Ditch Doc

Well I started this post a year ago and haven’t finished, but it’s becoming questionable what my relationship to ditches will be in the next few years, so here are the top nine:

10. Subsidized housing
9. Tons of spare time to study
8. Lime vest
7. Free coffee at FasGas
6. Driving with flashy lights and siren
5. Getting paid to take flights that would cost a photographer a fortune
4. George and Lucy think of me as Eugene, the medic from Band of Brothers.
3. Seeing all the newborn babies at the hospital
2. Children wave at me in the street.
1. 

1. Fuelled up on the way to a call.

2. Stopped in the middle of a Code 3 run to wipe the mud off the headlights.

3. Burnt out the siren.

4. Packed food to eat on the way to a call.

5. Pulled over for a pee break on the way to a major motor vehicle accident.

Midnight dispatches are of two sorts: there’s the drunk-taxi/minor assault sort and the nightmare critical sort. The other night belonged to the second category.

Dispatch: “Hi 858, you’re going five minutes north on the highway, by the buffalo farm, for an MVA, semi vs. pickup head-on, both vehicles on fire and one of the drivers missing.”

We came around the long curve a mile or two before the farm, and saw a solid orange glow glittering with red and blue. The vehicles were on their sides on opposite sides of the road, completely engulfed in flames. A ring of burning grass was spreading from the semi to the trees. Flashlight beams shot back and forth in the ditches. It was one of those scenes where every cop, paramedic and fire-fighter has a look of awestruck urgency. We loaded our patient and were about to head to hospital when a member of our backup crew opened my door to ask if I needed help. “No, thanks. I think they’re just trying to find the other driver, maybe you could…” “The other driver’s been found.” Her voice was quiet, and I glanced up to see the first unhurried face of the night.

So the plywood plant caught fire again last night. It’s kind of an accepted industry standard that an OSB mill will catch fire several times a year. This time it was the storeys-high pile of sawdust out back, which is permanently on fire and flares up every spring. Everyone came to the party: the entire fire department, a helicopter, a track-hoe and even a bunch of forestry fire fighters with nothing else to put out. I wonder what it’s like to be the city fire-fighter in full bunker gear hosing down the same blaze as a twenty year old forestry kid in a hard hat and wool sweater.

On fighting fires in Australia:

“No, I didn’t go. The guys who went were telling stories about crazy-ass spiders and crocodiles in pump sites and shit. I’ll take mosquitoes and black-bears any day.”

Oh, and then the one about the guy who tried to bear-spray his friend, but was so drunk that he pointed it backwards and sprayed himself. He was hysterical with pain, and told us:

“You guys have no f$!%in idea how much this hurts!”

Cop: “Yes I do.”

“F%!#in @$*!~! of a %&*^~! Can’t you $%#@ do anything?”

Ditch: “Do you have any Pepto Bismol you can wash your face with?”

Cop: “Or Pepsi?”

And then there was the one about the guy who was planning to shoot his wife, but was so drunk that he forgot to brace the shotgun against his shoulder, missed at point blank range, blew up the TV and broke his collarbone. You sure look tough now, buddy.

I always knew that lying on a spine board for a two and a half hour drive to town would be uncomfortable, but I never thought I’d hear this one:

“Please let me up! C’mon, man! I’d rather sit up for five minutes than ever walk again!”

My new unit chief told us this little gem: Once, he needed to switch ambulances mid-shift in Vancouver. He parked the old one behind St. Paul’s hospital, hid the keys, and went on his way. The next morning, the crew that would normally have picked up the same car found it missing from the station, and not believing the ridiculous story about it being parked behind St. Paul’s, reported it stolen. The man who started the whole thing happened to drive past the hospital, and wondered why most of the VPD had descended on the block. Getting out to ask, he discovered that an ambulance had been stolen, found, and deemed a bomb threat. Why park an ambulance behind a hospital if not to blow it up? The bomb squad was on the point of blowing the car up preemptively when he strode in and defused the situation. The moral of the story: be careful where you park on the evening of September 10.

Once upon a time, in the fair and sunny kingdom of Golden, British Columbia, there was a reporter. In all the kingdom, no other reporter rode to war so galantly, nor yet so speedily. Yea, neither could the very Mounted Police in their fiery chariots outstrip the worthy knight. Returning to his castle, he wrote much slander of the honest Police, and drew their wrath. Then did the wily constables raise a false hue and cry,  and the reporter, with his charmed scanner to his ear, did attend, and did saddle his fleetfoot steed. But great was his dismay when he reached the Pass of No Escape, for then did the Mounted Police, close hid in the bushes and armed with mighty radar, ride out behind with blue and red livery abroad, and throw the book at his head.