Ladders......

Just pictures. too tired to type. sorry. but enjoy~

I SURVIVED!!!!!!

Yes i survived hell week!! whoo hoo!!! and now my hands/fingers are swollen and painful, and i have these massive bruises on my elbows/arms and my shins are sooooo sore! From Tuesday to Thursday, all we did, alllllllll day long, was rotate between 4 stations: SCBA Daily Checks, Donning and Doffing from a Pumper (Engine), EBSS (Emergency Breathing Support System), and the Maze. Daily Checks is just what it is - the routine you go through on a daily basis to check out if your SCBA (cylinder, gauges, alarms, harness, etc) are in good working order. Donnning and Doffing from the Pumper is putting your gear on, jumping on the engine, getting the SCBA on, buckling the seatbelt, unbuckling seatbelt, jumping out of the engine, and finishing by turning on your cylinder, putting your helmet and gloves on and going on air. All under 3 mins. EBSS was one of the more physical ones. Basically, you have your black out mask in your face peice, you go on air,an instructor takes you to a charged hose line, and you have to crawl/find the downed firefighter (a classmate) who has their emergency alarm going off, connect with their EBSS, then drag them to safety, without ever letting go of the hose line. It's not that bad, actualy kind of fun.... especially if you're playing the downed FF, cuz all you do is lay there... youdo get a little beat up though, cuz you really cant be gentle to drag someone like that. especially if you have to drag them over the hose line, then it gets kind of tricky. I feel good about my ability to do this b/c my last "rescue" was this guy who is easily 220lbs WITHOUT his gear and SCBA on.... sooo in full gear that would mean he was roughly 280lbs. The Maze was where a lot of ppl had issues b/c it's completely dark and you're in really tight, confined space. you have your blackout mask on and are air the whole time. Your time limit is how much air you have in your cylinder. Come test day, if you run out of air while still in the maze, you fail. I've been pretty good so far. I mentioned before we had diminished capacity, where we had to take off our packs in the dark and slide it through without letting go. Well they added Entanglement. Basically, they set up a bunch of rope lines, and when you crawl through it, you have to do the swim technique where you back up, lie on your side, holding onto the hoseline, take your right hand, go from your right hip down to the hose line, up the hose line to meet your left and then "swim" with your right hand/arm, pushing off the wall simultaneously, and then repeat. This method is how we are to get out of a tangle situation. If we're "swimming" and feel like we're caught, we have to back up, find what we're stuck on,free ourselves, then keep on swimming. This is what got ppl a lot. it's hard to try to feel what ur stuck on when you yourself have important hoses (that feel just like rope) connecting you to your air. It is a lot of fun though. Theonly part of the maze that I dont particularly enjoy is the Attic. Once in the attic, you have to stay on the rafters but turn around b/c stairs are in the corner and the only way to go down stairs is backwards and on your stomach. I think it just hurts my stomach a lil. Anyhoo, sorry about no pictures.... next time i will try

"Hell Week"

Today marked the beginning of SCBA "Hell Week"... where we do tasks/exercises to "familiarize" ourselfs with our cylinders. We take them home and practice donning/doffing... with blackout masks... This morning Squad B (the last half of the class, and the one i'm in) did work performance wearing the cylinders, but not on air. Then we took a quiz and rotated between stations... Donning and Doffing, Refilling Cylinders, Daily Checks, and How to Clean your Equipment. After lunch is when we were put to work. First my group got to go to the exterior tower. On air, we had to take a piece of equipment (chain saw, hose, extinguisher, etc) up 5 flights of stairs, bring it back, walk around the tower, then pick up another piece of equipment and go back up. we did that 3 times then walked around alot until we all had no air left. Then we went to the other station called "chop til you drop"... yeah, it's as fun as it sounds. Split into two groups, first group took an ax to log for i think 30 secs, then the second group, then first group went again but for 1 min, etc etc Overall it really wasnt that bad.... my only "dislikes" = the amount of sweat i produce collects in the chin cup of my face peice and it's just nasty and my shoulders are really achy. Otherwise, it wasnt that bad. i mean, yes DURING the actual exercises, it was hard... but they gave us decent breaks to get water etc, and thats where you "re-energize" or whatever. tomorrow we do the maze with diminished capacity on air... meaning we're gonna have to take off the SCBA, still on air, push it through a hole, maintaining constant contact with it, slide ourselves through the hole, then put it back on... all in the dark. :-)

The End of EMT and Heart Walk

So to catch everyone up really quickly, I passed the state exam and recieved my official EMT card in the mail... so I can provide basic life support should you require it :-p

We just got our SCBAs Friday, and we took them home to get used to it and to practice donning and doffing w/ it... cuz we're gonna be doing that in a maze, blind-folded. That's gonna be ridiculous.

But what's even more ridiculous is this next week is "hell week" where we're gonna be doing exercises like "chop til you drop" and running up, down and around the exterior tower w/ tools until the last person in the class runs out of air. we're gonna be crawling around on our knees throught the academy and grounds blind and on air. I'm not gonna lie, i'm kind of nervous about it.. but i'll get through it.

The pictures above are from the Heart Walk. They let us borrow our class flag for the day, which i was honored to carry. I didnt want to give it back b/c who knows when we'll have earned it, you know? i tried to sneak it off the bus but on of my instructors was like, nice try ms. wicker....

ah well, soon enough i guess

I can do CPR just like thiiiiiiiiiiis...

So I've passed the first 3 EMT tests w/ flying colors. Now we have the Final exam monday and the state exam Friday...wish me luck! Then next saturday we have our EMT night ops where we run scenarios in full gear as if we were actually dispatched to an emergency. that'll be fun. and then we get the following monday off...sweet, huh?
The photos above are me and my partner doing AED scenarios and then i'm the patient for the KED (short spine board, in case you're ever in, like, an auto accident) :-)

EMT Testing and PT

Sorry it's been a while but I've been pretty busy trying to keep my head above water during this EMT portion of the academy. Last wednesday we had our first EMT test out of 3 i think. I honestly thought I failed because the way each question was worded was horrendous! But I did alright and got a 91. Now i just have to go back to studying hard core again b/c we have test #2 this upcoming wednesday. The state exam is Oct. 26... wish me luck!!!! Besides that, PT has been kind of kicking my butt. The schedule for it is A Squad does Running Mondays and Thursdays then Work Performance on Tuesdays and Fridays, while B Squad does the opposite. Work performance is a series of stations that simulate actual field duties, like the Keiser sled. Right now our Work Performance consists of doing the Keiser sled, then walking the 14ft roof ladder up and down, then running a 100feet of 1 3/4 in hose line (aka a high rise pack) up 3 flights of stairs and back. OH did I mention we're doing it all in full gear? and we have to do it 3 times in a row? yeah... it's kinda crazy difficult, but as long as you dont give up, everything is cool. but seriously, after each person finishes, they literally fall to the ground to try to catch their breath and rest. The running part isnt as bad, but that's coming from a pseudo-runner. The only thing i found to be a little difficult is to run and call cadence at the same time. Probably b/c im not used to that, but I think in time it'll get better/easier. This past Friday the instructors took us to "mt trashmore" which is by a dump hence it's name. Oddly enough it didnt smell that bad. But it's basically this hill, probably a 25-35% incline depending on where you are on it, and about a quarter of a mile long, if that. They then made us run up it at full speed, jog back down, turn sideways to run up it - turn around half way to do the other side, then jog back down, run up it backwards, jog back down, then up again facing front, and jog back to the academy. Yeah that was quite a workout. And of course, silly me had to go run the stairs in Gtown yesterday morning. My quads are talking to me right now and what they have to say isn't very nice.

Soreness I never knew before

This is the Kaiser Sled. It hurts. 8lbs sledgehammer, 165 lbs block you have to move from one end to the other... it's hard to write :-)

One Week Down.... 21 more to go...

*sorry no pictures this time* First week down. 21 more to go. Mark your calendars, though - February 15 is Graduation day! whoo!! Basically all we did this week was orientation lectures, learned about our PPE (Personal Protective Equipment, also known as Bunker gear/ensemble). We met a bunch of ppl in the fire department, including the Deputy Chief... I think the Fire Chief is coming to speak to us again next week, but not sure. The 124th is pretty darn good class if i do say so myself. I think we have a lot of strong ppl. There's already 4 medics and a handfull of ppl who are EMTs. And there's only a few ppl who I question and wonder why they want to do this job b/c certain factors make me go "Bwaaahh????" about them. But hey, we're a team so if they need help, i'm so there. Anyway, the other day we were practicing our cadences and the class now knows i'm really really really loud. While we all were marching around the academy grounds, we stopped to one guy could reiterate to everyone that we all need to be loud and say the cadence... and how eventually we'll be split into 2 squads and ppl from both squads are going to need to jump out and lead...."You need to be loud. Like Wicker. In fact i'm standing behind her cuz she hurt my ears" . He said that and everyone turned around and was like: OH it was YOU?! geez man, you're like, echoing out here. So how bout that! All these years I was told i'm really too loud and that my volume control button was broken... turns out, it's a good thing!!!

OH my!

So day one was basic orientation and who's who. We got our pictures taken (i saw them today, they STINK! i just want to know why my face always looks HUGE in those types of photos) and a lovely vaccination of Hep A. Today we reported to the actual academy instead of HQ. I really dont have much to say right now cuz i have to go study a lil and sleep. but i'm realy excited and motivated to give 200% to this. And I never really knew shining rubber converse shoes could be so.... um... how do i say this nicely....uh... oh - TIME CONSUMING

Gloves

My best friend, SeoHe, who went through the 122nd class, gave me the heads up on the things that I will need to know and be able to do the first few weeks of class, like know the core values and all the stations, as well as be able to do anything and everything with the FF gloves. These gloves are huge and bright blue. I remember her saying the instructors told them to wear them all day at home and keep them on to get used to them and their size. I decided to try that this morning and I'm happy to report that I can open a soda can (granted it took a lil while), send text messages, and watch t.v. successfully with the gloves. I was going to create this post wearing the gloves, but my laptop mouse pad thingy doesnt recognize the glove material so I took them off. Cop out? perhaps. BUT it's way easier to use the mouse pad than to do all that Control+Tab stuff or whatever :) The moral of this post: Go ME! haha

I GOT MY GEAR!

Got all my gear today before the last day at my job... The 122nd got their gear on Day 1... apparently FFX decided to change it b/c every time they would send everyone's equipment to the Massey Building, it was a cluster f**k... so to make things easier, they decided to just have the recruits pick it up and bring it with them. We also have to wear the uniform too... um, here's hoping I put it on right... haha!

Tuesday Before

So it's the Tuesday before I start class... interestingly it is 9/11.

I pass the pentagon on my way to work (in Arlington) everyday. It just so happens that 110 takes me right past the point of impact.

A flag hangs with blue lights for illumination.

As I drive by, I turn the radio off to show respect for the 343 and everyone whose life has never been the same since.