1) Sometimes you get a call and that night, or even for weeks, you replay the events in your head and ask yourself, 'What could I have done better?'
The phone rings. The caller tells me that his 9 year old son dove overboard and got his leg caught in the propeller. The son has deep lacerations in his thigh. First things first, stop the bleeding. Making this up as I go along, "Do you have a towel?"
Yes, he's got a towel. "Let's wrap the leg as tightly as we can, wrapping the towel tightly around the leg in layers."
Okay, that's done. "Do you have a belt or rope that you can use as a tourniquet?"
He does some rummaging about, but yeah, a drawstring from swim trunks will do. Okay, that's done. "How familiar are you with the lake?"
They are tourists, but they do know how to get back to the marina. "Okay, stay on the line with me, I'm going to place you on hold for a moment, but don't hang up."
First, I roll our EMT's and second, I call the hospital and have them roll their ambulance. We are actually in luck today, instead of the usual 15 minute response time, the ambulance is near the dam, so that will mean a 5 to 7 minute response time. Next, I call the yokel in our patrol car and tell the officer to meet the ambulance near the resort entrance and escort the ambulance to the marina. Then, I go back to the man on the phone. Good, not only is he there, he's approaching the entrance to the marina.
While all this is going on, I am furiously jotting down notes. Our set up is actually primitive, but we do have caller ID on the phone. So, time of the original call, calling the EMT's, the ambulance, the yokel in the patrol car. I also get the time that the boat reached the dock, the time of the ambulance arrival and time of the ambulance arrival at the marina. Finally, I get a time that the ambulance departed the marina from our EMT's.
I feel relieved as I start to write my report. About halfway through, the EMT's return to the office and fill me in on other details. As I finish writing the report, the phone rings-it's the General Manager of the resort. He saw the ambulance and I give him a report. "Why didn't you direct the man to the boat ramp? It would have been so much easier on the ambulance crew if you just directed the man to the boat ramp."
"Because the man was a tourist and only knew how to get to the rental dock" (the boat ramp is tucked in behind the marina and you only know how to access it if you are a local or a frequent visitor, whereas the rental dock is at the far end of the marina, closest to the lake entrance).
"Still, you could have saved time if you had had them meet at the boat ramp."
I hung up on the asshole. I knew my job was secure and I hate Monday morning quarterbacks.
2) One of the housekeeping maids, who only speaks Spanish, comes up to the window and tells me that the housekeeping manager is sick. I'm not fluent in Spanish, but I understand enough of what she says (" Por favor, ven rápido y ayuda. La simpática jefa está enferma y necesita ayuda"). Mark, our EMT on duty, is in the adjacent office and I let him know what's going on. He grabs his go bag and heads out. Luis, a yokel hanging out in the office starts to follow him, but I tell him to stay. I then called the hospital and had them dispatch an ambulance. I grab a two way radio, tell Luis to hold down the fort and I follow Mark (one of the EMT's called off today and I do have a first responder certification).
Mark is taking vitals as I walk into the office. I pull the notepad from my pocket and start taking notes (she is feeling pain in her upper abdomen area). Suddenly, the manager's head droops. Mark hurriedly undoes the buttons on her blouse (it's not the dramatic ripping off of buttons like you might see in a movie or TV show). As he gets to the last button, she's back and picks up right where she was at, then asks why her blouse is undone. Mark explains that she suddenly went out and he takes the 12 lead box out of the go bag. About the time that he gets the last of the leads connected, she is out again. Five seconds later she is back again and Mark raises the read out so that I can see. "I'll meet the ambulance when they get here" I tell Mark. I call the yokel in the patrol car (Howard) and asks if he can see the ambulance. "Nope" he says, "but I can hear it."
I head out of the office and go the loading dock entrance. I ask Howard for an update. "About halfway there" (it is a mile from the resort entrance to where I'm at). A few minutes later the ambulance pulls up on the dock. I tell the EMT's that we'll have to do a "scoop and go" as she has already "flatlined twice." They take out a stretcher, load an oxygen bottle and their go bag on the stretcher, then I lead them into the building and then into the housekeeping area.
About five minutes later, they are rolling the stretcher out of the building. "Think she'll make it?" I ask Mark. "She was my my first female heart attack victim" he replies, then he told me about a woman with multiple stab wounds who did a similar thing.
Note: The housekeeping manager was back on the job about five days later (probably against medical advice) and she had a butt load of drugs with her.
3. I came in on a Sunday afternoon to find two beer kegs in my office. I was told that a man had rented out a bungalow, gave his son the two beer kegs and said "Have fun!!" Naturally, teens + kegs = you get the idea. There was about 3,500.00 damage to the bungalow and once the damage was paid off, the kegs would be returned.
It was late in the day, probably about six, and I hear a knock at the door. I opened the door to find a man, about forty, accompanied by a teenage boy. The man forces the door open and I step back asa he enters the room, followed by the boy. My back is to our base unit, the phone and a two way radio. If I turn to grab any of them, I will be jumped. I stand my ground in the center of the office. The man angrily demands the return of the kegs and of course, I refuse.
I consider my options. The two yokels are out on patrol and there is no telling when they will return or call in. Larry is down the hall getting a cup of coffee and I don't know when he will return. Voices are raised and this, I hope, is my salvation as I hope Larry hears us and hastens his return.
The boy is motioning to the man to strike. I gather that the man is the father and the boy is his son. The motioning, I also gather, is the plan that the man will strike first and the son will join in. I've been in many fights in my life and I've won 99% of them, but in an enclosed area with multiple assailants is a bad situation. I would feel not only very confident, but assured of myself if this fight is outside, where I can move at will. Suddenly, the door flies open and it's Larry.
Larry is a dedicated bodybuilder with "Popeye forearms." The man takes one look at Larry and his jaw hits the floor. I take advantage of the moment to say: "Larry, say something nice to these fine gentlemen here." In his gruff, gravely voice, Larry says "How y'all doing?"
The man suddenly speaks in a mouse like voice and says "Yes officer. We'll have that money to you first thing in the morning." I reply "You bet you will." The man then shoves his suddenly confused son out of the door. When I know that they are out of earshot, I tell Larry, "I was sure that they were about to jump me." Larry replies "You could have taken them." I smile. Larry could not have chosen any better words at that moment.
4. The caretakers of the golf course maintain a burn pile about a quarter mile from the resort entrance. Most days, it just smolders, bit on this particular say there are flames licking 25 to 30 feet in the air. I hustle to the office as quickly as I can. As I enter I go directly to the key cabinet and announce "We got a major fire. We need to go NOW!!"
It is shift change. Ernie is in the office, as well as Nolan, one of the Sams and two yokels (Susan is on dispatch). Four of us hustle out to old Betsy (the two yokels run to the patrol unit). A minute later, we are flying up the main drive, lights and siren going. We pull up to the burn pile. Nolan and Sam go for the two booster reel hoses while I activate and rev up the pump via the pump panel. Ernie goes for an axe and I extend the hoses so that both men have flexibility moving around. It takes about five minutes to get the fire out.
About the time the fire is extinguished, Nolan throws a shit fit. "How did I not know about this?" he asks. The three of us stare at him in amazement. It's impossible to miss as you drive up to the resort. Ernie gets Nolan calmed down a few minutes later. We figure out that the caretakers dumped a bunch of brush on the burn pile, tossed some gasoline on the green brush and just walked away.
5. A tropical storm hit the Texas coast between Corpus Christi. It went north to Dallas, made a U turn, then headed back to the coast, stalling about a hundred miles north of the coast. Then it began to rain, and rain, and rain. The weather forecasters called it and warned that it would happen. I packed a bag with three days of clothes and took another bag with food and sodas before going to work.
All of the yokels and eight of Nolan's guys (as well as Nolan) came in. Most of the crew will be housed in the hotel tower. Myself and Ernie will be housed in a Tennis club across the street from our offices. A restaurant in the conference center made at least 200 box lunches for us and left the keys to the restaurant in the dispatch office. State Police left a handheld unit and charger on my desk, as I would be working and monitoring two frequencies during this emergency. Pam had recently been fired and Susan would not come to work (despite living five minutes away) because she had 25 cats to care for. I was grateful for her decision as I didn't relish being out in the rain 16 hours a day, for days on end.
An early 1950's GMC box truck had been pressed into service as a transport vehicle because it had high ground clearance. The lake was over it's banks and the dam had all of it's floodgates open. People being evacuated from their homes were being brought to the hotel tower with the truck. It was when things were at it's worst that it happened.
There was a red fire box in the office. Nolan had told me that at one time it had been connected to the tower, but had been disconnected years before. The fire box went off and the display panel on the box read "FIRE 16TH FLOOR TOWER."
I stared at the panel for about ten seconds, then decided to err on the side of caution as I jumped on the frequency and said "Attention all units. I have a fire warning on the 16th floor of the tower!!"
I called fire department dispatch and told the dispatcher what was going on. We were discussing the tower being filled with evacuees when one of the Sams said "I HAVE CONFIRMED FLAMES AND SMOKE COMING OUT OF THE TOWER!!"
There is an expression in law enforcement called "pucker factor." It is when your asshole closes up and does it so powerfully that it sucks up the seat beneath you. Myself and the fire department dispatcher had about five seconds of pucker factor (he heard Sam's announcement), then I said "Send me everything you have." He replied "You got it." We both hung up and I started my report. My heart was in my stomach as I visualized hundreds of people dying a truly horrible death.
About eight minutes later, Sam came on the radio, breathlessly, and said "I got the fire out!!"
Filled with disbelief and I asked him to repeat his statement. He replied "I pulled a hose from the stairwell and got the fire out." I called fire dispatch and gave him an update. He, incredulously asked "WHAT?!"
I told him what Sam had done. He said "I have twenty fire trucks headed your direction. Hang on." I heard some felgecarb in the background, then he came back on the phone and said "The fire chief is going up there with three trucks."
"Hey!! Knock yourself out. Talk to you later."
"Bye."
Someone had tossed a cigarette butt in a planter that had a faux palm tree. The tree and some faux grass would need to replaced as well as some wallpaper. The ceiling would also have to be replastered. No one was injured.