Life Through the Eyes of an Ambulance Driver

In January, I made my monthly trip to Salt Lake City to visit Wendy, my girlfriend. She is a huge fan of Sundance Film Festival. Its an OK event for me, but she is a huge fan. I went last year, and the movies are weird. There’s no Matrix or Transformers or Batman type movies, you know, good guy movies that I like. So, I wasn’t expecting it to be too great, but I went because I enjoy seeing her happy. She knows I’m not all that artsy about this stuff, so she did her best to pick movies I might like. I think she did a pretty great job.

The first movie we saw was called Taking Chance (IMDB). It stars Kevin Bacon and the movie is being put out by HBO. I have to say, I never thought I would have enjoyed a movie at Sun Dance as much as I liked this one. Straight up I’ll admit, I cried like a baby during this movie. It is really moving. It is about a US Marine Corps Lt. Colonel who volunteers for what is known as escort duty. This is something I was not aware of that happens. Escort Duty is where the remains of our fallen warriors are returned to the family in the US with a member of that branch of the service who is of equal or greater rank. The movie is based on the true story of Lt.Col. Michael Strobl who escorted the remains of LCpl Chance Phelps from Dover, DE to his home in Dubois, WY. Chance was killed in Iraq April 9, 2004, serving his country.

I can not do justice for the way the movie presents the care, dignity, and respect that is shown for the remains of America’s fallen warriors, as they are returned home. The person assigned escort duty stays with the remains throughout the journey until the fallen has been returned home.

After the movie was over, the director, Kevin Bacon, Lt.Col Strobl, and a few others involved with the making of the movie were on stage to answer questions from the audience. Lt.Col Strobl appeared to be a very humble man.

I don’t care if you are pro war, anti war, Republican, Democrat, independent, or what ever your view on the world is. If you are a citizen who enjoys the freedoms of living in the United States, you should really see this movie. It makes you proud to be a part of this country and grateful for the sacrifice that so many have given so you can have freedoms.

When I first realized what the movie was about, I had a sinking feeling in my gut that this was going to be someone’s tirade of how bad the war in Iraq is and that we shouldn’t be over there. Absolutely nothing about that viewpoint was made. This movie was completely apolitical. The director, Ross Katz, did an excellent job of making an unbiased movie that portrays the honor our troops receive after they have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

If you can’t see it on HBO, I’m sure it will be out on DVD some day, maybe even in theatres. Regardless, make an effort to see it.

When one falls, another brings him home

NBC, being a private company, can choose what they want to run for ads for their programming. Tonight is the Super Bowl, one of the most coveted times by advertisers to get their marketing out. A Pro Life group submitted an ad for the Super Bowl, but it was turned down by NBC because they:

didn’t want to run political or advocacy ads

Washington Times – NBC rejects pro-life ad using Obama

OK, fair enough, but if you read the article above, you will also find that PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, also submited an ad. PETA is an advocay group. They were told that their ad was too sexual, but that if certain edits were made, they would be allowed to run the ad. Talk about hypocracy. NBC and their liberal agenda have decided that they will pick and choose what media gets out, as long as it fits the message they want. This is fine, its their company, but they also need to be upfront about why they are picking what ads they want. I will not watch the Super Bowl on NBC this year.

Below is the Pro Life You Tube ad that was rejected:

From the AP News

Daschle recently filed amended tax returns to report $128,203 in back taxes and $11,964 in interest. The amended returns reflect additional income for consulting work, the use of a car service and reduced deductions for charitable contributions.

Daschle, chosen by President Obama to lead the administration’s health initiatives, is the second Cabinet nominee to scramble to pay back taxes. Timothy Geithner’s confirmation as treasury secretary was delayed after it was revealed that he had failed to pay more than $34,000 in taxes.
Obama’s first choice for commerce secretary, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, took his name out of consideration when his confirmation appeared headed toward complications because of a grand jury investigation over how state contracts were issued to political donors.

“President Obama wanted to have a very ethical administration starting out and so on, but I think he’s seeing how hard it is to avoid these kind of problems,” Kyl said. “And I just wonder, if President Bush had nominated these people, what folks would be saying about that.”

When somene is mad at you, you might want to say ‘Who licked the red off of your candy?’

If you have read the previous post I made about Guantanamo Bay, you’ll know how I feel about it being closed. I’m still against it, even though the Executive orders have been signed. Bill O’Reilly’s talking points tonight tell more about why I think it’s a bad idea. See below:

What is Habeas Corpus?

Well, if you were to believe the sensation of liberal media news, that’s what you would think. Last night there was a Continental Airlines airplane flight 1404 that skidded off the runway at Denver International Airport (DIA). No one was killed and all the injuries were minor. One trauma red from what I hear, the rest were yellows and greens.

It’s really hard to determine how bad the incident really was. The news media will do its best to sensationalize the whole thing. Its not as if the plane was careening down the runway doing cartwheels with body parts flying everywhere and flames shooting hundreds of feet in the air, but they want you to believe that so you’ll watch their news, up their ratings, and get more sponsors. Its all about money to these folks, not responsible news reporting.

Yes, the plane did skid off the runway, its not in millions of pieces, but its never going to fly again. Some photos from 9news.com. From what interviews with officials are saying, it seems that yes this was an emergency for sure. The passengers were evacuated with emergency procedures and the plane did catch fire. Kudos to Denver Fire Dept’s ARFF team. It sounds like they had a good working fire when they got on scene.

I was working that night and my company sent some ambulances to Denver for mutual aid. It was a Mass Casualty Incident (MCI). We tuned in to the mutual aid radio channel for Denver Paramedics to listen to the traffic. It sounds like they called in a few different agencies to help with transporting patients from DIA and for back-filling for their regular call volume. There was a bit of confusion at first in determining where patients were being transported, but that was corrected shortly. Denver Health hospital is the zone master for Denver. This means that when hospitals are on divert (the emergency room is full and not accepting patients because it is unusually busy) or during an MCI, the ambulance transporting calls to the zone master where they determine which hospital to transport to. This makes sure that one hospital isn’t overrun preventing best possible care for each patient needing care. During an MCI, hospitals are contacted by the zone master to determine how much of what they can handle. Having one person controlling patient destination helps keep everything more organized.

From listening to the radio, it sounded fairly well run. I can’t be for certain as I wasn’t there. I know I got excited when I heard on our radio that two of our ambulances were headed emergent to DIA. I immediately thought there must have been an airplane wreck. I was disappointed I didn’t get to go, but it sounds like I didn’t really miss much.

Well, hopefully  that is the quota for airplane catastrophies for DIA for a while.

My brother sent me a link this week relating to the insane deal that C.C. Sabathia got for signing with the New York Yankees. C.C. is a starting pitcher that went from Cleveland to Milwaukee last year and is now a free agent. He just signed with the Yankees in a record deal of 7 years and aproximately $160 million. It is rediculous how much people are getting paid to play a game. Anyway, the link he sent me lets you enter your anual salary and how long it takes for him to make your salary. At $21,000 a year that I make, he only has to throw 2 strikes, not even one out. I don’t understand how on Earth anyone could ever be worth that kind of money for a game. How about teachers, EMT’s, Police officers, military folk, or anyone who actually makes a difference in people’s lives and have some real value for what their efforts provide. Entertainment should not be that lucrative, but that is what our society has decided is important.

I just heard about this, but there’s a video of a bunch of nerds in their nerd guild playing World of Warcraft discussing their plan for the game when one of the players, Leeroy Jenkins, rushes in against their plan. I thought it was funny

Ever since I resigned from my job with Aurora Fire Rescue, I’ve been trying to get back on to a fire department. My latest endeavor is West Metro Fire Rescue. 

Starting earlier this year they opened up their applications for entry level firefighter. I tried to get on with this department when I first moved out to Colorado, but never got anywhere with it. They have the most difficult physical test of all the departments I’ve tested with. Their test isn’t difficult in the elements that you have to do, but your score is weighted based on your time. This means you have to go as hard as you can to get as low of a time as possible to get a better score. I got a 90% on the test, which is much better than the last time I did it.  I was really happy with that score. Last time I did it I barely passed somewhere in the low 70′s.  This time I had really trained hard to try to get a good score. The written test, I scored a 79. Not as good as I had hoped because I thought I knew almost all of the questions that I answered. Careless mistakes is all I can figure. The oral boards I had never done with this department. When I finished the oral board, I felt really good. I never feel good coming out of my oral boards.

This week I got my score for the oral boards and I scored somewhere in the low 70′s. This puts me #75 on the hiring list. I’m sad that this is my ranking. I want to leave my current job and get on with a fire department really bad. West Metro is a great department, and I would love to work for them. The hiring list is good for 2 years. Normally, I would think OK, I have a chance. But with the economy in the tank like it is now I don’t really think I have a good chance of getting hired. I don’t know how much hiring is going to go on if departmetns are not hiring to expand, but just to replace retirees.

I think what disapoints me the most is that once again, my life is still going to be on hold. Driving an ambulance, I don’t get paid much of anything. Basically all I can afford to pay for is food, rent, gas, and my car payment. There’s really not much I can do with my life. I rent a room in a house from a friend of mine. I really want my own home so I can have a dog and do what I want with my house. I have nothing to show for what I’ve done so far. I’m 32 years old and still living like a college student. Its very depressing to think that this is the best I can do when I know I’m capable of much more. My girlfriend lives in Salt Lake. She enjoys where she is living and I enjoy where I am living. She has more to keep her in Salt Lake than I have keeping me in Denver. She enjoys her job and I am sick of mine. If I can’t ever have a fire department job here, then there is nothing that can really hold me here. Getting a fire job for me is more than just getting a job, its about being able to start living my life the way I want to.