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drewkittyGWOT V - A State Of Desperation - Hospital Fire Department
After our visit to the chemotherapy ward, I was in no mood to go digging for dirt.
The staff had been uniformly cheerful and scrupulously honest. Access to medications was improving now that California had her own pharmaceutical industry.
I had only been shocked by three things.
So many patients. Even more than I would have credited to the thermonuclear devastation of San Francisco.
The frank use of drugs of abuse. In California, a green cross meant marijuana and there were three grades of product: medicinal (best), for sale and free. Every floor of the Cancer Center had its own dispensary, separate from the pharmacy, and the hospital gardens included a nursery that sold exotic strains and gave away starter kits.
The cafeteria. "It is respectfully requested that only patients make special food requests." Californian for what a German would say Verboten. For those patients, however, executive chefs on duty to make nearly any meal. To tempt ill people to eat a bite or two. Alert aides and janitors to keep the area scrupulously clean. Even a special "no scents" seating area.
I noticed that the food labels were electronic and listed potential allergens. It looked like they had been repurposed from a pre War electronics retailer.
I saw a passing red gold cart marked "NMC FD." It was driven by an older woman in a blue uniform with a cane.
She parked in the red zone and got out a tablet. Then she saw us.
With a start I saw that she wore the collar emblems of three cross bugles. Fire Chief.
The only other adornment was a gold pin that looked like half of a rocky dome.
"Good morning," we greeted each other in near unison, laughed and started chatting.
###
I'm a Battalion Chief in the Northern Medical City Fire Department. As the Medical Cities are all county hospitals, I am technically a county employee. However I transferred over from State Fire after I blew out the leg.
Any hospital has special fire safety concerns. Alarm One monitors all the hospital systems in parallel with Engineering Control. We have seven hospital fire stations and staff at any time between forty five and seventy firefighters. There are four BCs and a Division Chief on duty at all times. We don't do EMS calls, although everyone is trained in first aid and some are EMTs. Each building has their own code teams and the hospital has its own ambulance service.
Give me a few minutes to finish this building check and I'll give you a station tour.
###
The station was surrounded by razor mesh fencing with small signs.
"State Prison Grounds - No Firearms"
Was this the right building?
"NMC Fire Station 6"
With the same prison wording well below, as if awkward about being on the same sign.
My guard paused.
A man in orange coveralls stuck his head out the door as we approached.
"One minute please," he called cheerfully and disappeared.
A young man came running out a few moments later, wearing a NMC FIRE blue shirt and pants.
He led us to an almost unmarked side door. It said only the mysterious words "Out Of Bounds"
Within was a comfortably cluttered office with a set of dusty lockers on the wall.
My bodyguard, as if he had done it all his life, cleared and unloaded his handgun and locked it up.
"614 radioed ahead. Water? Coffee? Donut? Restroom?"
Amenities exhausted, he badged us though a door with a card reader on both sides. Out Of Bounds / State Prison Grounds.
There were five pieces of gleaming complex fire equipment, none of which would have looked out of place in the London Fire Brigade.
"Truck 631. Engine 621, Engine 622. Decon 670. Support 691."
The first truck was a monstrosity that barely fit in the length of the station bay. I could see where the office space of the former warehouse had been reduced to fit. Floor markings indicated where it was to park.
"We can ladder to seven stories and flow over one thousand gallons per minute," he started and stopped himself as 614 briskly hobbled in.
"Shirt," she stage whispered, and he ran back for the Out Of Bounds area.
"Sorry, we don't get many visitors." Her expert eye considered my guard carefully and I could sense her slight relief at noting his lack of firearm.
"Alarm One, 614. Give me a tac for drill."
"Tac Six," the radio chirped. "Do you want tones?"
"Affirm."
She looked us over. "Just stay by me."
The eager young man had just run up wearing his uniform shirt with badge when loud angry tones flooded the building and a horn hooted.
"Station Six. Staff your equipment. Tac Six. Drill." Only the last word was spoken in a normal tone, a different voice.
Men and women wearing orange pants and bright orange T shirts labeled "NMC FIRE" were already running to the racks of firefighting clothing. Putting on turnout coats with practiced speed and carrying bags to their positions on the vehicles.
The doors slammed open, straight up, with stunning speed I'd never seen before. The vehicles rolled forward, power and air lines flying out of the way, even before their engines started. Hybrid electric?
We followed 614 to her golf cart when the station bay was empty. It had taken less than a minute.
We passed various hospital buildings and reached what from the air had looked like a construction site.
It wasn't. It was a half destroyed high-rise building. One that had had a gaping hole blown out of the side. Missile or aerial bomb.
"It wasn't economic to repair so we made it a training tower." She picked up her radio microphone, fiddled with a setting. "Wash the windows, north side."
The truck pulled around, parked, lowered its supports. The engines parked behind, extending large diameter fire hoses to each other, to the truck and to a hydrant. One firefighter from each crew ran to a nearby shed and came back with a bucket of squeegees and wiping blades each. Oddly, there were attached to short pieces of rope and clips.
The fire nozzle at the top of the ladder started spraying the windows. Crews carried equipment up the exposed stairwell. Rigged up lines and harnesses. Rappelled down the north side of the building.
They weren't doing anything a window washing crew didn't do every day. But they were doing it quickly and with precision and had been given literally no warning.
Even I could see it was an excellent drill for high rise firefighting.
"Secure from the drill," the Battalion Chief ordered crisply. Ladder lowered, supports withdrawn, even the buckets returned to their little shed.
Fifteen minutes later we were back in the station again and the firefighters were putting their gear away and doing post call vehicle checks.
"What is the ratio of prisoners to fire personnel?" I asked.
Her face froze.
"All of these folks, including drivers and operators and limited duty captains, are technically prisoners. I am not; Captain Lewis is a paroled trainee under my supervision. He chose the fire service as his work release option and beat out eleven other candidates for the honor.
"Every single one of us are fire personnel."
And that was the end of our visit. We were walked to the Out Of Bounds, my guard retrieved his handgun, and the door closed behind us.
"Um, boss," my camera operator said hesitantly. "Maybe stop asking about prisoners like that? It's a real sore spot for them. She looked pissed and everyone else looked ... embarrassed."
My guard spoke up.
"Embarrassed for us. People don't work that hard, or with that much skill and pride, because they are on a chain gang or something. If even the drivers are all prisoners, they must be very trusted. I don't think that razor wire is to keep them in. With all that gear and skill they would go through it in seconds if they wanted. I think it's to keep ordinary people _out_."
"I wonder what they did," I mused.
"Unless we get smarter about how we ask, we won't find out," he added.
And that was my job.
It was a long walk in the hot sun to the next building over.
Hospice. Number Four.
After our visit to the chemotherapy ward, I was in no mood to go digging for dirt.
The staff had been uniformly cheerful and scrupulously honest. Access to medications was improving now that California had her own pharmaceutical industry.
I had only been shocked by three things.
So many patients. Even more than I would have credited to the thermonuclear devastation of San Francisco.
The frank use of drugs of abuse. In California, a green cross meant marijuana and there were three grades of product: medicinal (best), for sale and free. Every floor of the Cancer Center had its own dispensary, separate from the pharmacy, and the hospital gardens included a nursery that sold exotic strains and gave away starter kits.
The cafeteria. "It is respectfully requested that only patients make special food requests." Californian for what a German would say Verboten. For those patients, however, executive chefs on duty to make nearly any meal. To tempt ill people to eat a bite or two. Alert aides and janitors to keep the area scrupulously clean. Even a special "no scents" seating area.
I noticed that the food labels were electronic and listed potential allergens. It looked like they had been repurposed from a pre War electronics retailer.
I saw a passing red gold cart marked "NMC FD." It was driven by an older woman in a blue uniform with a cane.
She parked in the red zone and got out a tablet. Then she saw us.
With a start I saw that she wore the collar emblems of three cross bugles. Fire Chief.
The only other adornment was a gold pin that looked like half of a rocky dome.
"Good morning," we greeted each other in near unison, laughed and started chatting.
###
I'm a Battalion Chief in the Northern Medical City Fire Department. As the Medical Cities are all county hospitals, I am technically a county employee. However I transferred over from State Fire after I blew out the leg.
Any hospital has special fire safety concerns. Alarm One monitors all the hospital systems in parallel with Engineering Control. We have seven hospital fire stations and staff at any time between forty five and seventy firefighters. There are four BCs and a Division Chief on duty at all times. We don't do EMS calls, although everyone is trained in first aid and some are EMTs. Each building has their own code teams and the hospital has its own ambulance service.
Give me a few minutes to finish this building check and I'll give you a station tour.
###
The station was surrounded by razor mesh fencing with small signs.
"State Prison Grounds - No Firearms"
Was this the right building?
"NMC Fire Station 6"
With the same prison wording well below, as if awkward about being on the same sign.
My guard paused.
A man in orange coveralls stuck his head out the door as we approached.
"One minute please," he called cheerfully and disappeared.
A young man came running out a few moments later, wearing a NMC FIRE blue shirt and pants.
He led us to an almost unmarked side door. It said only the mysterious words "Out Of Bounds"
Within was a comfortably cluttered office with a set of dusty lockers on the wall.
My bodyguard, as if he had done it all his life, cleared and unloaded his handgun and locked it up.
"614 radioed ahead. Water? Coffee? Donut? Restroom?"
Amenities exhausted, he badged us though a door with a card reader on both sides. Out Of Bounds / State Prison Grounds.
There were five pieces of gleaming complex fire equipment, none of which would have looked out of place in the London Fire Brigade.
"Truck 631. Engine 621, Engine 622. Decon 670. Support 691."
The first truck was a monstrosity that barely fit in the length of the station bay. I could see where the office space of the former warehouse had been reduced to fit. Floor markings indicated where it was to park.
"We can ladder to seven stories and flow over one thousand gallons per minute," he started and stopped himself as 614 briskly hobbled in.
"Shirt," she stage whispered, and he ran back for the Out Of Bounds area.
"Sorry, we don't get many visitors." Her expert eye considered my guard carefully and I could sense her slight relief at noting his lack of firearm.
"Alarm One, 614. Give me a tac for drill."
"Tac Six," the radio chirped. "Do you want tones?"
"Affirm."
She looked us over. "Just stay by me."
The eager young man had just run up wearing his uniform shirt with badge when loud angry tones flooded the building and a horn hooted.
"Station Six. Staff your equipment. Tac Six. Drill." Only the last word was spoken in a normal tone, a different voice.
Men and women wearing orange pants and bright orange T shirts labeled "NMC FIRE" were already running to the racks of firefighting clothing. Putting on turnout coats with practiced speed and carrying bags to their positions on the vehicles.
The doors slammed open, straight up, with stunning speed I'd never seen before. The vehicles rolled forward, power and air lines flying out of the way, even before their engines started. Hybrid electric?
We followed 614 to her golf cart when the station bay was empty. It had taken less than a minute.
We passed various hospital buildings and reached what from the air had looked like a construction site.
It wasn't. It was a half destroyed high-rise building. One that had had a gaping hole blown out of the side. Missile or aerial bomb.
"It wasn't economic to repair so we made it a training tower." She picked up her radio microphone, fiddled with a setting. "Wash the windows, north side."
The truck pulled around, parked, lowered its supports. The engines parked behind, extending large diameter fire hoses to each other, to the truck and to a hydrant. One firefighter from each crew ran to a nearby shed and came back with a bucket of squeegees and wiping blades each. Oddly, there were attached to short pieces of rope and clips.
The fire nozzle at the top of the ladder started spraying the windows. Crews carried equipment up the exposed stairwell. Rigged up lines and harnesses. Rappelled down the north side of the building.
They weren't doing anything a window washing crew didn't do every day. But they were doing it quickly and with precision and had been given literally no warning.
Even I could see it was an excellent drill for high rise firefighting.
"Secure from the drill," the Battalion Chief ordered crisply. Ladder lowered, supports withdrawn, even the buckets returned to their little shed.
Fifteen minutes later we were back in the station again and the firefighters were putting their gear away and doing post call vehicle checks.
"What is the ratio of prisoners to fire personnel?" I asked.
Her face froze.
"All of these folks, including drivers and operators and limited duty captains, are technically prisoners. I am not; Captain Lewis is a paroled trainee under my supervision. He chose the fire service as his work release option and beat out eleven other candidates for the honor.
"Every single one of us are fire personnel."
And that was the end of our visit. We were walked to the Out Of Bounds, my guard retrieved his handgun, and the door closed behind us.
"Um, boss," my camera operator said hesitantly. "Maybe stop asking about prisoners like that? It's a real sore spot for them. She looked pissed and everyone else looked ... embarrassed."
My guard spoke up.
"Embarrassed for us. People don't work that hard, or with that much skill and pride, because they are on a chain gang or something. If even the drivers are all prisoners, they must be very trusted. I don't think that razor wire is to keep them in. With all that gear and skill they would go through it in seconds if they wanted. I think it's to keep ordinary people _out_."
"I wonder what they did," I mused.
"Unless we get smarter about how we ask, we won't find out," he added.
And that was my job.
It was a long walk in the hot sun to the next building over.
Hospice. Number Four.
