Riding with Rescue 4

Friday, November 11, 2006

I cannot believe it – I am actually going to start filming the documentary I’ve been talking about for a year. I’m excited, a little nervous – slightly scared, but I know that I’m in the best hands I could possibly be in. Lt. Zach Kenyon and FF Kevin Burns are good friends and I have known them for quite a while. I know that they will keep me safe. My bigger concern is keeping myself out of their way.

On my way to Washington Street, my cell phone rings – it’s my Aunt Jean. She is worried about me, tells me to be safe and that she’ll be listening on her scanner. I have to smile – she’s good to me. I assure her that I’m in good hands and that the guys will make sure I’m safe.

It’s seven o’clock on a Friday night – unseasonably warm weather makes me a bit uneasy about what we might encounter. People get crazy when the weather should be cold, but it feels like Spring. I grab all of my equipment and go into the station. Zach and Kevin are on a call. I sit and talk with some of the other firefighters while I wait for them to get back. I hear Zach on the Voc Alarm at around seven-thirty.

“Rescue Four to Fire Alarm,” Zach says.

“Go ahead Rescue Four,” the dispatcher responds.

“I need you to put us out of service temporarily so I can return to quarters and pick up our ride along.”

“Rescue Four, temporarily out of service and returning to quarters, nineteen-thirty.”

A short time later, Zach and Kevin arrive and greet me. Zach goes over some rules with me to keep us all safe and shows me to an empty dorm room where I can crash – if I get the chance, that is. Before eight o’clock arrives, the bell tips and we’re on our way.

In twelve hours, Rescue Four answered fourteen calls – I only missed a few. (I did miss the truck once when the bell tipped – but that was because I never heard the page on the Voc Alarm! I was the first on the truck for every call after that.)

We had some interesting events happen – a man with chest pains on the East Side of the city, a girl with a burned arm at the Hartford Projects, a drunken man with a bloody nose on Broad Street, a fussy baby having trouble breathing in South Providence, a guy who got hit in the head outside a nightclub Downtown, an elderly woman with emphysema who still smokes five packs a day while on oxygen, an elderly Asian man in the Armory District with some sort of illness (that was at ten minutes to six in the morning, seventy minutes before the end of the shift). There were a couple of nonsensical calls, but most were fairly valid. Of course, the false alarm for a motor vehicle accident on 195 East at three-thirty in the morning was maddening. We had even seen Life-Flight bringing in a victim of a motor vehicle accident to Rhode Island Hospital Trauma Unit. I thought that was going to be an awesome piece of footage.

At that particular point in time, my family and I had just gone through an absolutely horrific scare with my Dad. He had a tumor in his left lung, right by his aorta. He underwent a new procedure called Tumor Ablation at Rhode Island Hospital to kill off the tumor. After the procedure, his lung had collapsed and he was hospitalized for two weeks. He had just gotten out of the hospital two days before this ride along happened. The woman that we picked up – the one who had emphysema and still smoked like a fiend – that one really got to me. I had to stop filming her and turn away from everyone. Tears rolled silently down my cheeks. I told Kevin I had to stop filming when he asked if I was okay. It just really bothered me. My father had quit smoking ten or eleven years ago and never smoked while he was on oxygen. I couldn’t believe that this woman was so willing to put a high-rise full of people, including her own son, at such risk. A cannula in her nose, pumping three liters of oxygen into her lungs and she’s lighting up. Amazing. I know it’s hard to quit – I’m an idiot myself and still smoking – but for the love of God… anyway…

It was an incredible learning experience – these two are an awesome team. I learned so much from them that night. Running Rescue means that you have to play doctor, nurse, mommy, daddy, psychologist and cop – it is a very delicate balance. I noticed something, too – the calls for babies really bother them. They show concern in every situation, but the babies really worry them. Once they ascertain that the child is okay and safe, they’re fine, but it does get to them. Fascinating, to say the least – and an interesting study in human behavior on all fronts, not just the firefighters, but the people, as well.

Sometime around four in the morning, we were called to South Providence to pick up a twenty-four year old female complaining of chest pains. When we arrived, she told Zach that she didn’t think she really needed to go to the hospital. This was when I witnessed Zach’s incredible talent for hiding what he was really thinking. Being that I know him, I could hear the aggravation in the tone of his voice, but the girl had no idea.

“Well, since it’s four in the morning and you thought it was important enough to call us, maybe we should at least take you to be checked out,” Zach said. I had to choke back a laugh and Kevin just smiled and rolled his eyes at me. She agreed and Zach called out to Kevin from the rear of the rig. “All right, Kevin, let’s hit the road.” Kevin shook his head and off we went to the hospital.

We arrived a short time later at the Emergency Room at RIH. Kevin and Zach delivered the girl and got her signed in with the triage nurse. Zach stayed inside to finish the process and Kevin came back out to me.

“That woman that they brought in on the Life-Flight? That was a car accident up in Fall River. Her husband’s here too. It’s his birthday and I guess they were going out to celebrate. She got ejected from the car. She died shortly after they got her here. Hell of a happy birthday, huh?” I could see that Kevin felt for them, but I could also see that he has trained himself to not let it bother him too much. I, on the other hand, did not take it so well. I had no idea why, but I walked off to a corner where no one could see me and I cried for this couple. I didn’t know them – my only connection to them was that I had filmed the helicopter bringing her in to be treated. I just couldn’t help crying – I felt terrible. That was when I had decided to not use that footage – she was actually dead when the brought her in. Clinically dead, but dead nonetheless. I just couldn’t bring myself to use the footage.

I got about fifteen minutes of dozing time – no sleep at all, really. The bell tipped and we went rushing out to the Armory District call. When we arrived, Engine Eight was already there. My friend, FF Bobby Alvarez, was working a call back with C-Group. He sleepily smiled and waved to me… all of us looked like zombies. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon. It was a little chilly by then, but still unseasonably warm. As I looked at all of the guys, I felt for them. I was beginning to understand the exhaustion that they felt and I gained an entirely new level of respect for them there on that street, waiting for them to get the elderly man and his daughter to the rig. I got into the front seat and turned my camera to the back of the rig as they put the old man in and his daughter sat on the bench. She had to translate for him, because all he spoke was his native language. I’m still not sure whether it was Chinese or Korean, but I’d at least narrowed it down to one of the two. I waved goodbye to the Engine Eight boys as they got back on their truck and went back to Messer Street.

As we drove to Rhode Island Hospital with the elderly Asian man at ten to six in the morning, the sun was rising higher over Providence. The sky was turning from black to navy blue to powder blue to amber… beautiful, really, even with no sleep. I don’t see that transition very much. Anyway, Kevin Burns summed it all up for me in one phrase…

“Well, there it is,” he said to me, pointing at the rising sun, “every rescue man’s worst nightmare, sunrise.”

“Why is that?” I asked this as I turned the camera to get his answer on film.

“Because it means another night with no sleep,” he tiredly replied. As I turned the camera back toward the sunrise, I kept my eyes on Kevin. He was exhausted, his face drawn, his eyelids fighting to stay open.

I don’t know how they do it – it’s amazing to me. I begin to wonder what riding the Engines will be like. I won’t find out for another few months because the holidays are coming up.

These guys are absolutely awe-inspiring to me. I’m drawn to their amazing ability to stay awake and not go ballistic on people who call at four in the morning and say they are sick, only to have us arrive and they decide they don’t need to go to the hospital. I can’t fathom doing that four days week for years on end. Just think – I missed the shooting victim they picked up a few days before I rode with them. If they hadn’t arrived when they did, the guy would be dead now. Zach and Kevin saved him. Unbelievable.