First Day of cycle for A Shift

Hello all you blog readers out there....greetings from the GREEN HOUSE. It's been a good day here at #3 today. Nothing too out of the norm. Our fearless leader Capt. Firebaugh is riding Battalion 2 today so the chance of something crazy happening is a good possibility. He always says everytime he rides the car theres a big fire or something strange happens...we can only hope...lol. We did, however, celebrate his birthday today. We had a big meal and his wife came by with some cake and icecream. The cake had his alltime favorite fire truck on it....E-3...the old Combination Utility pumper Non-arial Truck. Man, what a pretty cake.
After a bit of "editing" by our very own F.F. Medic Drew Abel, the Cap liked it ever more.....

Note the absence of the 55 foot "FIRE STICK".....it looks like an actual engine now...lol.

We also had some special guests stop by for cake and ice cream but wish to remain anonymous for reasons only they and we know...lol

The Station 3 Challenge coins are finally in. They turned out pretty good I think. We did the coin in the "shiney nickel" finish and it features our mascot The Hulk on the back. The Raonoke Fire EMS logo is on the front. We decided to put 2nd Battalion on the back as well since the original 3 was on the south side of the city. I'm selling them for $10 so if interested give me a call.

Call wise, we've ran a run of the mill fire alarm, M.V.A. and an E.M.S. call in the county. nothing to interesting to write about.

If you see Drew around anytime soon....ask him about his bio-retention pond adventure.

Well...thats about it for us here. I'll udate the post if anything exciting happens tonight. Stay safe out there and have a quiet night.

Broadway

National EMS Memorial

For those of you who are unaware there is a National EMS Memorial Service held here in Roanoke every year to honor all the EMS LODD's of the past year. Along with the service there is an impressive Memorial Bike Ride that starts in Terrytown, NY(just north of NYC) as well as Painstville, KY both ending here in Roanoke. We received a call from Batt. 2 requesting our presence in the last leg of the ride from County Station #5 Hollins to Hotel Roanoke. There were a bunch of emergency vehicles in the procession. It was nice to see all the participants in the ride, they came from all over the country to our little part of the world to honor a brother/sister who passed. Here's some shots taken of the event. For more info on the service and the ride go here - http://muddyangels.org/ or here - http://nemsms.org/. This will be the last year the service will be held in Roanoke, it's being moved to Colorado Springs, CO due to the closing of the Rescue Museum. This years memorial service will be held at First Baptist Church downtown at 6:00 tonight(Saturday).
Besides that, not much more to report on from the Green House. Your friends on "C" shift are done with "hell" week and are goin on a Memorial Day 4-day!

RW

Miles away from ordinary

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Greeting from the Green House. It's been awhile since my last post and I apologize to all two of our readers ( sorry Mom). We've been pretty busy here lately with several house projects and ARRF training. For all those who don't know, Scott Bailey is finally back from his light doody...I mean duty tour. I know he's glad to be back and I speak from experience, spending a whopping six months on it a couple years back after breaking my ankle. Welcome back Scott!! Now our leftovers have a purpose once more.

Last day we worked, we have a structure fire in the county. The call came out at around 8:45 p.m. which didn't make Capt. Firebaugh all to happy since his favorite show "Deadliest Catch" was about to come on. Upon arrival to the Brookside North townhouse Complex, we had a fully involved structure.....

What you are looking at is a street light with a bird nest fully ablaze...lol. The clever little critter decided to build his home inside the fixture, which indeed protected him from the elements, but putting dried twigs next to a hot light bulb has disastrous effects. After quickly knocking down the flames, we called the Red Cross for a family of displaced birds. A.E.P. came soon after and performed some overhaul for us....thank God or bucket trucks.


Here at #3, being on a major cruise strip in the city, we've found it being nice sitting outside on weekend nights. Some have compared it to being at the beach....the heavy traffic, bright lights and the smell of fresh fried fish(thanks to Long John silvers being right beside us) so sitting outside is nice...just ask the guys from Medic 2. We had one problem...no where to sit. Luckily, the Fast Cash Loan shop beside us (formerly a Ralley's buger joint) donated an old fiberglass picnic table. After a bit of sanding, painting and reinforcing, the table looks good as new and looks awesome on our patio.Love that green color!!!

Another project we are working on is an assignment board. We are trying are best to "Firehouse" up this place and we thought it would be a pretty cool and traditional thing to have. I know Station 1 has one and #7 is working on one as well. We'll post some pics of that as well when we are finished.

That's about it for now. It's been a pretty easy day here so far. Did a little ARRF training this morning and ran a couple alarms. M-3 has done the normal too. And a final note....for all those of you who are collecting Station Challenge Coins, 3's is being minted as I type this. I think it's gonna be pretty cool. It has the same Department logo on the front and our Station logo in a maltese cross on the back. We will be selling them for $10. Plus we have Station decals for $3. Hit me up if you are interested. I hope you all have a good night, stay safe and keep it in the house.

Broadway

Don't drink and drive....

First, we apologize for the lack of posts last cycle, luckily for the citizens we were somewhat slow. Though while being a little slow we made up for it in training. We were able to train with the boys from the "pebble" doing a little pump training. We even let them pump our "aerial", if that's what you want to call it....Now back to today, there was a lesson to be learned - Don't drink and drive(or ride your bicycle). While the engine was sitting idle, the medic truck was out picking up Roanoke's finest. This afternoon we ran with E13 to Cove for a MVC, we arrived to find a small convertable carefully placed up the a$$ of a 4-door sedan.....whooops! No skid marks at all, guess when you blow a .23 things like that sorta happen. One down, cuffed and stuffed. Next one brought us down to BWW for someone who got a little mace in the face.....poor guy was just trying to do some illegal activites when mall security gave him matching black eyes.....yeah you heard that right....MALL SECURITY! Two down, cuffed and soon to be stuffed. Around 10:00pm the medic truck went out again for a possible bike vs. vehicle. Come to find out the poor guy was so innocently riding down the road when he fell off his bike......alcohol may have had something to do with it, but everyones "sober" until proven otherwise. After we hauled him off to RMH we went out again around 1:30am. We meet up with E13 yet again, but this time on the Hershberger Rd off ramp for a rollover. You'll never guess what we found when we got there.....you guessed it, another drunk guy stumbling through the field sobriety test(i think the cuffed and stuffed part indicated that he may have got an "F"). We finally made it to bed to rest up for another day, if this is how a Thursday went I can only imagine what Saturday will bring! Til next day......keep it in the house! Oh I almost forgot, last cycle we had a guest from #5 so we decided to show him how to rock.....with Guitar Hero(Weaver set a fine example). Don't believe it? Check out the pics! A big thanks goes to Gish and Brady for fillin' in at the Hippie Hotel.

RW