly.
I was working the campus truck Saturday night, but in our eternal optimism, we'd gone ahead and pre-planned for Franklin St. coverage in the event that we won and the students stormed the street. We watched the game at the station, and incredibly managed to see the entire thing. Only one call went out county-wide while the game was on, and it was a looong way from where I was stationed, and thus officially not my problem.
Side-note: According to the people I work with, I'm incredibly entertaining to watch during a basketball game. I full well admit it too- I'm a little more involved in the game that your average fan. They devised a scoring system, and decided that it would be an Olympic sport at the next summer games. The only real rule we figure out was that everyone- competitors, judges, me, fans- all had to be dressed in Spandex. Reason number 367 you should never call 911.
2 hours of incredible ACC basketball later (and it really was a good game) the Tar Heels have won, and I am hauling ass to Franklin St. so we can get our resources deployed before the crowd becomes unmanageable. I park our truck at CHFD Station 1 while we wait for PD to get barricades up and close the street.
Normally this is a quick, painless process, but after the relative shock of the win last night, it didn't progress quite as smoothly. I took this time to enjoy watching the already large, drunken mass of humanity surge by me towards the main intersection. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: there's no place on Earth with women as beautiful as Chapel Hill's. It's incredible.
Anyway, a short time later, the barricades are up, the street is closed, and we move up to the main intersection. I step out of the truck and breathe in the sweet, sweet scent of victory.
It mostly smells like burning toilet paper and stale beer.
As soon as I step out, I hear the other truck we have covering the street check enroute to UNC with a guy who already has second and third degree burns on his arms and legs. Fucking stupid. I'm all for getting drunk and partying hard, especially to celebrate a win like this, but why the need to jump over a fire? Is it that exhilirating? Is it that cold? I don't think so.
For most of the night I just stood around talking to my various friends who were in the crowd having a fun, drunken time. Each one of them promised to have a drink for me, so I was honorarily drunk too.
EMcNasty actually went to the game in Cameron, and flew back to Chapel Hill to take part in the revelry. I turned to look down the street, and was greeted by a loud squeal, and a woman hanging around my neck, legs wrapped around my waist, smelling of sweet victory. (really, it was actually sweet this time) Obviously I'm a fan of this, but it was still shocking to suddenly have someone attached to me.
She also gets total credit for the win. She claims credit for 3 Shelden Williams FT misses, and wore the lucky shirt that got us a National Championship last year. Additional cool points for wearing a "Dook Girls Are Ugly" T-Shirt to Cameron. What a gal.
Unfortunately my McNasty time was cut short by a frat-tastic dumbass from Granville who managed to fall in the fire and burn his hands. There's an easy way to avoid these burns from bonfires.
STOP FUCKING JUMPING THROUGH THEM!
He got a ride to the hospital, but only because all of his similarly frat-tastic "friends" deserted his Sperry wearing ass when they figured out what a total tool he was. On the way in to the hospital he asked if his parents would get a bill, and went pale as hell when I told him yes. There are perks to every job...
By the time we made it back up to Franklin St. McNasty was gone, and with her most of the crowd. It died down fairly quickly last night. Partially because it was cold, and partially because people still haven't recovered from last April's celebration. The story of that night will have to be told someday.
After they cleared the streets, Pepper and a friend of hers met up with me at the corner of Franklin and N. Columbia, and I got to talk to her for a while. Her friend was shitfaced, and kept falling over. Everytime I'd catch her she'd look at me and go "I'm cool. I'm cool." I always agreed, but caught her nonetheless. I save myself paperwork if I can keep people's heads from bouncing off the curb right in front of me.
We cleared up a little while later, and went back to Station 2 to drop people and equipment off before SweetCheeks, our cadet, and I went back to the campus apartment to sleep through the rest of our shift. Rather than monitor radio traffic to figure out if we were the closest unit to any given call, which I'm usually an advocate of, we decided to turn the radios off, and let communications dispatch us with the pagers knowing that it would never happen.
We slept through the night.
Up at 6 this morning, we drove the ambulance back to the station, and I jumped in my truck to head to my next 12 hour shift. Cary is usually a busy place to work, but I'd drawn duty at the "vacation station" in Morrisville. My partner today was awesome, and I love working with her, so I didn't even mind that I was there at 7am after barely 3 hours of sleep.
We got the truck checked off and the morning duties done, and then the firefighters cooked us breakfast. Let me tell you something: if you want to learn to cook good food, quickly, and for a lot of people, go spend time in a firehouse. French toast, eggs and sausage, and OJ for $2.50. Kiss my ass McDonald's.
The morning started off great with the other 2 trucks running a couple of calls a piece, while we took a nice morning nap. That can't last.
At about 11 o'clock we were paged out to an apartment fire.
I pulled out behind the ladder truck, deciding that following the big red thing that was going to the same call we were would be easier than looking up the call in the map book. Driving down the road, I'm beginning to wonder if they even know where they're going when we come upon an apartment complex with black smoke rolling off one of the buildings.
Found it!
It's always kinda cool to arrive on the scene of a working fire. Fires take an incredible number of people to put out, and the sheer amount of manpower and equipment that goes into fighting one is impressive. EMS however, is pretty much there in case someone dies, and to make sure the firefighters are healthy when they come out of the fire. Catch me one day when I'm not tired, and I'll explain more, but for right now, that's it. Fires are cool.
An hour later we cleared up, ate lunch at Taco Hell, and went back to the station for nap-time, round 2.
I slept for 3 glorious hours, and then decided I was being a true bum, and got up to do something productive. This too was apparently viewed unfavorably by the EMS gods, as we were immediately rewarded with a call at the airport for an unconscious person.
Now I have to admit I like responding to the airport. It's a badass feeling to be driving with lights and siren through planes out on the tarmac. No shit, we really do. Our ambulance parked between two 727s at the gate. It looked better than both the planes... way more flashing lights.
Anyway, inside waiting on us is a 34 year old female, drunk as shit, beligerently arguing with RDU FD. She's had enough to drink that I can smell the rum on her breath from across the concourse, and she's passed out a few times. Now the airline is refusing to allow her to fly, for obvious reasons.
She's alert, and oriented though, and after some coaxing agrees to let us check her blood pressure, blood sugar, and a few other things. I think her biggest problem is that she's a bitch from New Jersey who also happens to be a Duke Alum. I'm telling you, they're all bad people.
She spends a little bit of time cursing at me before I tell her that if she keeps up that way I'll have the nice officer put her in cuffs and take her to a cell to sober up. She's remarkably nice after that.
She eventually refuses to go to the hospital, and we decide she's sober enough to sit around with PD and sober up. She signs the refusal form, and I go back to tear-assing around on the runways...
Well not really, but I was still driving where the planes drive!
That's it. I'm tired, and my day from that point is uninteresting. This thing is probably full of typos and grammatical errors, but I couldn't care less. I'll work on something better for next time.
posted by C at 10:20 PM
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